The Undergraduate - exhibition & awards supporting Victorian Tertiary Visual Arts Students

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery presents

T U D R A

E R D E

E x h i b i t i o n & Awa r d s s u p p o r t i n g Victorian tertiary visual arts students

6 July to 21 October 2011

Toyota Australia 155 Bertie Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria Gallery Hours Mon - Fri 9am to 5pm or by appointment.

Inquiries Ken Wong 0419 570 846

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery is an initiative of Toyota Community Spirit, Toyota Australia’s corporate citizenship program.

Toyota Community Spirit develops partnerships that share Toyota’s skills, networks, expertise and other resources with the community.

The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery aims to provide space for artists, especially emerging artists to show their work.

The space is provided free of charge to exhibiting artists.

No commission is charged on sales and Toyota provides an exhibition launch and develops a catalogue for each exhibition.

The gallery has now shown works by over 670 artists. This project is mounted in partnership with Hobsons Bay City Council, the City of Port Phillip and Anna Pappas Gallery.

THE UNDER GRADUATE

Exhibition & Awards supporting Victorian tertiary visual arts students

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery is proud to further expand and strengthen its support for emerging artists and local community partnerships by mounting this project that specifically targets undergraduate art students currently pursuing tertiary qualifications.

This project is designed to encourage the development of the students professional practice by offering them an opportunity to exhibit their work at Toyota Community Spirit Gallery as well as the opportunity to be considered for the following awards: Toyota Community Spirit Award partnered by Anna Pappas Gallery $2000 Cash Prize from Toyota plus inclusion in a group exhibition in 2012 with Anna Pappas Gallery, Prahran.

City of Port Phillip Award A mentored exhibition at The Gallery, St Kilda Town Hall in 2012 including an exhibition budget of $1000 from Toyota.

Hobsons Bay City Council Award A mentored exhibition at The Substation in 2012 including an exhibition budget of $1000 from Toyota.

Thanks to our Judges and Partners Anna Pappas, Director, Anna Pappas Gallery Louisa Scott, Curator, Arts & Festivals, City of Port Phillip Tania Blackwell, Coordinator, Arts & Culture, Hobsons Bay City Council Toyota Community Spirit Gallery Committee Katarina Persic, Toyota Australia Catalogue editing Ken Wong (watcharts.com.au)

Pre press & Graphic Design Sandra Kiriacos (watcharts.com.au)

IMAGES FRONT COVER (all details from works by) L-R Jacquelyn Neale, Lucy Hardie, Colm Connolly, Laura Owsianka, Naomi Nicholls, Claudia Phares & Josephine Trencher INSIDE COVER Bo Peep by Lucy Hardie, Ink on cotton paper, 55 x 90cm, 2010/11.

IMAGE THIS SPREAD Mindworks (detail) by Marlize Myburgh, clay & glass, 54x11x11cm, 2011.

The opinions and points of view expressed by participants through the artworks and artists statements in this exhibition and catalogue are those of the individual person or persons and are not intended to reflect the position of Toyota Australia.

Ken Wong

CURATOR

Influences of history, psychology, decadence, obsessiveness, lost time, compulsiveness, nature, memory, nostalgia, assimilation of tribal cultures, colonialism, disillusion, returning to study, ancient, indigenous, sacred, search for completeness.

Juxtaposition, inquisition, hybrid cultural heritage, disparate cultural backgrounds, liberation from childhood memories and world view, investigations of self, recycled reflections of the cosmos, the ordinary, the everyday, in communist China, cultural imposition, colonisation, death, language, open horizons, mystic creation, human rights, personal and political, memory, psychology, religion, mythology, mind/body, ideology, Chuck Close, I am woman, Vietnam, war, capitalism and the environment, TV, Arabesque patterns, the Middle East and Persia. Personal Experience in practice, transforming established history, Albatross, the global effect of consumerism, disparity of nature and culture, different male personas and a girl’s lack of freedom, solitude, calm, tranquillity, magic, illusion and truth, inspired by love and reverence in the natural world, recollection, reflection, the impermanence of life, infinite questions, a cataclysm of tidal emotions, a dog, a squirrel, whimsical behaviour, Annish Kapoor, masks, Oscar Wilde, representation, abstraction, sleepers and voyeurs, organic liquid space, inherently unpredictable, truly whole and sublime, bizarre, erotic, old pulp romance novels, shapes, metaphors, books with history like old skeletons, nature can and will always outdo man in creating something beautiful.

process of working on this project, The Undergraduate, I have also been mindful of another seminal work of art, the 1967 film The Graduate. It to became a generational touchstone; questioning and challenging the establishment and the social and cultural status quo of the times.

These words are almost all taken directly from what the artists in this exhibition have had to say about their work. They are part of an exercise I often do when seeking inspiration to write about the exhibition, but this time they seemed to have a flow which vaguely reminded me of the stream of consciousness ‘spontaneous prose’ of Jack Kerouac, whose seminal 1955 novel On the Road rocked the establishment and defined the Beat generation; becoming a harbinger for the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. In the

It is the 26th exhibition for the Toyota Community Spirit Gallery, part of a continuous program that is also designed to support and document the work of emerging artists. My thanks to our judges and partners for making this project possible. I am thankful to work with them, and with a company that recognizes the need to value and support the development of local culture.

It is interesting to me that all these years later, so much of what concerns the artists in this exhibition reflects the same concerns of the ‘radical views’ of the 1960’s.

Perhaps as they say ‘the Beat goes on’, or perhaps, (more to the point in light of recent world events), this questioning; of the values and direction of the society we live in, is today more important and urgent than ever before.

In any case, I am thankful to live in a society where artists, and their critical study of the world we inhabit and create, is supported and nurtured. This is reflected by one of our exhibiting artists Lyndal May Stewart, who “On returning to Australia ... discovered that making art is something that you could actually do and that there were whole institutions set up to nurture and develop emerging artists”.

This exhibition includes 45 artists from 15 of Victoria’s leading tertiary art schools, all of which are providing a significant contribution to the development of the next generation of artists and supporting the critical contribution they make to our view of the world we live in.

Welcome to The Undergraduate.

Ken Wong is the Director of Watch Arts, a Victorian based contemporary arts consultancy.

He has worked in the fine arts industry for over 15 years in both commercial and community arts, curating and managing a host of projects including gallery and outdoor sculpture exhibitions.

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Ness Alexandra Leonie Allan Julie Andrews Troy Argyros Peter Austin Kelly Brett Colm Connolly Martina Copley Tristan Da Roza Jason Fujiwara Lucy Hardie Heidi Holmes Kathy Holowko Ying Huang Nathan Jokovich Martin Lang Sandra Levin

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Kristin Lewis Georgia MacGuire Marlize Myburgh Jacquelyn Neale Naomi Nicholls Aaron O’Brien

IMAGE: She Tasted of Aroused Women the Greatest Aphrodisiac of all (detail) by Nicholas Werrett, Photograph, 80 x 110cm, 2011

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Ayfer Ocal Laura Owsianka Tricia Page Julia Peardon Claudia Phares Stephanie Rampton Johann Rashid Trudy Rice Anna Rowbury

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Senye Shen Benjamin Silver Caitlin Sivyer MadĂŠ Spencer-Castle Prue Stevenson Lyndal Stewart Adie Teubert Josephine Trencher Ri Van Veen Nicholas Werrett Belinda Williamson Nicole Willis Michelle Yann

Ness Alexandra Swinburne University of Technology

Childish Thoughts Acrylic, oil pastel, paper collage, Bendaroos on found wood, 65x76x8cm, 2011, NFS

The wood found in the local hard-rubbish had been sitting in my garage for years, but it wasn’t until I turned it over that I saw a ready-made frame. I wanted an authentic subject to complement the frame; who better than my own children.

I was interested in capturing their intellect, impulses and playfulness. Personas have many layers and by using my children’s own paintings as background and their craft toy (Bendaroos), I was able to add texture while reflecting their messy, cluttered and often impulsive nature emerging out of the portrait, cascading around them and over each other like the thoughts they have when they are playing.

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After 15 years in the Australian documentary film industry, Ness became compelled to explore the human condition through visual art. In her first year of study for a diploma, she has become interested in the work of Carl Jung who described the persona as “only a mask” through which the collective psyche speaks. She is developing a series of portraits exploring the facade we present but also the internal machinations and psychological make-up of an individual. Her aim is to investigate the notion of collective psyche and the possibility that similar images/patterns will appear under the mask.

Leonie Allan

The Gordon

This work was directly inspired by my first trip to Europe; a whirlwind week in France in January of this year.

The Chateau de Versailles was overwhelming in its excessive opulence. It was beautiful but also reeked of power. Built in the mid 17th Century by King Louis XIV, the Roi Soleil (Sun King), Versailles was a statement of the absolute supremacy of the French monarchy which was at its peak at this time. Whilst 30,000 workers and soldiers toiled on the structure and the kingdom’s coffers were emptied leaving the masses in poverty, Louis XIV fed his appetite for decadence and self-glorification.

Every interior moulding, cornice, ceiling and wall was profligately adorned with frescos, marble, gilt, and mirror; many with themes from Greek and Roman mythology. My sculpture is a compression of the decadence of Versailles as well as a reaction to my profound experience on visiting this Palace.

Summary of Versailles Mixed media, 200x150x150cm, 2011 $1320 excluding mirror base (not shown)

Leonie’s artistic work plan over the last few years has involved the exploration of human behaviour and in particular, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the fine line between acceptable and excessive. Her response has been a humorous self-expose but with the more serious intention of stimulating thought, awareness, discussion and examination of one’s own behaviours. This has been illustrated using various mediums; incorporating recycling as well as exploring the plethora of products and materials available to artists today.

Personal expressionism characterized by repetition, distortion of reality, the use of symbols and stylization are some of the tools employed. This sculpture is perhaps a more worldly comment but its bones still expose the fundamental traits of excessive human behaviour.

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Julie Andrews LaTrobe University Bendigo

Ironbark country, Mixed Media; ink, charcoal, graphite on paper, 78.5 x 119.5cm, 2011, $990

These works are an exploration of nature, place and memories.

The gentle mark-making of graphite, ink and mono prints are incorporated into my work as an exploration of a space somewhere between feelings and our memories of feelings. I use mixed media in combination with printmaking techniques including photo release, embossing and mono prints on a variety of surfaces.

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Julie has tried to squeeze art into her life, in between working full time, running a business and raising a family. She has always found outlets for her creativity in her home, garden and her education consultancy business, designing courses (with as many visual interventions and activities as possible). In recent years she made a decision to dedicate herself full time to art in an attempt to make up for lost time with the intention to continue to develop her art practice for the remainder of her life.

Troy Argyros Monash University

Yia yia, Oil on canvas, 41 x 51.5cm, 2010, NFS

My art practice concentrates on themes of nostalgia, memory, mystery and escapism; moods and emotions evoked by reflection on personal experience, or those felt within a present moment; isolation, curiosity, comfort, etc. My piece Yia Yia depicts objects that belonged to and therefore remind me of my late grandmother. I strived to capture a strong sense of nostalgia through colour and light.

Nostalgia is a fascinating emotion to me. I explore it frequently in my work; the way it can break down time and leave you feeling both comforted and distressed.

Encompassing drawing, painting and some sculpture, Troy’s aesthetic concerns are the depiction of realistic detail and chiaroscuro in the genres of portraiture, landscape and still life. One of his career goals is to write and illustrate children’s books, potentially drawing upon a wealth of childhood memories as source material.

His idols include the masters of the ltalian Renaissance and the Baroque, for their exquisite depiction of light and realism, and Beatrix Potter for her charming, imaginative and sincere storytelling.

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Peter Austin University of Ballarat

Untitled, Ceramic, 7x23x16cm, 2010, NFS

This piece is the result of a project for my design unit.

It involved exploring light and clay and how they interact. It is slip-cast in earthernware with added coils for it to stand on. Then the vine and mushrooms are pierced around the rim. This artwork is leading me into the area of piercing and carving in thrown and slip-cast pieces.

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Peter’s journey in ceramics began with a basic pottery course in 1995 in the Blue Mountains, NSW. His interest has continued to grow over the years and he is now pursuing a Diploma of Ceramics with the aim of moving from a hobby potter to a knowledgeable studio ceramist.

Kelly Brett

University of Ballarat

My family’s emigration to Australia as white Africans in my formative years had a profound impact on my sense of national identity.

Curious images of African natives from vintage documentary photographs are appropriated into my work as poignant markers of colonial incursion. The image of the woman is a digitally re-worked print from a 1935 documentary magazine.

It serves as a symbol of native beauty prior to the assimilation of tribal cultures in remote regions of Africa. lt is interesting to note that the posed woman also bears a resemblance to modern runway models, a very removed and Western concept. I have juxtaposed this image with abstract text and layers of acrylic paint.

Untitled (Woman) Acrylic, enamel, texta and collage on board, 92 x 61cm, 2011 $360

Kelly’s family history is part of the mass exodus of white South Africans out of a post-apartheid South Africa. She experiments with layers and composition using both traditional and digital means to find a visual language for her inquiry into the effects of colonialism. Through mark-making and collage she investigates identity and the hybrid self in relation to her African-Australian experience.

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Colm Connolly The Gordon

The Dog Rocks outside Geelong is the heritage listed site of an ancient Aboriginal stone axe quarry; the area has a cultural and historical significance to the local indigenous population. When the winter weather closes in and dark clouds scud across the sky, this hilltop takes on a dark and brooding character; the stone breaking through the surface of the ground gives a feeling of otherworldliness. In the tradition of Friedrich, Turner, O’Sullivan and Adams, these pictures are a metaphor for the sublime spiritual power of the landscape and nature.

In the 1980’s, shortly before he died, local photographer Laurie Wilson made a detailed study of The Dog Rocks. My work 30 years on shows that although the surrounding neighbourhood may have altered with the passage of time, they still retain their timeless quality.

Dog Rocks 1 & Dog Rocks 2 Silver Gelatin Print, 45 x 43cm, 2010, $155 each

Colm left school at the age of 16 and had a successful career in the hospitality industry, but at 30 became disillusioned and decided to return to studying art. He began with private art classes which rekindled his interest in photography. Finally in 2007, he decided to study visual arts full time and completed a Diploma at The Gordon TAFE, majoring in photography. He is now in his final year of a Bachelor of Visual Arts.

Although photography is his chosen medium, he continues to practice drawing and painting, believing that practising other mediums and studying art history contributes to his progress and growth as an artist.

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Martina Copley LaTrobe College of Art & Design

My work is about a sense of incompleteness and ongoing enquiry.

This drawing was made intermittently over two years, eyes closed. It is a record of activity, of moments of being. Each line a standing meditation of one hour. One thought folds into another.

Enumeration incorporates movement and stillness, silence and breath. The scale relates to my body and the pressure and sway of the line to the pull of gravity and extent of my reach. The intensity changes as my attention shifts between thinking and feeling observation.

I like the uncontrolled, intimate and ongoing nature of this way of working and also that the marking could continue until each line, obscuring the other, becomes an unreadable trace.

Meditation Drawing 1 Graphite on paper, 135 x 94cm, 2009/11 $3500

Initially trained in Fine Art (photography) at Victoria College, Martina has been an independent curator and arts writer for over 25 years. She is presently working to develop her understanding of making, with a desire to bring her experience and way of thinking as a curator to her own practice.

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Tristan Da Roza VCA - The University of Melbourne

Rosetta Stone Digital ink jet print on Canson cotton rag, Edition ¼, 57 x 83cm, 2011 $250 each (unframed) $400 each (framed)

Tristan studied his first year of a BA in Fine Art at Curtin University in Perth in 2007 before coming to Melbourne and completing a Diploma of Visual Art at NMIT in 2009. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Visual Art at VCA. In 2010 he was a finalist in the Mary and Lou Senini Award at McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park and was also the Winner of National Tertiary Art Prize, National Gallery, Canberra.

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Locating the ‘artobject’ as an architecturally displaced form and dysfunctional construction, situated against the regular viewing environment, is where my methodology is foremost concerned.

How does one define the spatial boundaries of a particular environment, to understand the assumed set visual codes followed by the behavioural protocols communicated by a given space?

Displacing form from environment generates a rupture in aesthetic codes. Juxtaposing an organic context against strict rectilinear forms are two differing yet familiar aesthetic trajectories - Alien is the Unknowable Other.

Jason Fujiwara RMIT University

It’s Not a Walrus, Reduction linocut, 76 x 56cm, 2010, $500

I explore notions of hybridisation through my own Japanese and Australian cultural heritage. I am part of both cultures, however, at the same time I feel disconnected from both societies; I am stuck in between two separate worlds – East meets West.

I create an alternative universe which operates according to its own logic, an “in between” world or space of my

two cultures. The creatures I use are referenced from Japanese folklore, called Ushi-Oni, and I reinterpret the monsters with Western references through the use of collage. The beasts are uncertain which society they belong to; they are a metaphor for my identity, my cultural difference and myself. By presenting these prints of otherworldliness and hybrid environments, I hope to discover where I belong in the world, meandering and exploring where that place may be.

Jason was born in New York in 1988. His mother is Anglo-Australian and his father is Japanese. He studied art, design and photography at the Brighton Bay Program and was shown in the graduate exhibition and auction, New Collectables. His works are in various collections including the National Art School, SQU, RMIT and Curtin University. He is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts - Printmaking at RMIT.

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Lucy Hardie NMIT

Bo Peep, Ink on cotton paper, 55 x 90cm, 2010/11, $4500

This piece is based on the classic children’s nursery rhyme, ‘Little Bo Peep’. It is a reflection on the power we give to our childhood memories and stories in directing the choices we make in our present day lives, and a celebration of death as a catalyst for transformation. I have placed Bo Peep surrounded by decay. Her sheep have died and are now the bones she sits amongst. While she appears to have grown up, she remains entangled amongst them, imprisoned by her own holding on to the rhyme she knows so well from the past. In this context, death is a welcome event. Only when we die to the old way of thinking, can a new story emerge, allowing for a more liberated and inclusive self and world view.

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Primarily self taught, Lucy held her first solo exhibition of paintings and drawings at Synergy Gallery in Melbourne in 2007, which sold out on opening night.

She has since exhibited regularly throughout Melbourne, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsular.

In 2009 she travelled to Austria where she began a mentorship with American Visionary artist, Philip Rubinov Jacobson, learning the old masters’ ‘Mische Teknik’ or mixed method of painting using a combination of resin, egg tempera and oils.

Heidi Holmes

VCA - The University of Melbourne

Mostly, my art practice is about me. It seems natural to make art about what I think I know best.

Each work has a very stringent set of rules/ parameters that are self governed but prudently followed throughout the process, even if it becomes torturous. This piece captures every word spoken by me for the entire month of February 2011. Each and every word spoken during the month is represented by one piece of A4 paper. The work is made up of 28 paper towers that represent each day of the month. ln total there are 194,000 sheets of paper. The work weighs more than one and a half tonne.

All I said, February Office paper, 149x120x122cm, 2011 $1200

Art always lurked in Heidi’s background as she got on with ‘real life’ earning money and trying to carve out an un-natural career. She always felt that she would come back to art and she is currently ‘grabbing it by the scruff of it’s neck’ pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Art at VCA. Her works are self-examining and sometimes self-depreciative portraits that are restrained and minimal in style. She painstakingly records, documents and catalogues sections of her life to create work that represents the everyday.

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Kathy Holowko RMIT University

Searching for Evidence of The Evolution of Beauty Reclaimed wood and steel, 200x200x200cm approx, 2010, $5000

This work was developed with the purpose of exploring the potential of reclaimed materials and giving them new value. The remnants of suburban fences and renovated weatherboard homes of Brunswick became a rich source of this natural and weathered art material. Each piece is unique in its origin, colour and texture.

They have all combined to create a surface that casts back a reflection of the history and potential in the detritus of urban life. The organic form attempts to contradict the flatness of the material and reflects a fascination for the patterning of plant design and animal skin. The spiral base is an observation of a form found in nature, a pattern that is found from the enormous to the tiny; from the cosmos to our DNA. It is a visible marker of the reoccurrence of a natural principle and perfection in organic design.

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Kathy’s work draws on time spent living in the forests and coastline of Western Victoria observing the detailed patterning found in the natural world. She is also influenced by personal travels to ancient sculptural monuments and observations of modern human narratives that express human stewardship of nature. A fascination for the evocative properties of natural and salvaged art materials, characterised by the passage of time and the effects of natural elements, has become an integral part of the realisation of her artistic ideas. Now in her final year of study for a Bachelor of Fine Art, she has been able to explore ideas such as the momentous change of philosophical outlook that came with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. She was recently selected for aRtECYCLE, a show exploring themes of recycling and environmentalism.

Ying Huang

RMIT University

As a young adult I felt interested in depicting ordinary people in ordinary situations, for example as they slept on railway station benches or travelled to work. My current art practice is influenced by themes of identity, loss and justice and by my experience of growing up in Communist China and the impact this has had on my immediate family for the last three generations. This work is a highly personalised portrait based on the death masks of prisoners executed at the Old Melbourne Gaol.

It invites the viewer to explore the difficulties of condemning the ‘criminal’ whilst simultaneously accepting the State’s power to take life.

Jordan Oil on canvas, 91 x 76cm, 2011 $1800

Ying left China in her early twenties and spent several years travelling through Asia, eventually settling in Thailand. She immigrated to Australia in 2001 and is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT majoring in Printmaking.

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Nathan Jokovich NMIT

Nathan’s move from Queensland to Melbourne in late 2009 to focus on advancing his studies in fine art has prompted a change in artistic direction and influence. While still maintaining an attention to realist detail, derived from his study as a pharmacist and the influence of the early 17th century Dutch Masters, the streets of Melbourne and its cultural diversity has provided a sensory assault that now strongly reflects in his current works which blur the boundaries between traditional and contemporary art. Citing artistic influences as diverse as Robert Rauschenberg and the Irish street artist Conor Harrington, he attempts to address broader issues faced by contemporary society. This year he was awarded an Alliance Catering Study Grant and his work is included in several private collections in Australia.

Contemporary Linguistics 101 Oil, acrylic, spray aerosol and collage on canvas 107 x 81cm, 2010 $720

This work addresses the issues of cultural imposition and colonisation with respect to contemporary Australian society and the boundaries that exist between language, customs and values.

It raises questions about the challenges of adapting to societal demands and expectations whilst attempting to uphold traditional values and personal beliefs. Mixed media on canvas has been used to create this work that incorporates typography with portraiture. There is a strong street art undertone meshed with traditional oil painting techniques. This is akin to Australia’s national cultural identity, a fusion of old and new, and references the multicultural nature of Australian society.

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Martin Lang

Monash University

My art practice is slowly evolving from simply a painting based one to exploring many different styles and genres.

I am interested in creating images that are visually strong but have a conceptual depth to them. This particular work is based on the themes of death and language and how they interrelate.

Dea’den, Acrylic and paper on plywood, 122 x 122cm, 2011, $900

Martin was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1968. His family emigrated to Australia in 1970 and his interest in art was fostered through learning to paint with Max Casey (School of Max Meldrum). In the early 1990’s he studied black and white photography and later owned and operated an airbrush business before completing a Diploma of Arts in Graphic Design in 1998. He is currently in his 2nd year of a BA in Fine Art.

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Sandra Levin RMIT University

Sandra has been working and studying as an arts practitioner for 10 years, spending 4 years at the CAE completing preparatory learning followed by a Diploma of Visual Arts.

She has travelled extensively, both to view the great icons of art as well as exploring more contemporary and conceptual works. Her desire to continue studying at a higher level led her to RMIT where she has spent the last four years studying for her BA and expanding her interest in the area of sculpture.

Considering Photography, fabric, rice, assorted spices, each panel 63 x 50cm (Dimensions variable) 2010, $4500

My art practiCe has consistently opened my horizons. It provides an outlet in which there are no rules, no way a sculpture need turn out and no specific way it is to be made. This is very much in contrast to my life as a yoga teacher, in which I teach in a precise, intricate and structured manner. Even so, working with bodies seems to have flowed into the forms I create which are organic, biomorphic and bodily in nature. I construct my tactile and sensory forms out of assorted materials including rice, spices, plaster and hessian.

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Kristin Lewis RMIT University

The Nativity, Painted timber and lighting, 240x200x80cm approx, 2010, $1800

Kristin was born in 1984 in Adelaide and began her fine art studies at Adelaide Central School of Art in 2003. These formative years at ACSA provided the genesis of broader influences on her practice, and a sturdy introduction to the world of the professional artist. In 2005 she discontinued her studies at ACSA, but continued her own studio practice pursuing her interest in Russian Constructivism. In 2007 she relocated to Melbourne to resume her studies and was accepted into the Sculpture department of RMIT. Study there under Peter Cripps, Simon Perry and Greg Creek has re-invigorated her passion for sculptural expression, exploring large scale installation with a conceptual basis in the sublime, metaphysic, theatric, sculptural and industrial processes.

The Nativity is centred around the smelter as a complex metaphor for sculptural creation, spatial density, and a theatrical setting for the strange and mysterious ceremony of making. My installation intends to imbue the factory space with the duality of a hidden metaphysical presence and utility. What I have created appears as an abstracted trio of industrial moulds, with golden interiors illuminated by hidden lights. In creating this work I aim to locate myself as a kind of worker, aspiring to create sculpture that does not reference universal experience or personal narrative. lnstead, I attempt to enact a speculative mysticism within a Constructivist aesthetic, drawing the viewer to experience a sculptural space which is not relational.

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Georgia MacGuire Deakin University Institute of Koorie Education

As an Aboriginal woman that grew up in an urban setting, Georgia has always been committed to addressing Indigenous disadvantage and human rights issues. Art has always provided an opportunity to process and express her thoughts, and she recently left social work to focus on art full time.

Movie Star, Dry pastel on paper, 30 x 42cm, 2011, $3000 (unframed)

My work tends to be of a collaboration of the personal and the political, which comes from a belief that it is difficult to separate the two as an Aboriginal woman in modern Australia. This portrait is from a photo of my grandmother, Isabel Lorraine Sealey when she was in her 20’s, circa 1940s. She was removed from her family as part of the Stolen Generation and raised by a white woman in the small town of Powelltown in Gippsland Victoria.

All her life my grandmother experienced racism and abuse from her community, even though she was stunningly beautiful, very intelligent and contributed to her local community by working in the local store as a young woman. For most of her

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life she did not understand why people in her community treated her differently,. It was only when she was in her 50’s that she discovered that her father was a tall handsome Aboriginal man who worked at the local wood mill in Powelltown. The portrait itself is reflective of the images of Hollywood movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor. There is a strong sense of sadness for me as people would often comment on how beautiful and clever my Nan was but the reality was that she would never have been recognised as anything more than an Aborigine, along with the racist undertones that went with that. In the 1940’s my grandmother was still being governed by the Aborigines Protection Board and would remain under The Flora and Fauna Act until the 1967 referendum that allowed Aboriginal people to be counted as part of the census.

Marlize Myburgh Box Hill TAFE

I am intrigued by the function of memory; how some memories are vivid while others are fleeting, how memory affects individual, familiar, and cultural identity.

Personal memories provide the framework from which I can ask broader questions about the relationships between; the permanent and the ephemeral, reality and illusion, logic and intuition, the body and the mind, spirituality and insanity, image and form. Psychology, religion, and mythology influence my work as well, giving my personal experience context in the bigger picture. I am inspired by sensory memory and intrigued with the relationship between visual memory and tactile perception.

Mindworks, Clay and glass, 54x11x11cm, 2011, $400

Marlize’s sculpture makes statements about the world she finds herself in, questioning the path taken thus far, and even more importantly, where she is heading. The act of creating art fills her with lots of positive emotions and energy, which in turn reinforces her confidence as an artist. She uses stoneware clay which is then ‘framed’ in glass containers.

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Jacquelyn Neale Victoria University

Are you happy yet?

Acrylic on canvas, 102 x 76cm, 2011, $500

Jacquelyn developed a deep love of painting while undertaking a Diploma in Visual Arts at Swinburne Senior Secondary School in Hawthorne in 2004. While she did not complete that particular course, she did continue painting and is intrigued by portraiture, finding the process offers her insights into her subjects. She is currently studying an Art Major for a Bachelor of Teaching and has become intrigued by the photorealism of American artist Chuck Close. Her approach to painting borrows from his methodology but is also filtered through her own intuitive conceptions and techniques.

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This is an image of a woman and child from Sapa, a small mountainous village in Vietnam. When I met her I wondered was she happy living her life, which consisted of following tourists through mountainous terrain and begging and hoping at the end that these tourists will buy something from her. I wondered if she knew what the rest of the world had to offer? And did she care? Was she happy with her baby and the other women she shared her life with? This image made me question; does this woman wish for more while I wish for less? Am I happy? What does it take to be truly happy? Is being happy the most important thing, or is it just getting by day by day? Looking at this woman makes me consider; are we that different?

Naomi Nicholls RMIT University

Throughout her schooling, Naomi has always had an interest in drawing, painting and graphic design.

She completed the 1st year of a Bachelor of Graphic Design in 2002, but decided this was not the direction she wanted to take and entered the full time workforce for several years. In 2010 she commenced a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) in painting at RMIT. The course has challenged everything she thought about art and has been a huge learning curve. After working briefly in figurative practice, she has moved toward abstraction and installation.

Fold Right, Then Left Acrylic on paper, 55x55x3cm, 2011, $250

Although studying painting, I have not limited myself to just paint and canvas, but continue to make installations. My exhibition I am woman,

hear me‌ do housework, earlier this year featured mostly installations, but all relating to my painting practice. I am interested in investigating the space where painting and sculpture intersect. I explore the properties of the paint and the

supports themselves, and experiment with their position in space relating to installation and repetition. Currently in my art practice, I am investigating how folding the support fragments a graphic element, which also takes 2D into 3D.

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Aaron O’Brien VCA - The University of Melbourne

Plato’s Cave, Oil on canavs, 50 x 60cm, 2010, $1050

This work contemplates the idea of THE control that the lounge room television CAN HAVE on its viewers.

It explores how the viewer becomes desensitized to the ideas of war through the media, movies, documentaries, computer games, TV shows, etc. The large hole in the wall through which we see soldiers and tanks passing by where the family television would usually sit, and the soldier sitting behind the couch, accents the projection of war into our lounge rooms as a tool of control. The family on the couch, like the prisoners in Plato’s The Simile of the Cave, are prisoners of the television. They are conditioned into believing that all war is okay because that’s what the television conveys, like the prisoners in Plato’s cave are led to believe that the shadows they see on the walls are real things, because that’s all they know.

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Aaron completed a Diploma of Visual Arts at Victoria University in 2008 and is currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at VCA. His practice employs traditional painting techniques, photography, altered ‘ready mades’, digital media and techniques from different genres and styles of art, to create a visual language contemplating global issues like war, capitalism, and the environment within a surreal and hyperrealist world.

Ayfer Ocal Monash University

As well as reflecting on my Turkish cultural heritage, I have also explored a fascination for pattern and the beauty of its construction. I am focusing on Arabesque patterns of geometry created from subtle lacework ornamentation in tiles from Mosques from the Middle East and Persia. These patterns are also seen in handmade traditional carpets from Turkey, with their delicate designs and rich colour schemes. I wanted to explore these geometric forms of shape through the process of cyanotypes, printing the rearranged design onto silk materials and heavy weight printmaking papers.

Child’s Kaftan-Turkey Cyanotype print, 106 x75cm unframed, 2010 $800

Ayfer is currently studying Fine Art in print-media at Monash University. In her second year, she hopes to complete an Honours Degree as well as a Masters in teaching. Her immediate goal is to become an assistant curator in a community gallery where she feels the opportunity of working amongst artists and art appreciators would be a highlight of her career.

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Laura Owsianka VCA - The University of Melbourne

Erin Digital photograph (inkjet print), Edition 1/3, 70 x 50cm, 2011, $75

Laura studied VCE Studio Arts, Media and Art at Padua College, Mornington in 2008 and was accepted into VCA Season of Excellence for Top Screens at ACMI, Federation Square and Top Designs at the Melbourne Museum in March 2009. She has exhibited at Unless gallery, West Brunswick and has been the event photographer for the Underground Cinema since March this year. She is currently studying for a Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography.

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this work is an example of how I employ images that stick in my memory from personal experience in my practiCe. It is a re-staging of a moment that occurred during the summer of 2010-11 where a friend was balanced on an armchair out in the backyard, digging the rollers on the feet on the chair into the grass and perched at a 45 º angle to the ground. He lost his balance, and the armchair fell back onto the grass with him still sitting in it, sipping his beverage as if nothing had happened. I saw all this happen from the ground level, and suddenly my idea of ‘the right way up’ was confused, and I found myself captivated by his complacency and indifference to being upended. It was as if he had been sitting in that way the entire afternoon.

Tricia Page

RMIT University TAFE

Albatross Tuna tins, oil tins, aluminium rivets, aluminium rod, liquid nails, 120x70x50cm, 2011, $880

I like the look and feel of an object with an established history being transformed into a contemporary artwork with new meaning. This has guided me into using these discarded items for both my materials and message to provoke thought around issues of primary and secondary environmental impact, consumer driven excess and waste. There is a noticeable local

and global effect of consumerism. The relationship between our modern day demands and the increase in pollution, rubbish and collateral damage in nature is excessive. Single use items, like tuna tins, are thrown away in their thousands daily, the fishing practices involved resulting in a trail of incidental deaths. Certain populations of Albatross are in decline. The Albatross armour of tuna tins creates a forum for reflection on the direct impact we as consumers effect on the world around us.

Tricia’s sculptural works are constructed using a variety of discarded items and whatever else seeks her out.

On a personal level, she doesn’t waste anything, and uses what is around rather than buying new items that she doesn’t need. Always conscious of excess spending, she openly admits to roadside collections and opshops being her local supermarket. She is currently in her second year of a Diploma of Visual Arts.

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Julia Peardon Monash University

My recent body of work explores the disparity between nature and culture; the methods of control and manipulation humans place on nature and the merging relationship of the natural and urbanised.

Inspiration comes from phenomena like the local formation of cropping farms to larger world issues such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Change Gouache and oil on paper, 100 x 100cm, 2010 $350 (unframed)

Julia is currently completing her Bachelor of Visual Arts/Business Degree at Monash University in Caulfield.

The course has been both challenging and rewarding for her art practice, as she has been forced to think more about what her art says, rather than simply what it looks like. Her work consists mostly of watercolour drawings on paper in a wide range of scales. In 2010 she was a finalist in the Mary and Lou Senini Art Award at McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park. Her focus towards natural subject matter perhaps stems from her upbringing in country New South Wales; a juxtaposition from her current city lifestyle in Melbourne.

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Claudia Phares

VCA - The University of Melbourne

This is the first in a series of selfportraits entitled “Interviewees”, involving myself in different male personae. The idea came from my teenage experience while living at home. I had been raised in a family where there were rules and restrictions which made me perceive that being a girl truly meant a lack of freedom. I realized it would have been easier to have been born a boy.

The “Interviewees” were the men I escaped to.

Interviewee #1 C-type lustre print, 30 x 22cm, 2010 $400

Claudia is a Melbourne based photographer who was born in Montreal to a Vietnamese mother and an Egyptian father. Her creative inspiration stems from her experiences as a woman of mixed backgrounds.

Before starting university she was mostly self-taught and was aware of the limitations of her practice in both a technical and theoretical sense. She saw a formal education as the next necessary step required to fulfil her goal of becoming a professional artist. Her aim is to be able to create unique and well-crafted portraits in order to contribute to the advancement of aesthetics.

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Stephanie Jane Rampton NMIT

Separation Oak Etching (edition of 10), 28 x 48.5cm, 2010, $350 framed ($270 unframed)

Why trees? Perhaps for the sense of solitude, calm, tranquility and natural balance. Then again, what of the similarities between them and us? The older we get, the more interesting we become.

Or is it because trees are benevolent spirits providing the air we breathe and bodily sustenance; a handy metaphor for childhood, growth and

protection. The Separation Oak was planted in 1850, the year of Victoria’s separation from New South Wales.

It still stands in the grounds of the Abbotsford Convent. An English oak, it evokes memories of my childhood, a separate place and time. The six individual plates depict different views of the branches, yet, once printed together, they appear to connect. So, both separated and connected at once, an analogy for life.

Stephanie was born in England and since coming to Australia has been drawn to the landscape and trees, yet childhood memories of bare trees in an English winter landscape still have a strong impact on her work.

She says she is fascinated by the process of printmaking; “Everything is a bit of a surprise; left-hand drawing becomes right-hand composition. You don’t really know what you’ve got until the very final moment and, even then, no two prints are the same. The whole deal is a collaboration of artist and process and that’s exciting”.

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Johann Rashid RMIT University

Back Yard Photograph-Hahnemuhle Bamboo, Archival print (Super 8 still), 78.5 x 106.2cm, 2011, $1400

Mainly working in video art, performance and sculpture, my practice explores magic, illusions and truths and the tension between documentation and the elusive moment. For video installation and still photography, my medium is Super 8 and the work is very personal. I lift stills from the flow of my proxy camera eye, capturing a still from footage I’ve shot. I work with environments and energy in all my practice, and particularly in sculpture, where my concern is triggering spiritual discovery. Creating spaces and directing light in time through space to lead the viewer on an inward journey as well as through the physical work, I also capture and manipulate the imagery, placing frames within frames, to seduce the viewer to look deeper and further into the work.

Johann attained a firm basis in applied media and art through a Diploma of Visual Arts at Swinburne and his studies in Media Arts at RMIT. He has exhibited at Seventh Gallery, Carlton Studios, Open Spaces, Hell Gallery and shown work on the public screen at Federation Square. He’s also gained enormous insight into his practice from an ongoing research internship with Phillip Brophy. He is never static creatively and has always produced work even while studying. Curation has become increasingly part of Johann’s output, utilizing his collaborative approach to bring artists together and create new works for spaces.

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Trudy Rice CAE

Untitled (Bottle Brush) Monotype/Collograph/Hand Embellished, 68 x 68cm, 2011, $520

I am interested and inspired by a love of all things within the natural world including the nature of people.

Hiking in the Tasmanian High Country I find a myriad of inspiration.

Clear air, gorgeous skies, Beech tree forests and the Pencil Pines.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree. (Emily Bronte)

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Trudy is in her 4th year of part-time study for a Diploma of Visual Arts.

Working in printmaking, painting, watercolor and ink and paralleling the genres of abstraction and figurative expression, she draws on her many years in the fashion industry by using the characteristics of fabric such as texture and color for inspiration. She has recently taken to hand-sewing on her works on paper to highlight some of the images features.

Anna Rowbury

Photography by Christopher Sanders Photography

RMIT University

Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, Oil on board and ceramic, 30x90x25cm, 2010, $1050

I explore my reverence for the natural world by highlighting those aspects that surprise and seduce my senses: colour, atmosphere, gesture and composition. I spend much time in the Otway Ranges in southern Victoria, a property located in a high rainfall river valley. This landscape of large skies, mist, light,

dark forests, terrible weather events, and nostalgic rural farming elements provides much raw material for me.

I sculpt objects (garden tools, gloves and hats) and animals from the farm and paint landscapes to build work that talks about my agrarian life. This particular work talks of misty pink and grey evening skies; the light of which is reflected onto the two cows that bear silent wistness to the mood of the ending day.

Anna began painting and drawing some 20 years ago. More recently she started to work with clay and has found that working in both two and three dimensions has helped her work to progress. She is currently in her 3rd year of a Bachelor of Fine Art in ceramics.

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Senye Shen Monash University

My works are related to the impermanence of life. lt involves space and time, not only the literal and physical attributes, but also the aesthetic and perceptual. The aim of my installations is to provide an ephemeral experience in a transformed space.

The experience focuses on the viewer’s direct response to the site, and the meaning of the installation is activated by the viewer’s participation through movement, observation and recollection.

My drawings are the extension of that process to reconstruct images through recollection and reflection, and to capture the essence of that experience into a two-dimensional surface.

Senye is studying for a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at Monash, having completed a Diploma of Visual Arts at Swinburne University. lnitially she focused on painting and drawing, but more recently she has produced some large installations that relate to space, movement, light and invisible things that one does not consciously deal with. She participated in solo and group shows, and in 2010 she received the Alliance Française Prize for Outstanding Monash Students, and in 2009 was a finalist in the Blake Prize Director’s Cut Exhibition and an awarded artist at the Walker St Gallery’s Annual National Competition.

Passing Linocut, 100 x 45cm, 2011, $400

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Benjamin Silver

VCA - The University of Melbourne

Mapping an Absolute, Oil on paper, 52 x 72cm, 2011, NFS

Infinite questions, ideas, scenarios fill my head, chest, veins, lungs, spine.... my psyche. My practice is oriented towards the abstraction of the figure from itself, leaving only the libidinal energy we all possess. The universe of intensity inside the body is a vast landscape that once we become in sync with, can be understood as a visual manifestation. This work was informed by channelling the incredible force created by intense loss. It speaks of the horror of suicide felt first hand and the cataclysm of tidal emotions felt in its wake. This has been depicted via a contemporary version of the traditional Aboriginal ‘map’ making painting techniques, as they are this country’s traditional land owners, so is my body of the emotions contained within. This is art as therapy, and therapy as documentation.

Visits with his parents to galleries in Australia and overseas, including the Louvre at age 12 left a distinct impression on Benjamin and as a teenager he was absorbed in the Melbourne graffiti art scene.

In 2009 he was accepted into a Diploma in Visual Art at CAE Melbourne where he discovered printmaking. In 2010 he began a Bachelor of Fine Art (Printmaking) at VCA Melbourne which saw an evolution in his practice toward conceptual art.

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Caitlin Sivyer Brit TAFE Bendigo

Playful Neighbourhood Ghosts, Photograph, 47 x 67cm, 2011, $350

This is a photograph taken using painting with light techniques and a bulb setting capturing the florescent glow of glow sticks combined with house lights and the dusk of the setting sun to give an impression of playful, whimsical behaviour. The glow sticks were actually attached to my very accepting dog who was enjoying playing in the backyard at the time. The house lights and structures illuminate with the evening light to give the photograph a grounded sense, evoking a feeling of warm homecoming after a long day, with a touch of childlike enchantment.

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Caitlin has been a practising student of art since childhood, growing up in a family which revered art and encouraged her to immerse herself in creative exploration. She is fascinated by the intricate detail and often complicated techniques employed by artists to achieve their desired outcome. She moved to Bendigo just before her 18th birthday to study art. She was struck by the community spirit and support for emerging artists in the town and is grateful for the opportunities it has provided including working as a studio assistant to artist Tim Jones. She is currently studying for a Diploma of Visual Art.

Madé Spencer-Castle

VCA - The University of Melbourne

Squirrel at Anish Kapoor Archival Inkjet Print, 75 x 120cm, 2011, $400

Squirrel at Anish Kapoor is part of a body of work examining ways we experience sites of tourism through documentation, and how photography acts as an alteration of memory. By photographing the space next to the site of interest (in this case, an Anish Kapoor sculpture in Hyde Park) I preserve my own memory by fabricating an alternate one.

Madé moved from Launceston, Tasmania in 2009 to commence studies at the Victorian College of the Arts and to immerse himself in Melbourne’s contemporary art scene. Since then he has exhibited in several group shows, including being selected for Recent Work at the George Paton Gallery with two other VCA students.

In 2010, he co-curated On Norbert Loeffler at the VCA student gallery. Madé is currently in his third year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in photography.

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Prue Stevenson LaTrobe College of Art & Design

Life in Print, Old book pages, 30x80x30cm, 2011, POA

This work is an expansion of my life drawing works, where I have created three layer collages made from the pages of old books. The idea for this work came from an art project where I had to create a piece of art using only the materials found in an old book. By pinning the works on a window I found that the light helps the viewers see the images. In the same way as characters develop in your imagination as you read a book, the collages of my life drawings provide the subtle outline of these characters, unfinished without features, which makes the observer fill in the detail with their own imagination.

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Prue’s practice is based around life drawing and ‘scribbles’ as she calls them through which she explores her obsession with faces. Her drawings are like notations of people she sees in public places.

These working sketches are done in ballpoint pen, which she says, keeps them ‘very honest because I can’t hide anything’.

Lyndal May Stewart

VCA - The University of Melbourne

Lyndal was not particularly exposed to the arts as a young person but sought it out with ferocity and always had a camera in her hand.

On completing High School she achieved the goal she set herself as an 11 year old and left the bright lights of Geelong for her spiritual home of London where she continued to feed her art obsession and further develop her interest in photography.

On returning to Australia she discovered that making art is something that you could actually do and that there were whole institutions set up to nurture and develop emerging artists. Lyndal enrolled at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2009.

Nan/Nannette Type C Photographic print, 80 x 80cm, 2010, NFS

I construct photographs and videos that use the notion of the mask. Masking is a strategy to blur the lines of what we immediately recognize and what we don’t in portraiture. Using the photographic and the

moving image I explore the concept of the self. The quintessential distinctiveness that we all have that is bigger than the mask, which cannot be contained by such a device. The mask is a tool, a ploy to lull the viewer into believing that they know what is going on. While the mask distracts the true

essence of the image, the real intention bubbles to the surface through the other face in its physical manifestation. I want the viewer to re-evaluate preconceived notions in the photographs and videos. I wish to reposition the context, with respect to Oscar Wilde; give someone a mask and they will tell you the truth.

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Adie Teubert The Gordon

Sleeper, Ink on paper, 70 x 100cm, 2010, NFS

I have been interested in art from an early age, particularly figurative drawing and portraiture.

Through engagement with study and contemporary art theories I have expanded this interest to include ideas of representation and abstraction, recognising that the outward

appearance of a subject matter can impact on its perceived meaning. For me the study of a person goes beyond visually recreating their features and figure, it explores the effect the sitter’s presence has on the world around them. Sleeper captures a moment in time, the effect the sleeper has on his personal world and the interactions within that world seen through the eyes of a voyeur.

Adie is currently in her final year of a Bachelor of Visual Arts degree. She has fully embraced the opportunities this has afforded her and upon completion her ambition is to participate in an overseas residency to further her skills and to study contemporary art in other cultures.

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Josephine Trencher LaTrobe College of Art & Design

Liquid Breath, Oil on canvas, 91 x 152cm, 2010, NFS

My techniques involve exploring the limits of the oil paints, mediums and solvents, in a spontaneous and organic style. I enjoy the results being open to interpretation. This work was produced in December 2010 as an end of year project that was developed from my working ideas refined throughout the year. It explores the idea of an organic, liquid space, which invites the viewer to fall into the depths and be immersed in the unknown.

Despite a lifelong interest, Josephine never believed that she could paint or draw.

In 2010 she decided to find out and is currently studying for a Diploma of Visual Art. Now that she has discovered painting she has found it difficult to stop. She is interested in ideas that explore alternative spaces through abstract forms and colour.

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Ri Van Veen La Trobe University

Disconnect, Clay, 170x100x30cm approx, 2011, $2500 (Images work in progress)

A story often plays out as I create my works. Sometimes there is a clear path and an easy way to the end. At other times it is a struggle; the clay and I adversaries until we finally come together. It is often only then that I see an expression of something from deep within. The clay transforms into a hidden emotion or experience. Raku and pit-firings are favoured as the finish is inherently unpredictable; the kiln gods playing their part in the creation. My art

is now exploring humanity’s inner core and its desire to be one with nature and not in denial of what makes us truly whole and sublime. My personal journey from living on the land with livestock and growing my own food, to living in the city, is reflective of how modern man has progressed. The loss and grief due to this disconnect from nature goes almost unnoticed. It is only when confronted with the natural landscape that I am hit by a longing and find my self taking a deep breath as if trying to absorb all that surrounds me.

Ri began her art journey in response to a battle with Cronic Fatigue Syndrome. She now lives in Williamstown and is studying for a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Ceramics.

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Nicholas Werrett

Monash University

She Tasted of Aroused Women the Greatest Aphrodisiac of all Photography, 80 x 110cm, 2011, $1300

This artwork started as an experiment using a digital scanner to simulate a photogram in a contemporary setting. The pieces of paper are ripped from an old pulp romance novel. These are objects that I have been collecting for the last two years with no clearer idea of how I was going to incorporate them into my practice than that I liked the predictable kitschness of the cover art and the odd writing style. The writing exploits and warps the notion of female desire by playing off its readers’ insecurities into something quite bizarre, whilst relying on implicit (which is often quite explicit) textural devices to convey its eroticism. The notion of implicit eroticism is part of this work, parodying its formal underpinnings of composition; its construction is in the semi ridiculous medium of the pulp romance novel.

Nicholas studied art in secondary school but applied to university to study medicine as he saw it as a holistic study, incorporating ideas from many different fields. When he didn’t get into medicine he took a gap year and started to seriously focus on his art practice, travelling to Europe where he filled books with notes and ideas, developing a great interest in contemporary and avant garde art. He realised the conceptual basis to his practice was important as he could incorporate his broad interests in science, mathematics, philosophy, history etc. He is currently in his 1st year of study for a Bachelor of Visual Arts.

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Belinda Williamson Monash University

Alice and Edith Collage, ink, gesso, pencil, charcoal on paper, 90 x 70cm, 2011 $410

With her children starting school, Belinda decided to pursue her a passion for art, studying night school at RMIT TAFE. Having really enjoyed that, she has now enrolled for a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University Her major is painting and she also enjoys the practice of drawing and printmaking. The German Expressionists and Surrealists are her main art influences. She is inspired by the built environment, in particular people’s thought processes and the relationships between ideas, philosophies and places.

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I am interested in the deconstruction and the abstraction of shapes, and the use of metaphors.

In the process of developing collaged drawings, I have been manipulating photographs taken of spider webs to get an abstracted image. I used parts of the drawing and text with an image from the internet, cut up and pasted with my own drawing. They related to the idea of the web and the individual psychosomatic self along with the notion of individualism in an increasingly transgressed world. The text is from a book The Politics and Poetics of Transgression relating to authorship and the individual in society. There is a drawing inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, of Alice holding the pig with the quote “Don’t grunt”, said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself”.

Nicole Willis

VCA - The University of Melbourne

Novel Bones, Oil on canvas, 160 x 200cm, 2011, $1000

This painting is one of many I have completed on the subjects of books; how their physicality and the texture of the worn pages and spine is of the utmost beauty because within that you can see its history, its connection to our own world. The book has clearly been read hundreds of times; it’s falling apart, the pages yellowing, and yet its this very age which, contradictorily to the materialism that permeates our current society, makes it beautiful. The peeling away of the pages from the spine also resembles a yellowing skeleton; the tragedy of the continuing eradication of the written word by cold technology that is unable to hold any of the emotion or history that these pages can.

In her first year of study for a BA in Fine Arts, Nicole’s aim is to explore as many methods and materials as is possible in order to express her impressions of the world around her. She takes the practical, technical side of art and painting especially, as one of the most important aspects of her practice. She uses her technique to explore the forms and physical aspects of objects and how human history is entwined within the objects to create an emotional attachment. She believes this attachment is of the highest value to society because without it we have no connection to the things we own.

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Michelle Yann Australian Academy of Design

I believe that nature can, and will always, outdo man in creating something beautiful and I endeavour to capture that in my artwork.

In my garden, I had a New Zealand Christmas Tree bush that didn’t survive the drought and had died. It was still holding onto all of its leaves but had completely sucked all the green colour out of them leaving them ghostly white.

These are the leaves I used to create this dress. I felt almost like the bush was desperately trying to hold onto its leaves so they could be useful to someone so I’ve preserved them in this way to create beauty once more.

Autumn Wire, fabric and leaves 180x90x90cm, 2011 $1850

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Michelle has always loved drawing and creating things by hand from anything she could find. She is particularly interested in nature and the colours, shapes and different materials that can be found in all plants and flowers. Currently in her 3rd year of a Bachelor of Design Arts, she is still excited by her studies and enjoying the journey of developing her own style and enriching her understanding and learning from the world around her.

Sales Enquiries Sales enquiries for any of the works in the catalogue can be made by contacting the curator Ken Wong on 0419 570 846

If you are interested in becoming involved in the Toyota Community Spirit Gallery program or wish to be added to our mailing list to be kept informed of upcoming events, email info@watcharts.com.au or visit www.watcharts.com.au/toyota.html or phone 03 58214548.

IMAGE: Back Yard by Johann Rashid, Photograph 78.5 x 106.2cm, 2011