2018
Daphne Mayo (b.1895 - d.1982) enjoys a prominent role in Australian art history as a sculptor of great repute in a tradition that was, at the time, largely male dominated. A St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School Old Girl, her legacy and her contribution to the cultural fabric of this city continues to endure. Mayo quite literally made her mark on Brisbane through her ambitious large scale sculptural works for the city, not the least of which is Daphne’s renowned
sculpture work featured on prominent Brisbane landmarks including on the façade of Brisbane City Hall and the historically significant Women’s Memorial, Anzac Square, completed between 1929 and 1930. Daphne Mayo died on 31 July 1982 with many considerable achievements to her name. It is her spirit of independence and determination that the MAYO Arts Festival celebrates.
Rock & Gold designs are tailored for modern day women and men who value quality, simplicity, understated elegance and a dose of quirkiness.
Rock & Gold endeavours to delight with what may at first glance appear to be peculiar and incongruous. My designs are tailored for the modern day women and men who value quality, understated elegance and a dose of quirkiness. In a world where mass production is common place, I feel it is important to create something unique yet enduring that will be treasured by the wearer for a long time to come. I am inspired by the traditional Japanese notion of “Wabi-Sabi� where characteristics such as imperfection, asymmetry and simplicity are revered. It brings me immense joy hand-picking rough gemstones that can sometimes be overlooked or perceived as flawed. In my view, rough stones have a unique rawness, which exude more character than mass produced cookie cutter stones. I like to contrast them with clean geometric shapes and architectural silhouettes to accentuate their inherent beauty.
As an industrial designer I have learned to find beauty in all manner of objects and I find mechanisms and simple connections between materials particularly inspirational. I try to eliminate glues and chemicals wherever possible and prefer to design mechanical fixings to complete my designs. Food is a recurring theme in my work. I try to represent elements of food in an abstract and evocative manner rather than simply copying the shape of my favourite delicacies. I am in my element designing beautiful objects from metal, silk, porcelain, enamel and vintage findings and can be found in my studio at any spare moment hammering, sawing, drilling, soldering and stone setting. I also frequently channel my training and use CAD and graphics programs to deliver the best result, particularly when more than one identical item needs to be produced.
Carly Scoufos is a sculptor and installation artist currently based in Brisbane. Carly is an Australian visual artist working across a range of mediums. Her current studio practice predominantly focuses on sculpture and installation; however, her earliest qualifications were in drawing and painting. She studied at the Santa Rosa Junior College in California, before completing a Bachelor of Fine Art with First Class Honours from the Queensland College of Art – Griffith University. After graduating Carly was awarded the Queensland Art Gallery’s 2008 Melville Haysom Memorial Art Scholarship and exhibited in QAG’s Watermall Café as part of the Starter Space program. In 2009, following the receipt of the Siganto Travel Scholarship, Carly undertook a studio residency at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo where she presented her first solo exhibition, Seam. Since then she has exhibited regularly, been awarded numerous grants and awards and completed a large number of public commissions in both Australia and overseas.
Recent commissions include a large-scale sculptural installation for the foyer of 1 William Street, Brisbane – the new home of the Queensland Government and a 30m suspended sculpture at the Domestic Terminal of Perth Airport. She has recently worked with UAP Shanghai to deliver her largest work to date for a new residential and commercial development in Shenzhen, China. Her most recent comission is a piece for St Margaret’s entitled ‘Ascend’.
Karl De Waal creates clever, thought-provoking and original pieces that are simple, stark and visually arresting.
I have been a practising artist for 25 years. I work tirelessly at my practice, continuing to give form and substance to my ideas. My work is a commentary on my experience of watching the world; trying to make sense of its paradoxes and ironies. My work attempts to expose the distance between what we see and know, and the tenuous connections and links that help construct our personal realities and identities. A myriad of differing styles and mediums are used and collage, assemblage and chance are the driving principles harnessed.
Deb Mostert’s graceful, whimsical pieces allude to themes of sacredness and shifting memory with gentle, offbeat narratives.
My art practice is 25 years young and involves drawing, painting and, lately, some small sculpture. I’m interested in Rhopography (from rhopos, trivial objects, small wares, trifles) which searches for those things which lack importance, but that can so often point to the meta narratives of life. My themes include shifting memory, collections, birds and sacredness. In these uncertain days, I want to have conversations that point quietly and steadily towards beauty, grace and truth.
I am searching for ways to talk about these themes using gentle, offbeat narratives and a crisp aesthetic. I live and work in a home studio on the Ipswich/Brisbane border. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Queensland College of Art and have had 15 solo shows and been involved in more than 60 group shows in both regional and commercial galleries. I have over 15 years teaching experience and run workshops and participate in artist residencies.
Peter Steller enjoys the creative challenge of using the inherent beauty of the natural lines in the wood to enhance and transform each piece into a unique creation. Over the years I have gained a deep appreciation of trees. For most people, they just look at a tree and say, ‘isn’t it beautiful’. However, I look at trees and see beautiful shapes, colours, flowers, barks and leaves unique to each species. I am in wonder at their size and strength, at how they can stand so tall and survive cyclonic winds.
As an experienced physiotherapist, I have over my lifetime developed a unique appreciation of form and movement, which I apply to my contemporary pieces, juggling the balance between the sensitivity of the grain and the form of a sculpture so that I capture both emotion and movement in each of my sculptures.
I discovered the beauty of wood in my teenage years, mesmerised by the translucent colours, textures and shape of the grain as the thin shavings peeled and curled from a plane and, in doing so, released a distinctive aroma unique to each species of timber.
With each sculpture, I start off with an idea that I try to create from the wood. I search in my wood pile for a suitable log; however, invariably as I progress the grain in the wood says ‘no, go this way’, and a slightly different form emerges from the original concept. Occasionally, if I am lucky, I am inspired by the shape in a log waiting for me to release the form.
My sculptures aim not only to show people the hidden beauty of timber, but also enjoy the creative challenge I had in using the natural lines of the grain inherent in the wood to enhance and transform each piece into a unique creation, while at the same time elevating the viewer’s experience by the sensation imbued by the wood when touched.
Casselle Mountford’s creative practice spans sculpture, weaving, lantern making and environmental installations. Casselle Mountford has been working as a practicing artist for over 20 years. Her sculptural installations have featured in private and regional galleries throughout Australia and her site specific sculptures have been exhibited in various outdoor locations including the SWELL Sculpture festival in Currumbin, Strand Ephemera in Townsville, Casuarina Beach Sculpture Walk in NSW and Sculpture by the Sea in Noosa. Casselle has also completed artist residencies at Bundanon in NSW, Mt Coot-tha and at the Lines in the Sand festival on Stradbroke Island.
Roslyn Haydon believes that sculpture and art enriches awareness and enables the viewer to see things that otherwise might have been lost and passed over.
When civilisations fade away, sculpture remains to give a window into the lives, culture and beliefs of a people. I believe that through sculpture we create a link not constrained by language that is accessible to everyone to share and record our understanding of a society. Because sculpture is tangible and can integrate with the environment, it enhances the community we live in and builds a bridge between the imagination and arts and the world of reality. It also is a
bridge between the creative spirit and the harshness of the world of commercialism. Art and sculpture are essential components of life as they train our eye, make us more analytical and observant of line, light, colour and shapes around us, enhancing our understanding and interpretation of our environment. I work in a variety of media including, bronze, sandstone, marble, timber, resin, cardboard and hebel.
The works of John Morris bring to mind the surreal imagery of anime and comic strip depictions of superheroes and heroines. His work springs from exhaustive sketching and illustration, drawing on intensive research. Subjects include skeletal bone, muscular structure and the imagery of fashion photography. Often, prosthetic limbs and super-accentuated body part proportions tie the pieces together, bringing to mind the
surreal imagery of anime and the comic strip depictions of superheroes and heroines. He skilfully uses leather, brass, and stainless steel to provide stark contrasts with the warm texture of the wood. John studied at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and is represented by the Lethbridge Gallery.
Clare Poppi creates pieces ranging from jewellery growing live grass to nature inspired designs, using recycled metals and biodegradable components.
Clare Poppi is an artist living and working in Brisbane, Australia. After achieving first class honours in her Fine Art degree, she received an ArtStart grant from the Australia Council for the Arts and has continued to make art, establishing a studio space with three other jewellers from which to create her work. Her primary practice is in jewellery and metal-smithing, focusing on sustainable design and wearable art. Her pieces ranges from jewellery growing live grass to nature inspired designs using recycled metals and bio-degradable components. Clare arrives at her designs by experimenting with placement and juxtaposition, and using her sense of materiality to determine a resolved piece. However, this spontaneous approach is always tempered with a strict adherence to sustainable and ethical work practices, including environmentally conscious studio techniques and Cradle-to-Cradle design practices.
The Growing Jewellery Project is a major aspect of Clare’s ethical practice and involves her sending out growing jewellery to participants (locally and internationally) who look after the pieces for a time and document their experiences on her blog. The jewellery is intended to form a connection between the grower and nature, and, when worn, the jewellery is a visible statement of environmental awareness and provokes conversation and dialogue. Small Green Leaf is Clare’s wearable jewellery label. The brand was established in 2013 with the aim of providing beautiful, unique and environmentally friendly jewellery to the public. Feeling there is a lack of understanding in the general public about the harmful impacts of jewellery production, Small Green Leaf sets out to educate consumers about these problems and provide them with the opportunity to purchase ethically produced, locally made jewellery.
Barbara Heath creates contemporary objects imbued with histories, narratives and symbolism. Whether commissioned or © Bh brand jewellery, major public artwork or bespoke architectural detailing, the work of Barbara Heath is described by her distinctive approach to creating contemporary objects imbued with histories, narratives and symbolism. With a national and international exhibiting career spanning over 30 years demonstrating her skills as an artist, jeweller and designer, Heath has practised in Brisbane for more than two decades and is represented in numerous public collections.
Barbara describes her studio practice as ‘Jeweller to the Lost’. It is a title that hints at the intimate collaborative nature of making meaningful objects that articulate personal stories at a human scale. ‘I work in a medium that is both precious and symbolic; in effect, a sign language carried on the body, expressing style, wit, humour and sometimes our deepest emotion.
Anna Leyshon’s designs are unique and hand crafted, ensuring each piece is an inspiration of colour and textural elements.
Anna is a practising architect and jewellery designer. She began silver smithing in 2006 and works mainly in sterling silver, which she mixes with semi-precious gemstones, jade, pearls and other textural natural pieces. Anna designs and handmakes her own silver pieces from scratch, ensuring each component is unique and hand crafted. The joyful use of colour is of particular interest to Anna and is used to great effect in many of the pieces.
Anna has lived and worked in Japan, India, London, Hong Kong, Sydney and Brisbane. She is married and has two daughters. She has a Bachelor of Design Studies and a Bachelor of Architecture from The University of Queensland and balances her jewellery design and manufacture with small architectural projects and family life.
Bianca Mavrick Jewellery is a self-titled jewellery label whose playful forms, eclectic motifs and exuberant colours have been kindling imaginations since 2013. Approaching kitsch, irony and distortion of scale with aplomb, Bianca’s designs are dynamic, site-specific sculptures that explore the link between individual expression and shared visual language. With bold forms and clever colours, Bianca’s jewellery askews typical jewellery design archetypes to create work that is original and unseen. Bianca is a trained contemporary jeweller and holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (jewellery and small objects). Maintaining an active sculpture and contemporary jewellery practice, her wearable designs can be viewed as an aesthetic extension of her art. With a background in industrial design, Bianca is known for pushing the boundaries of production beyond the precepts of traditional jewellery making. From her studio she pits artisanal processes against industrial fabrication, resolving the two through handmade techniques that combine the precision of fine craftsmanship with a distinct maker’s mark.Vivid colours are her calling card,
expressed through her signature contrasting materials of colour-coated metals, and precious metals, stones and plastics. Beyond its surface qualities, Bianca’s jewellery is full of discoverable subtexts. Embedded with a distinct sense of place, yet flexible enough to accommodate one’s own sense of self – timely but also timeless – these are beguiling objects that the wearer can return to over and over again, always with a renewed sense of wonder. Designing pieces that are totemic keepsakes, Bianca believes that a piece of jewellery can become a bold signature for its wearer – a confident, discerning statement of identity. An accomplished jeweller and sculptor, Bianca’s work has been both exhibited and stocked internationally. All jewellery is made at her studio in Queensland, Australia. When Bianca isn’t thinking about jewellery, she loves studio visits with artist friends, contemporary furniture design, fashion that has a sense of humour and spending time with her little shadow, Alfie the dog.
c.k.d. is independent bespoke jewellery designer Caroline Kelly who specialises in handmade silver and gemstone pieces.
There’s a strong architectural element in c.k.d pieces. A contemporary jewellery maker, Caroline shows assured confidence in creating handcrafted pieces, merging ancient elements of silver smithing with clean, modern design. Jewellery is personal, yet it publicly reveals something about the private. Her work is all about minimalist
functionality and beauty of form, whether oxidised and texturized sterling silver, found pebbles, resin, crystals or semi-precious stones. From her strong cube rings to silver and river stone pendants, c.k.d. proves luxury doesn’t have to mean bling. It reveals itself in thoughtfully designed and beautifully made pieces. The beauty is in the simplicity.
Jilly Marsden’s bespoke pieces are luxurious creations made unique to the individual. Jilly Marsden is a hairstylist by profession of 36 years. She started her career in New Zealand and then broadened her horizons to Sydney, Australia. She has expanded her creative abilities over the past 15 years learning silversmithing and jewellery design. Her bespoke style offers luxurious, tailor made pieces that will create your individual style in a very unique and interesting way. All made from a mixture of sterling silver,
gold, precious and semi precious gemstone, and unusual beads from her travels around the world. Jilly’s mission through her creativity is to make her clientele ‘feel good, while looking good’. Either through a gorgeous individual piece of hand crafted jewellery and/or gorgeous hair. She now resides in Brisbane, Australia. She has two sons and has been running a very successful studio for the last 15 years.
Kerry Holland creates symbolic abstract paintings, portraits and handbuilt ceramics. In some of her work Kerry has made use of painted crochet lace pattern as a metaphoric, textural language. Her colours are drawn from everyday life and her imagination.
Kerry Holland is a Brisbane-based artist whose art practice in painting, monoprinting and ceramics has developed over 30 years, with a particular focus on the who of being human, embracing ‘imperfection’ and unevenness in contrast to the pristine perfection of production ware. Influenced by the ideas of artists like Patrick Heron, Ewen Henderson, Gwynn Hansson Piggott and, more recently, Elizabeth Blackadder, Kerry’s artwork has been selected to tour with national exhibitions, including the Portia Geach Portrait Prize exhibitions (with portraits of Professor Emeritus Trevor H Clifford and of actor Babette Stephens), and the Blake Prize exhibition which toured with her ceramic work ‘Freedom Infinite’ in 2014. In 2013 she won the annual Metcalf Award at the Brisbane Institute of Art for her work in ceramics. Kerry makes use of regular solo exhibitions to consider and develop whatever theme she is pondering at the time. Her exhibition Requiem/ From Death Through to New Life (ACU, Melbourne), inspired by Australian composer
Peter Schulthorpe, is in the collection of St Ignatius College Riverview, Sydney. Her current work is for her exhibition with the working title ‘Fields’ in November 2018 at the Percolator Gallery Paddington. She is also teaching art to recovering soldiers. Informed also by her experience, 30 years ago, of the 30-week retreat in daily life as outlined by St Ignatius, Kerry has found an ongoing freedom in finding shape for this grounded, lively expression of Christian spirituality. Kerry graduated from The University of Western Australia with a BSc (Physics) and a Dip Ed., after which she taught science in a rural high school in WA and then Mathematics in Oxfordshire. Kerry studied fine art at Oxford Polytechnic (now the Oxford Brookes University) then at Claremont Art School in WA and later at the Brisbane Institute of Art. Her art practice began with portraiture and has developed into more abstracted painting, monotype printing and ceramics.
Kirstin Farr is a Brisbane based artist who specialises in organic forms of ceramics. Kirstin loves the random and tactile markings made from the natural elements in the smoking process of naked raku. Her doves are her signature pieces giving out hope and tranquillity to many a friendly home.
At the heart of Georgina Hooper’s creative work is an exploration of the natural world in a non-traditional Western sense. Georgina is inspired by nature and responds to it through her art. Her portrayal of nature is explored abstractly and as a felt experience. What is rare about Georgina’s practice is that it draws from cross-cultural fertilisation with the East. The Chinese landscape painting tradition and its philosophy has been a part of the artist’s practice since she travelled to China as a research scholar seven years ago. The spontaneous and intuitive mark marking synonymous with ink on rice paper has been translated into the medium of porcelain ceramics. The five fundamental calligraphic strokes of Chinese landscape painting are pivotal to Georgina’s practice in painting and sculpture.
The artist’s methods of making have served to deepen her understanding of the creative process and its potential for transformation. Using a meditative artistic practice, directed and defined by the principles of traditional Chinese landscape painting and its focus on the metaphysical, Georgina has been moved to connect with something higher. The resulting body of work is a collection of creative artefacts reflective of her search for an experience of the sublime, her findings and evidence of the new knowledge that has emerged from her research. Georgina is both a university lecturer and fine artist. She travels to China, Japan and Hong Kong to create. Her work is held in private collections across Europe, America and the Asia Pacific and is part of public spaces in Japan and China.
Fiona Kurnadi hand crafts ceramics inspired by the simplicity, form and colour of her materials.
Studying Fine Arts and working as a textile designer, I went on to explore jewellery making and ceramics in my continuing interest in becoming a ‘maker’. I work primarily with stained and natural stoneware creating pieces by hand on the potter’s wheel. This making allows me to explore the qualities of the clay: the fluidity, density, and earthiness of an unglazed
polished surface. Subtle details uncover the maker’s marks, making each piece unique through the quiet imperfections that characterise the handmade. Essence of form, simplicity and colour underlie my work. I am naturally drawn to creating vessels that combine function and aesthetic, where I enjoy the relationship with user and object.
Peter Biddulph’s ceramics have received international awards and have been exhibited and published internationally.
Since obtaining an Advanced Diploma in Ceramics in 2005, Peter has been the recipient of awards in Australia, one from the Design Institute of Australia in 2006 for an installation entitled vol_Luminous, and internationally. In 2011 he was invited to exhibit in the London Design Festival and in the 10th International Biennial Of Ceramics Manises, Spain. In the same year his Tripod Guinomi (sake cups), received an award in the 9th International Competition of Ceramics Mino, Japan, and were also featured in the US journal of ceramics, Ceramics Monthly. A sake set of a different design received the ‘Best of Show’ award in the Rotary Arts Spectacular, Brisbane, in 2013. To coincide with a national conference on ceramics in education in the USA, as an artist who
utilises 3D technology and rapid prototyping, Peter was invited to exhibit in the 44th Annual UWW Ceramics Exhibition: Contemporary Artists Mixing Old and New Technologies at The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in February 2014. A selection of his sculptural work was published in the US and UK in 2014 in a book entitled Porcelain. In 2016 a series of flasks from the Hybrid series and bowls from the Mesa series in Southern Ice porcelain were acquired by Townsville City Council for its permanent collection of art.
Georgette Schwantes is an award winning sculptor with work in private and company collections throughout Australia and overseas. Georgette Schwantes was born in Egypt of British parents and educated privately in London, where early signs of artistic talent were noted. Later, Georgette was offered a bursary to art college but this was not to be as her interests were more artistic than academic. Georgette pursued the course of open classes at the National and other galleries, and has travelled extensively in pursuit of her interests. Her artistic studies were enhanced by tutelage from various independent professional artists. Georgette completed a degree in fine art – sculpture in the early seventies at the Ealing College of the Arts in the UK.
Her sculptures have sold into private and company collections throughout Australia and in eight overseas countries. Prizes and commendations have been awarded from numerous art festivals and exhibitions across Australia. Georgette has made Australia her home and has been sculpting in Brisbane since 1975. She has also taught sculpture at Moreton Institute of TAFE. Examples of her sculptures are in the collections of a number of private collectors as well as at Ormiston College.
Graham Radcliffe blends his distinctive style with exotic marble and onyx, building up a large collection of sculptures. He works from his home on Mount Glorious where he created the Phoenix Sculpture Garden and Art Gallery.
Sculpture must be made of Love…….. from Love…….. with Love. Sculpture must be the essence of Love. It must have empathy with some spiritual vibration from within one’s being. It will be a reflection of our inner selves……. our souls…… no matter how we try to disguise it. It is inseparable from our fingerprints……..yours will be yours……… mine will be mine. If it is made from the heart it may be sculpture……… it may live. If it is made from the mind, it will be an ornament……… an intellectual exercise. If it is made of Love it will endure forever……… it will attract like souls.
Graham Radcliffe. Pietrasanta. 21.11.1991.
Kenji Uranishi forms ceramic sculptures and installations which allude to the interplay between nature and the built environment, place and belonging.
Born in Nara, Japan, in 1973, Kenji Uranishi is an Australian-based, Japanese artist who works predominantly with porcelain. Kenji’s work explores ideas of nature and the built environment, place and belonging, and their interplay. Since moving to Australia in 2004, Kenji has exhibited widely, including a solo exhbition in 2016 at the Museum of Brisbane, which featured more than 50 porcelain sculptures. He has been an Artist in Residence
at the Australian National University in Canberra and, in 2014, spent 12 weeks in Arita, Japan, as an Arts Queensland Asialink Artist in Residence. His works are held in a number of public collections including the National Gallery of Australia and feature in public spaces including 400 George Street, Brisbane, and the Ipswich Courthouse. Kenji is represented by Andrew Baker Art Dealer in Brisbane.
Larissa Warren creates her distinctive surfaces and engaging forms by combining translucent porcelain, colour and mixed textured clay.
Larissa has her own unique approach to clay. With a passion for traditional Japanese neriage (pattern) techniques, Larissa creates some engaging surfaces by combining translucent porcelain, colour and mixed textured clay. Larissa designs and creates distinctive original artwork from her home studio on the Gold Coast. Having graduated from Griffith University in 2000 with a degree in fine art and another in secondary art education, Larissa has spent 17 years teaching
art, photography and ceramics. She exhibits work frequently in art awards and shows around Australia and the USA and was a finalist in the 2017 Clunes Ceramic Award, Moreton Bay Art prize, the Rotary Art prize and People’s Choice winner in the 2016 Gold Coast International Ceramic Art Award. Her work is in various international collections, including The Star Gold Coast’s new luxury suite hotel, The Darling.
Anne Mossman is a ceramic artist who creates collections of polished porcelain vessels.They are imbued with the textures, shapes and colours of her inherited and landscaped surroundings.
Anne came to ceramics relatively late in her career. She retired from a corporate marketing position in Sydney, Australia, in 2002. She went on to enrol in the Diploma of Ceramics at the Australian National University, Canberra, which she completed in 2007 with a high distinction. She has continued her education mainly via workshops in Australia and internationally. She also provides workshops on colouring clay and developing textural collections with etched, pierced and carved pieces. She is a teacher at the Gold Coast Potters Association. She successfully exhibits work in many ceramics specific awards, including
Sidney Myer Fund Ceramic Award, Sunshine Coast Ignition, Art Unlimited Ceramics Art Prize, Clunes Ceramic Award, Stanthorpe Art Award and The Port Hacking Ceramics Award. She has won several of these prizes and has been acquired by galleries and private collectors. Her inspiration comes from her local environment where she lives in a Gold Coast hinterland property bounded by bush and a personally developed landscape. Eucalypts, palms, bromeliads, strappy grasses, rocks, pebbles and pavers surround her studio whilst shadows, dappled light and the interplay of nature and human intervention informs her perceptions.
Donna Marcus is an Australian artist best known for her use of vast collections of discarded aluminium kitchenware. Constructed from discarded kitchen utensils, her sculptures draw viewers into a world of kitchens both remembered and imagined. Marcus is engaged by the stories evoked by these objects, and by the familiarity they engender in many viewers. Their original uses in post-war kitchens are recalled and extended by the process of assemblage, as they are combined into the repetitive forms of modernist grids and spheres. The materials themselves generate another layer of reference, and further extend the modernist impulse to regularity, repetition and dream. Marcus’ work has been exhibited extensively in Australia and included in many national sculpture surveys (Helen Lempriere Award, The McClelland Survey +Award and the National Sculpture Award at the National Gallery of Australia). In 2007, she was included in ‘Smart Works: Design and the Handmade’ at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and in 2008,
exhibited in ‘Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary,’ the inaugural show at the Museum of Art and Design, New York. In 2010 her work Redroom was chosen to represent Queensland in the Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo. Recent large-scale permanent public art commissions include Steam, 2006, Brisbane Square, Brisbane, Delphinus, 2009, KAUST, Saudi Arabia and Trickle, 2009, 400 George Street, Brisbane. In 2010 her temporary installation Re-entry was installed in Federation Square, Melbourne. A 2017 edition of Art Collector Australia (Issue 81) features an interview by Louise Martin Chew with Donna Marcus ahead of a major show called ‘Bolt’ at Andrew Baker in Bowen Hills. Donna Marcus is represented by Andrew Baker Gallery.
Carolyn Watson hand crafts sculptures which draw inspiration from the peculiar and the imagined. These fictional pieces provide an intimate experience for the audience, serving as a portal into an alternate world, where one can interact with strange beings, which, in turn, begins to address evident elements of memento mori, abstraction and the abject. Carolyn completed her studies at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, in the late nineties. In 2005, she re-established her studio practice. Since then Carolyn has exhibited in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, and her work is held in private collections in Hong Kong, Holland and Munich. In 2015 she was officially invited by Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery to develop a site-specific body of work to be exhibited in BRAG’s Gallery Two. Carolyn has received multiple awards for both her sculptural work and drawings and, in 2013, she secured a
first prize of $15,000 at the inaugural Life Art Worldwide International. She is a multitime finalist in national awards including the Morton Bay Regional Art Awards, Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, Marie Ellis Prize for Drawing, the John Fries Memorial Prize and the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize. In 2017 Carolyn received the Shillam Award - Frank Lambert Memorial Prize and, in April 2018, she will be exhibiting for the first time in Hobart with her first solo show with Penny Contemporary. - Dr Julie Rees
Dennis Forshaw’s work is comprised of elegant forms complemented by unusual and unique surfaces, a result of his experimentation with glazes during the firing process.
During the early 1990’s Dennis attended evening art classes at the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE in Townsville, North Queensland. After completing a Diploma in Visual Arts and a teaching qualification, Dennis accepted a position as head of the Ceramics Department at the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE in 1998. Dennis currently produces a wide range of works including matt crystalline glazed forms, copper red glazes, reduction fired crystalline glazes with special firing schedules and smoked fired naked raku forms. Professional development has always played an important part his career. Since leaving his teaching position with TAFE, he has undertaken workshops with progressive potters who he considers the best in their field. They have included Greg Daly, Ted Secombe, Pippin Drysdale, Joe’s Mariea Mariscals, and Bill Powell; these artists have inspired and influenced his work. David Roberts and Tim Andrews are other specialists who have had an enormous influence on the development of raku in the UK. Dennis has visited their studios on numerous occasions, studied their work and collected all their publications over the years.
Dennis’ confidence and masterful skills stem from years of patient practice and determined hard work. Today he is most influenced by the unpredictability of the firing processes, every piece is unique and the exploration of surface techniques is an ongoing fascination. Dennis’ practice involves the process of pushing the raku clay to its extremes, allowing the creative pendulum to swing wildly before settling again. The potential is huge with unpredictable outcomes. Dennis works from his studios in South East Queensland. Dennis is available to teach nationally and internationally. He has recently returned from an intensive 10 days in Albons, Spain, working under one of the world’s crystalline glaze master potters, Joes Mariea Mariscals. Featured in many national exhibitions, he has won numerous awards, most recently first prize in ‘The Taste of Art’ exhibition at the Noosa Regional Gallery and The Blue Steel Award’, Gympie Regional Gallery, and the Kenilworth Art Awards. His work is held in private collections both nationally and internationally. He has had articles published in Pottery Australia and Ceramics Technical.
Kate Warby Designs specialises in handmade, unique and original jewellery that can be worn on any occasion.They feature striking combinations of sterling silver, unique pendants, costume beads, resin, crystal, carved stone and found objects.
At Kate Warby Designs you will find a veritable treasure chest – overflowing with resin, semi-precious stones such as coral, jade and turquoise, carved bones and stone, glass and crystals and other costume beads. It may be a colour or shape in these raw materials that form the beginning of a piece of jewellery and influence her final design. Kate is born into a family of artists. Her sister and grandmother are painters and her brother an ornamental blacksmith. Her mother, Anne Everingham, is also a
well known jeweller. This environment has played a formative influence on her creativity. Established in 2009, Kate Warby Designs has quickly gained a following in South East Queensland. Her jewellery can be purchased by ordering online or from selected retail outlets. Handmade and individual, Kate’s designs are a refreshing antidote to mass produced costume jewellery.
Mela Cooke works predominantly in bronze, finding sculpting clay enables greater definition and subtlety to be expressed in her final pieces. Mela connects with the timelessness of bronze in her latest series, drawing on the contrast between the longevity of sculpture and possible extinction of endangered Australian animals. I am currently working on a series of endangered Australian animals, as I would like to make people reflect on the fact that so many wonderful animals are inexorably and unforgivably becoming endangered or being made extinct. I worked as a physio for many years and probably for that
reason have a great appreciation of the human body. It is a wonderful challenge to sculpt people and imbuing my sculptures with the character and soul of my subject has become my passion.
From the expressive contours of his curvy ladies, to the evocative forms in his abstract pieces, Zygmunt Libucha skillfully forms both figurative and abstract sculpture from bronze and stone. I have lived in Brisbane since 1988 but started exhibiting here in 1986, first in Galloway Gallery in Bowen Hills, then in McWhirters Art Space. As one gallery closed, another opened. I continued to take an active part in our city art life. My favourite medium is marble but I also work in bronze and onyx. I try to have diverse range and I create both figurative and abstract sculptures.
Clairy Laurence creates sculptural forms that are often figurative, depicting otherworldly naivety and its environment to create her own myth and folklore. Clairy is a ceramicist who works using both handbuilding and wheel throwing techniques to create sculptural forms. Influences include Bloomfield, Antoni Gaudi, Charles Blackman, and Rex Ray. Clairy has been working as a ceramicist/potter since 1983, when she undertook an apprenticeship with Locust Pottery. In 1988 she graduated from TAFE
in studio ceramics. She went on to study art therapy at MIECAT in 2003 and worked as supervisor at a ceramic studio at a community-based organization for almost 10 years. Clairy has been working as a full-time freelance ceramicist since leaving her long term supervisor role in 2013.
Ian Waldron pays tribute to the story of the Kurtjar people in his homeland of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Ian Waldron worked in various industries before studying visual arts at the Northern Territory University in the mid-1990s. Throughout his art practice he pays tribute to the story of the Kurtjar people in his homeland of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Ian has worked prolifically in his studio in Far North Queensland over the past years and developed a number of series, focusing on paintings and installations.
Recurring subject matter in his works comprises characters, sites and memories, which are important to the artist, such as Bloodwood Totem and Black Cockatoo. Ian was the winner of the 2010 Glover Prize, Tasmania, and has been selected as a finalist three times in The Wynne Prize at the AGNSW. His works are held in numerous private and public collections nationally. Represented by FireWorks Gallery.
Michael Eather is an artist and consultant curator who has shown his own painting and sculpture since 1986. Michael maintains a strong interest in collaborative artworks (Michael Eather + Friends) for galleries, museums and public spaces.
well as a number of other prominent Aboriginal artists now deceased, including Lin Onus, Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri.
In 1988, Eather co-founded Campfire group, a collective of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists working on contemporary art projects and commissions, coming to prominence when selected for the 1992 Sydney Biennale. Eather has worked on major collaborative public art commissions featuring painting, installation, video and literature with various artists including Michael Nelson Jagamara, Laurie Nilsen, Richard Bell and Joanne Currie, as
Eather is Director of FireWorks Gallery in Brisbane. Established in 1993, FireWorks has evolved to be one of Australia’s leading galleries in promoting the contemporary edges of Aboriginal Art. Represented by FireWorks Gallery
Alick Sweet is a Brisbane based artist who has won several major awards for painting, sculpture and drawing. His works are included in private and public collections in Australia and overseas.
Sweet works in a variety of materials but maintains a fascination with wood and paint. Timber, stone, steel, bronze and paint are used to create free standing objects, wall reliefs and installations. With the installation process the compositions grow and become site specific, where the realms of sculpture, drawing, painting, design and carpentry cohabit and converge.
This method of working allows the artist’s keen interest in construction and composition to develop. Colour adds a dramatic element to the work and helps amplify the dynamics of the form. Colour sometimes occurs incidentally, through the addition of component parts, or by the application of paint. Represented by FireWorks Gallery.
Scott’s practice simultaneously subverts and champions mainstream popular culture. Born in 1962, Redford inherited the pop art of Andy Warhol and the regionalism crisis of Australian modernism, resulting in a localised yet universal approach to the vernacular. Redford’s work is represented in major Australian collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art. He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally in Europe and South-East Asia. The Gold Coast is drenched in an urban mix of pop culture
and decadence. My Beautiful Polar Bear series of high-gloss, ceramic polar bear sculptures, captures the artifice and excessiveness of the city. The polar bear is a star attraction at one of the theme parks that litter the city. Its unnatural existence in a spurious and even absurd setting mirrors the plastic culture that the Gold Coast is famous for. My Beautiful Polar Bear, an aesthetically pleasing yet frivolous object, throws an ironic glance at one of Australia’s most infamous tourist towns. Represented by FireWorks Gallery.
Scott Redford is a Gold Coast based artist renowned for his ironic interpretations of his hometown.
Phil Gordon is currently working on bronze and stainless steel sculptures largely centered on animal themes. Phil Gordon graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1983 with a BFA with Teaching majoring in sculpture and ceramics. In 1984 he became a member of Chameleon Artist co-operative in Hobart. Phil exhibited with the Tasmanian Craft Council as well as Chameleon’s Gallery. He is represented by FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane, and Handmark Gallery, Hobart. Phil is currently working on bronze and stainless steel sculptures largely with animal themes, and divides his time between the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and Hobart in Tasmania.
“Evolution speaks directly to questions of genealogy. We are intrigued as to who we are and what is our biological relationship with other creatures. Through a process of animism I embody the relationship I have evolved with Tasmanian creatures to reveal a soul within the inanimate sculptures. Secondly, by way of stylisation, form and patina, in a minimal way I attempt to capture the strong, peaceful and stoic nature of these creatures.” Represented by FireWorks Gallery
Bruce Reynolds has a career spanning more than 30 years in Australia and abroad as an arts practitioner and educator. Although trained as a painter, Bruce works across 2D and 3D media, and integrates methods of photography, painting, sculpture and relief in his practice. Currently based in Brisbane, he has also worked on an architectural scale, contributing public art to Brisbane and beyond.
Linda Back was initally drawn to ceramics through an appreciation for the simple, strong forms of traditional and contemporary ceramic Ikebana containers.
I was born in Brisbane in 1954 and currently live and work from my studio in Ashgrove. I have undertaken classes in a variety of art subjects at the Brisbane Institute of Art since 1985 and completed an Advanced Diploma of Ceramics course at Southbank Institute in 2005. My interest in working with clay began when I was learning the practice and principles of Ikebana – the art of Japanese flower arrangement. I was drawn to the simple, strong forms of traditional and contemporary ceramic
Ikebana containers which complement the arrangements and decided I would learn how to make my own. My ceramic practice since then has taken many different paths, but I still enjoy the challenge of making vessels which can stand alone or in harmony with natural materials. My primary aim is to make functional vessels to be used and enjoyed. I regularly exhibit my ceramics at the Metcalfe Gallery, Brisbane Institute of Art, and with various other group art shows in Brisbane.
Elizabeth Poole moves from the seen to the unseen aspects of our landscapes, drawn to the spirit of a place as well as to the spirit of the humans and non-humans who inhabit it over past, present and future.
Elizabeth portrays environmental emotion more than just the physical scenery. Rather than simply creating objects, she portrays the lives and languages of the materials she uses. Her work plays at the intersections of culture’s language and nature’s spirit. She has exhibited frequently, often using paper, wire, twigs and sticks to move between whimsy (such as her “cow grass” of tall wires with grass ears of cow heads) and the harder lessons of collective memory (her black stick family became an iconic logo for the Sunshine Coast’s Floating Land festival, for instance). Her works relate directly to the environment around us, drawing upon the wallum of Sunshine Coast’s coastal heathland and its
lakes and river systems, although after her move to Toogoolawah, she has become increasingly attracted to the sparser bony inland. She also moves from the seen to the unseen aspects of our landscapes, drawn to the spirit of a place as well as to the spirit of the humans and non-humans who inhabit it over past, present and future. She portrays environmental emotion more than just the physical scenery. Rather than simply creating objects, she portrays the lives and languages of the materials she uses. She is interested in the moot Taoist concept of the ten thousand things, rather than merely the things themselves. - Dr Tamsin Kerr
Joanna Bone is an English born artist. She has a first class honours degree in glass design and has a masters degree from the Royal College of Art in London.
Joanna immigrated in 2002 with her husband, David, to Brisbane to be nearer the environments that most inspire her work. Since living in Australia Joanna has won major national awards and her work can be found in many collections around the world and particularly the Asia Pacific Region, as she has for the past nine years been making special awards for the coveted Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
“Pattern. Random yet repetitive, complex and subtle make up our natural environment. From the vibrant skins of insects, to the rich textures under the seas and the rhythms of the landscape, pattern pulsates through our everyday. I like the relationship between the complexities of the techniques that are employed in each piece and how it is expressed in the intricacy of the surface patterns. The end result draws one into the piece losing oneself in the multi layers of colour.�
The subject matter of Stephen Hart’s sculptures is often concerned with the human condition and our relation to the urban and built environment. Stephen Hart’s work is inventive, whimsical and detailed. His sculptural style is almost an anomaly in contemporary art practice. The artist’s process of hand-woodcarving revives
the aura of the traditional craftsperson labouring away in the studio. It is the intricate rendering of Australian timbers that makes Hart’s work so unique.
Rita Ringma is an established and recognised ceramic artist. Having worked with primitive techniques and firing for more than 30 years, she has drawn her inspiration from her travels to remote locations including the Philippines and Morocco. She has had solo and multiple group exhibitions in Australia and Canada.
Serena Bonson carves Wangarra spirit figures out of stringy bark collected on her country, Maningrida in the Northern Territory. The Spirit Cast Wangarra series celebrates Serena Bonson’s iconic imagery from Maningrida NT. Wangarra are spirits that are said to inhabit the An-mujolkuwa clan waterhole, and are reborn as new members of the clan. The birth of a child is always announced in a dream, when the spirit of the new child makes itself known to the child’s father. Serena Bonson lives in Maningrida, north central Arnhem Land, and is of the Djowinge moiety and Djinang language group. Her skin name is Gamandjan. Serena is an emerging artist and for seven years has carved Wangarra spirit figures out of stringy bark collected on her country, and decorates them with white ochre mixed with a PVC fixative. Recently selected forms have been re-cast from her original carvings and enhanced three dimensional features in clay. They are then re-cast in aluminium, painted with two pac and/or polished for indoor and outdoor placement. Represented by FireWorks Gallery.