NEXT EXHIBITIONS
Opening: Saturday 18 January 4 to 6 pm
18 January / 23 February 2025
gallery one
ANTHEA KEMP
Fieldwork
holding to go back, oil on canvas, 40 x 30cm
Fieldwork is a series of new paintings extending Anthea’s interest in conservation efforts for bush and native animals in Victoria and finding visuals withing these places.
Fieldwork deepens Anthea’s exploration of visuals inspired by nature, reflecting her ongoing ambition of learning about and engaging with conservation efforts for bushland and native wildlife. Anthea’s learning of bush conservation alongside her current understanding funnels motif, gesture and form allowing her to resolve these paintings through studies and exploration in oil paint. The process she follows balancing composition, allows decisions to emerge between mark and gesture, colour and form. Through these decisions and explorations, the boundaries shift between representation and abstraction.
This new body of work emerges from a series of exploratory studies by Anthea, created during her collaboration with writer Hugh Leitwell. Through a shared passion for the conservation of bushland and native wildlife, their creative dialogue saw each responding to the other's work—Hugh through poetry and Anthea through painting. Together, they drew inspiration from the insights and efforts surrounding conservation, channelling them into their respective art forms.
Hugh and Anthea have been introduced to diverse conservation efforts operating at various levels. Anthea has witnessed her parents’ dedicated work to regenerate bushland in Northeast Victoria, land previously used for farming after colonization. This restoration has allowed native species, such as the Diuris corymbosa (donkey orchid) and Caladenia, to return once more, becoming recurring motifs in her paintings. Hugh’s poetry reflects his experiences with different conservation projects, including efforts to protect the Golden-rayed Blue Butterfly. This species has inspired Anthea to incorporate its form and delicate linework into her latest series, weaving their shared environmental focus into her art.
gallery two
MADELEINE MINACK
a thing that holds something else
sparkly thing found between another thing on the floor, 2024, plasticine, glass and wire, 5 x 3cm
squished up piece of gum, 2025, plasticine, leaf, plaster & wood, 17cm x 14cm,
As an interdisciplinary artist primarily working in installation and sculpture, Minack's practice derives from a process of accumulation. Collecting discarded found objects to produce small, intimate sculptures that reflect minute details of normally unnoticed everyday matter.
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ceramic space
STEPH WALLACE
Remnant: a trace remaining
Remnant: a trace remaining
Born from a fascination with what lies beneath our feet, this body of work presents what is seen and unseen. In a merging of geological phenomenon, historical context and archaeological discovery, Wallace expresses diverse landscapes through the medium of clay.
Created in her Ballarat studio shaken daily by the explosions of contemporary gold mining practices, Wallace uses abstract line and embossed clay surfaces to meld her fragmented sense of place as a migrant. These works fuse imagery of historic gold diggings from her life in the Victorian Goldfields with personal fossil findings from the Jurassic Coast in Yorkshire, UK.
This sense of immersion in the landscape is continued through the artist's use of materials, often foraging site-specific resources directly from the land. Clays are dug directly from the earth to throw on the wheel and invasive weeds and introduced species are burnt to carbonise the surfaces of works.
This richly layered process of creation and modality of working irrevocably connects the work to the landscape itself, and becomes one with the stories told on its surface; its renderings of the visible terrain and imaginings of what is hidden to us inside the earth’s crust. To honour this connection further, Wallace seeks ways to reduce the environmental impact of her practice, using sustainable materials and methodologies where possible.
The making processes of fire and smoke and the resulting violent thermal shock can sometimes result in hairline fractures on even the most meticulously made ceramics. Wallace relishes these imperfections as opportunity for ‘radical repair’ and often pushes the making process intentionally to its limit, enticing and then embracing these aesthetic flaws. Using ancient repair methods and precious metals these invisible fractures become celebrated, with their imperfections adorned with brass and 23k gold.