Artist biographies

LIST OF WORKS

Working through the expanded practice of sculpture, Fiona Abicare’s work corresponds with a range of fields, such as sculpture, fashion, interior design, and cultural history. Interested in transforming the traditional distinctions between art and design, she pays specific attention to the material qualities of objects and how an audience might encounter their placement in space. Based on extensive material research and conceptual framing, Abicare’s methodology addresses the intersection between histories of social space and their contemporary contexts.

Abicare completed a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne (1994), Honours in Sculpture at RMIT University (1999) and a Masters of Arts in Interior Design at RMIT University (2006). She undertook an Australia Council London Studio residency in 2012, and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Rose Moon, Westspace, Melbourne, 2019; A Stitch in Time, Hamilton Art Gallery, Victoria, 2019; The World is a Teenager, LON Gallery, Melbourne, 2019; The Enigma Code, Sarah Scout Presents, 2018; Auto Body Works, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 2018, Spring 1883, 2014/2018; Why not walk backward?, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2014; Scandinavian Freestyle, Hero Building, 2013; NEW11, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2011; COVERS, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2008-9. Abicare’s work is held in public and private collections across Australia including Monash University and the University of Melbourne. Based in Melbourne, Fiona Abicare is represented by Sarah Scout Presents.

Samara Adamson-Pinczewski

Samara Adamson-Pinczewski is a Melbournebased artist whose abstract geometric work explores the experience of architecture and urban space. Through painting, drawing, sculpture and installation, her use of iridescent materials, sharply fragmented forms, and vibrant colour palettes complicate the viewer’s reading of space. Her recent practice incorporates new technologies in paint pigments and 3-D printing processes.

Adamson-Pinczewski received a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) from Monash University in 1998, a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) (Honours) from RMIT University in 1999, a Graduate Diploma in Education (Visual Art) from the University of Melbourne in 2001, a Master of Fine Art (Research) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2003, and a PhD from the School of Art, RMIT University in 2013. Solo exhibitions including Light Gestures, Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn Arts Centre, 2021; Spatial Persuasions, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, 2018; and The Beautiful Corner, Gallery 9, Sydney, 2015. Group exhibitions include The Paul Guest Collection, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, 2019; Abstraction Twenty Eighteen, Justin Art House Museum, Melbourne, 2018; and Open Studio, Cité International des Arts, Paris, France, 2016. In 2013 Adamson-Pinczewski was the recipient of the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Residency Program in New Berlin, New York, USA, and her work is held in public and private collections including the Justin Art House Museum, Melbourne, and Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne. Samara AdamsonPinczewski is represented by Charles Nodrum Gallery.

Marion Borgelt

Born in Nhill, Victoria and based in Sydney, Marion Borgelt draws inspiration from universal themes such as life cycles, cosmology, optics and phenomenology. Her sculptural and installation work incorporates abstract forms with affinity to the natural world, such as spirals, and diverse materials such as beeswax, canvas, felt, glass, pigment, stainless steel, wood, stone, and organic matter.

Borgelt completed studies at South Australian School of Art and has exhibited widely since 1975. Solo exhibitions include Silent Symphony, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney, 2021; Luminous Void, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney, 2019; Signature Works, Turner Galleries, Perth, 2017; Marion Borgelt: Memory & Symbol, 20-year Survey, Newcastle Gallery, NSW, 2016. Notable group exhibitions include A Discernable Air, Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2017; Vibrant Matter, curated by Anthony Fitzpatrick, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healsville, 2013; Deep Space: new acquisitions from the Australian Art Collection, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2012. Her work is held in major international and Australian institutional collections such as Los Angeles County Museum, USA; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki , NZ; and

Limerick City Gallery, Ireland. Marion Borgelt is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.

Consuelo Cavaniglia

Consuelo Cavaniglia is an interdisciplinary artist and curator based in Melbourne whose work explores perceptions of space using ambiguous and illusory visual cues. Informed by film, photography and architecture, her sculptures, photography and installations employ simple technical and optical devices to disturb the viewer’s relation to the work through reflection, refraction, and repetition. The spaces thus created exist in both the imaginary and the real, activated by the viewer.

Cavaniglia completed a Masters of Fine Art, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney in 2017, a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Art) Honours, Curtin University in 2002, and a Bachelor of Arts degree (Art and Languages) from The University of Western Australia in 1993. Solo exhibitions include an underlying surface partially obscured, STATION, Melbourne, 2020; an unreliable narrator, with Brendan Van Hek, Getrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2019; and in the distance a pool of light was not what it seemed, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2012. Group shows include The Gymnasium, SCA Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, 2020; Vanishing Point, Australian National University Gallery, Canberra, ACT, 2019; and The Theatre is Lying: the inaugural Macfarlane Commissions, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2018. Consuelo Cavaniglia is represented by STATION.

Natasha Johns-Messenger

Natasha Johns-Messenger is an Australian installation artist and filmmaker who is based in Melbourne and New York. Her site-determined installations develop from an intuitive approach to specific spaces through improvisational architecture. Less about objects than about heightened perceptual experience, JohnsMessenger’s work highlights the framing and viewing of space.

Johns-Messenger completed a Masters of Fine Art in Film, Columbia University, New York, in 2012, and a Masters by Research in Fine Art at RMIT in 2000. She has exhibited internationally in Italy, Tokyo, Bogota, China, The Netherlands, Taiwan and USA. Recent exhibitions include LIGHTMATTER, with Leslie Eastman, STATION, Sydney, 2021; Water-Orb, 2018, Ian Potter Sculpture Court Commission, MUMA, curated by Charlotte Day; an artistic collaboration with John Wardle Architects for the work Somewhere Other, La Biennale di Venezia, the 16th International Architecture Exhibition; Sitelines at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2016; ThreeFold at El Museo de Los Sures, New York, United States, as part of the ISCP program, 2015; and Yellow, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2011. Notable public works include Alterview 2013 for Hunters Point HS/IS 404, New York; commissioned by Percent For Art and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and ThisSideIn commissioned by the New York Public Art Fund in 2009. In 2007 Johns-Messenger won the Den Haag Sculpture prize in The Netherlands presenedt by Queen Beatrix, and in 2005 won the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture with Open Spatial Workshop.

Inge King

Inge King AM (1915–2016) was pivotal in developing and diversifying abstract sculpture in Australia, working actively until she was 98 years of age. King was part of the Centre 5 group of artists whose mission was to foster greater awareness and understanding of contemporary public art. Often adapting animal and cosmological forms in her sculpture and printmaking, King embraced the dynamism of three-dimensional experience to forge complex relations between viewer, object, and site. Born in Berlin, King trained at the Berlin Academy from 1937 to 1938 and later at the Royal Academy School in London in 1940 and the Glasgow School of Art from 1941 to 1943. She taught art in Glasgow and London from 1944 to 1949, and after moving to Australia in 1950, taught sculpture at RMIT University from 1976 to 1987.

King held solo exhibitions from 1940 onwards in London, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Geelong. Retrospective exhibitions of King’s works were held at the Bendigo Regional Gallery in 1995 and the National Gallery of Victoria in 1992. Major commissions include monumental works at McClelland, Victoria; the Arts Centre, Melbourne; the University of Melbourne; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Touring

exhibitions of Inge and Grahame King’s works were exhibited through McClelland in 2004. King was awarded the Eltham Prize in 1965 and 1967, a British Council Travel Grant in 1969, the RAAF Memorial Prize in 1971 and the Mildura Sculpture Triennial Prize 1975. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1984 and in 2008 was awarded the Visual Arts Emeritus Award by the Australian Arts Council, recognizing her pivotal role in raising the profile of modern sculpture in this country. King received a Doctorate in Literature from Deakin University in 1990 and an Honorary Doctorate in Arts from RMIT in 1997. King’s work is held by numerous collections including McClelland; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Artbank, Sydney; Parliament House, Canberra and several regional and university galleries. The Estate of Inge King is represented by Australian Galleries.

Sanné Mestrom

Sanné Mestrom was born in 1979 in the Netherlands, before moving to New Zealand, then Melbourne, and finally New South Wales where she currently lives and works. Comprising sculpture, installation, painting and drawing, Mestrom’s practice often references and redefines iconic twentieth-century artworks and institutional contexts to question the cultural and aesthetic assumptions they carry. In her objects and installations Mestrom constructs a dialogue between visual, conceptual, and physical spaces. Equally engaged with formal and experiential qualities, Mestrom’s recent work often invites social interaction and play.

Mestrom completed a Bachelor of Arts, Fine Art (Honours), PhD, and Graduate Certificate in Public Art at RMIT University, Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions include Body As Verb, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, 2021; Black Paintings, McClelland 2018; CORRECTIONS, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney 2019; Black Paintings, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne 2014. Selected group exhibitions include: TarraWarra Biennial 2018: From Will to Form 2018; Installation Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks 2017; Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2016; McClelland Sculpture Survey and Award, McClelland, 2014; Future Primitive, Heide Museum of Modern Art 2013; NEW 13, ACCA 2013. Mestrom has held residencies at Studio Residency, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne from 2010–12, and Artist Residency, SOMA, Mexico City in 2009, and has received numerous awards and grants including most recently the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for researching playable public sculpture. Sanné Mestrom is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf.

Noriko Nakamura

Noriko Nakamura is a Japanese-born artist based in Castlemaine whose sculptures and installations draw on ideas of animism, ritual, and maternal experience. Using traditional handcarving techniques with limestone, Nakamura works in collaborative dialogue with the natural properties of her material—limestone holds the fossilised remains of ancient life forms, and these organic inconsistencies shape her shaping of the material and its meaning.

Nakamura completed a Fine Art Foundation Diploma at Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, before receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2012. She has presented solo exhibitions at Sutton Projects, Melbourne; West Space, Melbourne; and TCB Art Inc, Melbourne. Her work has been exhibited at Aperto, Montpellier France; XYZ Collective, Tokyo; RM Gallery, Auckland; Dog Park Art Project Space, Christchurch; Murray White Room, Melbourne; and National Gallery of Victoria Studio, Melbourne. Nakamura was a recipient of the Maddocks Art Prize in 2017. In 2015 she undertook a residency at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo and was a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary 2016–18.

Nabila Nordin

Nabilah Nordin is a Malay SingaporeanAustralian artist whose playful sculptures and installations emerge from an improvisational process of transformation and destruction. Eschewing traditional sculptural techniques in favour of intuitive experimentation, her practice embraces wonky craftwork to celebrate the tactile and anthropomorphic qualities of materials such as cement, metal, paste, fabric, confetti, feathers and gap filler. Nordin’s studio process draws on ‘domestic’ activities such as cooking, DIY construction, or interior

decoration, to conjure absurd monuments and amorphous environments.

Nordin completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2015, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT University in 2013. Solo exhibitions include Birdbrush and other essentials, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2021; Covergirl Adhesives, COMA Gallery, Sydney, 2020; An Obstacle in Every Direction, Singapore Biennale, Singapore, 2019; and Malay Wedding, Chapter House Lane, Melbourne, 2017. Group shows include Salient Features, Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea, 2020; 1991, Neon Parc Brunswick, Melbourne, 2020; Those Monuments Don’t Know Us, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Melbourne, 2019; and In a World of Wounds, Artbank, Sydney, 2018. Nabilah Nordin is represented by Neon Parc.

Louise Paramor

Louise Paramor is a Melbourne-based sculptor who explores the aesthetic potential and conceptual connotations of plastic in relation to histories of architecture and abstraction. Using brightly coloured forms resembling domestic and industrial objects, such as bollards, cassette towers, lampshades, spice jars or toy parts, her funky assemblages and large-scale public art commissions combine the formal concerns of modernism with a pop sensibility.

Paramor was born in Sydney in 1964 and, being an ‘army brat’, her family moved many times, finally returning to Western Australia where she studied painting at Curtin University. In 1986 she moved to Melbourne and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Sculpture from the Victorian College of Arts. Paramor has exhibited widely since 1988, including Divine Assembly, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Western Australia, 2019; Palace of the Republic, National Gallery of Victoria, 2018; Supermodel, Turner Galleries, Perth, 2014; and Emporium: a survey 1990–2013, Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Melbourne, 2013. She has been awarded several grants and international residencies, including an Australia Council fellowship at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin from 1999–2000, and the McClelland Sculpture Survey Award in 2010. Paramor’s work is held in numerous public and private collections including McClelland, Art Gallery of Western Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Heide Museum of Modern Art. Kerrie Poliness is a Melbourne-based artist whose systematic, collaborative, and often open-ended process produces paintings, drawings, sculptures and films inflected with histories of conceptual and abstract art. Her large-scale wall-drawings and public artworks rely on the agency of the artwork’s participants—each individual’s interpretation of the artist’s instructions—coupled with the physical conditions of a site, and challenge the fixed parameters of the work by rendering the outcome unpredictable. Poliness is associated with an influential group of artists who reiterated the relevance of geometric abstraction in Melbourne in the late 1980s and 90s, through the innovative artist-run space Store 5 which she co-founded.

Poliness’s significant exhibition history includes Field Drawing #1, HOTA, Gold Coast, 2018; Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2017; Landscape Paintings (Lake Bolac and Zagreb) and Wave Drawings (orange and green), G MK, Zagreb, 2014; Trace: Performance and its Documents, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014; Wall works, Arts Lifts, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2014; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013. Poliness has developed a number of site-specific public artworks including Parliament Steps Walking Drawing, Melbourne, 2021; Field Drawing #1, Maywar Green, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014; Wave Drawings, Highpoint Shopping Centre, Melbourne, 2013; Field Drawing #1, The Agora, Latrobe University, Melbourne. Public collections include the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; and Dowse Museum, Lower Hutt. Kerrie Poliness is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Norma Redpath

Norma Redpath OBE (1928–2013) was born in Melbourne in 1928 and studied art at Swinburne University and sculpture at RMIT. Her early carved timber sculptures of the 1950s echoed the organic forms of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, before she began to work with

bronze casting. In 1956 Redpath travelled to Italy where she studied at the Brera Academy in Milan and cast her first works in bronze in Rome. In the early 1960s she formed part of Centre Five group who championed modernist sculpture in Australia and its incorporation into architecture and public space. Her sculptures unite classical and modernist elements, informed by an intuitive response to landscape and an interest in architecture. These works become frames for the viewer’s experience by focusing and augmenting the perception of place.

Redpath held her first solo exhibition at Gallery A in Melbourne in 1963, with works winning the Mildura Prize and the first Transfield Prize for Sculpture in 1966, and which were later exhibited at the Australian Pavilion at the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. This was followed by the completion of her major work Treasury Fountain in Canberra, which led to her being awarded an OBE in 1970. Redpath’s final commission, Paesaggio Cariatide, was completed in 1980 for the State Bank Centre in Melbourne, and is now in McClelland’s permanent collection. The Estate of Norma Redpath is represented by Charles Nodrum Gallery.

Meredith Turnbull

Meredith Turnbull is a Melbourne-based artist, curator, and writer whose practice concerns the cultural context of creativity and the experiential and temporal register of forms. Her work engages various disciplines, scales, art historical traditions and genres, and establishes connections between the body and sculpture, images, decorative objects, and jewellery. Often using a modular approach with suites of individual objects, her installations reference the presentation modes of the museum and interior design, as well as domestic environments.

Turnbull completed a Bachelor of Art (Honours) in Art History at La Trobe University in 2000, a Bachelor of Fine Art (Gold and Silversmithing) at RMIT University in 2005 and a PhD at Monash University in the field of Sculpture and Spatial Practice in 2016. She has developed projects for the National Gallery of Victoria, Heide Museum of Modern Art and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at Melbourne University. Recent works include Material Community and Mood Mirror at Daine Singer in 2020 and 2021, the performance What does wearing something do? with Behn Woods at RMIT Design Hub in 2019 and the exhibition SHE TURNS at c3 Contemporary Art Space in 2017. Her artworks have been acquired for numerous private and select public collections including MUMA, Heide Museum of Modern Art and the Ian Potter Museum at the University of Melbourne. Meredith Turnbull is represented by Daine Singer.