Alma Toomath
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Alma Toomath(1940-2021), Noongar artist, was born at Mount Barker in south Western Australia in 1940. Toomath was removed from her family in 1945 and taken to Carrolup Native Settlement near Katanning, in Western Australia. There she was taught by Lily White, the wife of headmaster Noel White, who is renowned for having encouraged the older children to paint and draw their surroundings. This led to the children creating high quality and sought after landscape works that were toured and sold in Australia and overseas in the late 1940 and 1950s. In the documentary Show us a light: the art of Carrolup (1991), Toomath describes her memories of being around the older boys as they created their work; she talks of the fact that the artistic tradition established by the Carrolup children artists has been an ongoing source of inspiration in her work and that of other Noongar artists.
After two years at Carrolup, Toomath was sent to Roelands Mission, which was to the east of Katanning, close to the Western Australian coast. As a child on the missions, drawing was a means for Alma to cope with the trauma of being away from her family.
After she left high school, she undertook a bridging course at the Curtin University in Perth, and went on to complete a Diploma in Fine Arts at Claremont Technical College. One of Toomath’s first exhibitions was in 1978 at the Aboriginal Advancement Council in Perth. After it was transferred to the control of the Baptist Church in 1952, the Carrolup Native Settlement came to be known as Marribank, and during the late 1980s and early 1990s Toomath was associated with the Marribank Artists Cooperative, which saw Noongar artists receive training and create pottery, jewellery and fabric items, the sale of which provided revenue to the Marribank Family Centre. In 1991 Toomath exhibited sculptural pieces alongside the work of Bella Kelly and Michelle Broun at the Fremantle Arts Centre in Fremantle.
In 2000 her work was included in the 'Aboriginal artists of the South-West: Past and Present’ exhibition at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery, The University of Western Australia. In the exhibition catalogue, Stanton writes that Toomath had been “creating experimental works that reflect on the nature of the landscape and the manner of its construction, in mythological terms.” (Stanton & Hill 2000, pp. 16-17).
Toomath has been a book illustrator, has participated in public art projects and has facilitated art workshops as a means of teaching students about culture within the education sector.
Her work is in the collection of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Curtin University and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology.
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Jurek Wybraniec
Image source Perth Now
Jurek Wybraniec was born in 1958, in Perth, Western Australia, as a first generation Australian of Polish heritage. He studied fine art at Claremont School of Art, followed by Curtin University of Technology where he received a Bachelor of Arts. Since his first show in 1986 Jurek has maintained a dynamic multidisciplinary practice which investigates how the aesthetics of popular culture and the everyday may be reinterpreted through a reductive approach; inviting the viewer to reassess their engagement with objects, materials, colour, space and place.
For over three decades Jurek has exhibited broadly in solo and group exhibitions, as well as national survey shows such as Meridian; Currents in Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and In Abstract: form and essence in recent Western Australian painting at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in Perth.
Jurek has participated in a survey of contemporary practice at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and featured in the National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
His more recent projects have included a solo exhibition at Art Collective WA; Sydney Contemporary 2017; TR + AS + JW, WA Focus at the Art Gallery of Western Australia; Geelong Contemporary Art Award; Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize; Green and Gold, a collaboration with David Atwood at Fremantle Arts Centre; and an exhibition with the AC4CA at FABRIKculture in Hégenheim, France.
Jurek has won a number of grants and awards, most recently he the Albany Art Prize in 2016 and in 2015 he won the Bankwest Art Prize. His work is represented extensively in both public and private collections, such as: the Art Gallery of Western Australia; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the National Gallery of Australia; Daimler Chrysler Collection, Berlin; The University of Western Australia, Australian Capital Equity, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, The Wesfarmers Collection, Western Mining Corporation, Murdoch University, Bankwest, Artbank, Bunbury City Art Collection.
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Joanna Lefroy Capelle
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Joanna Lefroy Capelle grew up on a farm in northern WA. On leaving school she joined WA Newspapers Ltd as their first female cadet artist, working with the likes of cartoonists Cedric Baxter and Bill Mitchell, artists Bruce Wroth and Stewart Cownie and caricaturist Clive Gordon, down the corridor from the legendary Paul Rigby. She wrote and illustrated a half page of fashion for the Daily News and subsequently Sydney Morning Herald for several years in Perth, then UK and Europe while living in London for 3 years in the late 60’s. A highlight was covering the Couture Collections in London, Paris, Rome and Madrid.
She started painting with a box of oils for her 17th birthday, and apart from a handful of lessons with Wim Boissevain and Henry Froudist, is self-taught.
Her works are figurative narratives which focus with humour and sensitivity on the everyday and the complexity yet simplicity of human nature. Her ‘Women With Balls’ series use body language and composition to create humorous metaphors for life and won her acclaim and a Lorenzo di Medici medal at the Florence Biennale in Italy in 2009.
After raising her children (now a Designer and a budding rock star based in London) in the Mundaring hills Joanna endured a divorce which triggered a sea-change to East Fremantle and a very mature-age degree in Fine Arts at Edith Cowan University. The following year she created her first Public Art Commission, a 20 meter etched cement render mural in Victoria Gardens, East Perth, for the East Perth Redevelopment Authority. The work, ‘Regeneration’, traces the area from its earliest Aboriginal inhabitants through to the arrival of Europeans, the horticultural and industrial phases of development to the current regeneration. This led to her second major Public Art project in1999-2000: 250 meters of etched cement render and natural oxide murals on the retaining walls of the Graham Farmer Freeway, at the Western Entrance to the Northbridge Tunnel. The narrative depicts the history of Northbridge from its early Indigenous people to settlement by Europeans, through the area’s various transitions, culminating in the thriving multicultural community of today. The last panel features the Indigenous AFL legend, Polly Farmer, handballing into the tunnel.
Joanna has held 21 solo and many mixed exhibitions throughout WA and in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Canada. She is represented in private, public and corporate collections throughout Australia, and in the UK, USA, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, France and Greece.
She currently lives in Helena Valley with her second husband, David Cameron, working on artistic projects and teaching in her studio. They travel regularly within Australia and overseas, gathering new material and inspiration for future paintings. She is currently rediscovering the joys of portraiture and life drawing.
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Waone
Image source Vadim Khudoliy
Vladimir(WAONE) was born in 1981 near Kyiv. His father was an art lover and a collector of local art and rare orthodox icons. Their home was full of art books and soviet magazines with perfect hand painted illustrations. Vladimir interested in art for the first time in early childhood when he was 4-5 y.o.
The art career of Vladimir Manzhos more known as Waone, begun in 1999. Few years after he has been painting graffiti a s a member of Ingenious Kids crew in Kyiv. In 2003 he got bored of letters and together with Aec went to the next level of public art - visual storytelling. They have been painting big surreal murals with fantasticstories. They developed their unique style of contemporarymuralism with extraordinary ephemeral form of monumental art.
In 2005 Waone and Aec established an artist duo - Interesni Kazki, which means «Interesting fairy tales» in ukrainian. Their murals are full of fairy characters, fine details, smooth gradients, symbols and stories. Next 10 years duo travel a lot. Inspiring by local cultures and traditions they paint murals expressing local flavor. Now their bright surreal paintings decorate the walls from Australia to Mexico and from San Francisco to Kyiv.
Early 2016 Vladimir established new direction in his mural painting - black and white murals.
2016 was the last year of Interesni Kazki as an artist duo. Since May 2016 Waone works as a single artist.
Art for Waone is a way to perfection and a portal to divine worlds. His artistic goal is to make high divine values accessible to every man.
Kat Black
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Kat Black is an artist based in Perth, Western Australia, she is the wife of Jasper Cook and together they run VJzoo a creative partnership for their artwork.
Their main works have been producing work that ranges from video art to interactive and integrated audiovisual work, as well as 2D and 3D works such as designs for floors, walls and lit sculptures. They also often work with historical images, and by bringing these to life they hope to engage an audience more actively with the past and a sense of place.
Some of the common themes they use in their work are history, memory, and a sense of wonder.
Ever Siempre
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Argentinian artist Ever Siempre is a street artist known for his focus on common human subject. When studying the subjects of his art, one can see certain elements of his work are elaborated for an intended purpose, emphasizing that particular piece with the use of a colourful, energetic colour palette. Ever’s works are featured as a part of the opening of URBAN NATION Museum in 2017.
His style developed almost accidentally as he began painting portraits of ex-lovers and his brother. Through giving importance to the inconsequential, the anonymous faces he adorned the city walls with were imbued with an unintentional gravitas by the viewer. His philosophy was, and still is, that graffiti is a point of connection for people. Additionally, Ever Siempre embraces his the religious themes of his culture by employing it into his artwork. Notable figures are depicted in accordance to his own artistic interpretation, highlighting the recognisable features of the specific person.
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Gaia
Image source Wide Walls
Gaia grew up in New York City and is a 2011 graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art with a Bachelor in Fine Arts.
His studio work, installations and gallery projects have been exhibited throughout the world most notably The Baltimore Museum of Art, Rice Gallery in Houston, the Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive in Spoleto and the Civil and Human Rights Museum in Atlanta. His street work has been documented and featured in several books on urban art, including Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art, (Berlin, 2010) and Outdoor Gallery (New York, 2014).
Gaia was listed as a 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Art and Style recipient in Art and Style and was a Fullbright beneficiary to study and paint in New Delhi and Bogotá on behalf of the State Department. In addition to a prolific and precocious artistic practice, Gaia has curated projects funded by the National Endowment for the arts, and consults with brands, organizations and government agencies on creative place-making projects. Gaia lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland, but spends a majority of his time painting murals across the world and has produced works in all six habitable continents.
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Bee K. C. Tan
Image source Bee K. C. Tan
Bee K. C. Tan showed a remarkable aptitude for art from a very young age. She pursued fine art studies much later in life after a two decade long career as a medical doctor, before relocating to Perth, Western Australia with her family. She graduated with a Certificate in Western Art from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in 2000, besides completing many art courses both in Singapore and in Perth.
Bee currently resides in Perth, Western Australia, where she has also been teaching Art classes privately since 2009. Her professional art practice began in earnest in 2018, with a residency at Settlers Cottage Artists Studios. She is currently a resident artist and tutor at Tresillian Arts Centre since July 2019.
Interest in the therapeutic value of Art led Bee to obtain an MA in Art Therapy in 2007 from Edith Cowan University. Having worked with Palliative Care Patients, schoolchildren and orphans in Kenya, she maintains a keen interest in the community arts and Art as Therapy. She has also painted several murals including the massive Parable of the Tree mural located at Rowland Street in Subiaco, supported by a community grant from the City of Subiaco. In 2012 she started and currently still facilitates Artseeds, a community art and craft group now meeting monthly, supported by Subiaco Church.
In 2019, with support from Subiaco Church, Bee received a grant from the City of Subiaco to paint portraits of residents of Wandana Flats. The portraits together with their stories were exhibited at Subiaco Library in January 2021 to great acclaim.
Bee is an avid urban sketcher and regularly documents her experiences from life in her sketchbooks. She enjoys teaching this rewarding and beneficial practice for personal wellbeing in her popular Sketchbooking classes and workshops.
Anna Czerkasow
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Anna Czerkasow is a local artist and has been involved with Pemberton Arts Group since its humble beginnings in 2004.
She has coordinated the group since 2009, working with the community on activities including “The Big Draw”, Pemberton annual festivals, workshops (for artists & community), the iconic Artscape & Children’s Pavers and the Centenary Tile project at Pemberton District High School. Her aim to create works that resonate with her - capturing the light, a stunning scene, the essence of a place or the spirit of an experience.
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Yinjaa-Barni Art Group
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Yinjaa-Barni Art is a not-for-profit Aboriginal Corporation governed by an Aboriginal board of directors and run by an executive manager. Yinjaa-barni is Yindjibarndi for ‘staying together’.
Yinjaa-Barni Art is a collective of Aboriginal artists who predominantly belong to the Yindjibarndi language group and whose ancestral homelands surround the Fortescue River and Millstream Tablelands.
Based in Roebourne, a small town in Western Australia’s Pilbara region of the north-west of the state, the Yinjaa-Barni artists create deeply personal works of collective memory, rendering the wildflowers, river systems and landforms of their country onto canvas.
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Pansy Hicks
Image source ABC News
Pansy Hicks is a Senior Ngarluma Elder and Artist who is famous for her Stepping Stones, which is based on "When The World Was Soft" story, passed down from her ancestors. Her country, Roebourne, is situated in WA’s Pilbara area, the Murujuga/the Dampier Archipelago.
“I’ve been painting for a long time. I paint about Munni-Munni Hill, that’s over there Cheeritha way. The Hill looks like a zebra. That’s why we call it Munni-Munni Hill.”
Pansy Hicks
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Wangaba Roebourne Art Group
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Wangaba Roebourne Art Group is based in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. With a membership of around 70 artists of Aborginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, WRAG is the region's only inclusive art group.
In common with indigenous artists from other parts of Australia, our artists paint their stories - from "when the world was soft" before cration, to contemporary pieces reflecting the reality of life today in one of the country's most remote, toughest areas.
WangabaRoebourne Art Group represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists working in an area that is home to many different Aboriginal language groups. It is located in Yirramagadu or Roebourne town, at Lot 500 Roe Street. This is also a sales/exhibition space where you can view work from the artists.
Brandon Ballengée
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Brandon Ballengée (American, born 1974) is a visual artist, biologist and environmental educator based in Louisiana.
Ballengée creates transdisciplinary artworks inspired from his ecological field and laboratory research. Since 1996, a central investigation focus has been the occurrence of developmental deformities and population declines among amphibians and other ectothermic vertebrates. In 2001, he was nominated for membership into Sigma XI, the Scientific Research Society. In 2009, Ballengée and Stanley K Sessions published “Explanation for Missing Limbs in Deformed Amphibians” in the Journal of Experimental Zoology and received international media attention from the BBC and others. This scientific study was the inspiration for the book Malamp: The Occurrence of Deformities in Amphibians (published by Arts Catalyst & Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK) and a solo exhibition at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (London, England: 2010). From 2009 through 2015 he continued his amphibian research as a Visiting Scientist at McGill University (Montréal, Canada) and, in 2011, he was awarded a Conservation Leadership Fellowship from the National Audubon Society’s TogetherGreen Program (USA). In 2014 he received his Ph.D. in Transdisciplinary Art and Biology from Plymouth University (UK) in association with the Hochschule für Gestaltung Zürich (Switzerland). In 2015, he was the recipient of a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). In 2016, his wife sustainable food educator Aurore Ballengée and he with their children began the Atelier de la Nature, a South Louisiana area eco-educational campus and nature reserve.
From 2016-2018, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate Museum of Natural Science at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), studying the impact on fish species from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill with Curator of Fishes Prosanta Chakrabarty. Their project, Crude Life Portable Museum: A Citizen Art and Science Investigation of Gulf of Mexico Biodiversity after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, is ongoing thanks to an Interdisciplinary Projects Grant Award from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI), a project of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Ballengée was also a 2017/18 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington D.C. examining species “missing” from the Gulf since the 2010 oil spill. In 2019 he received a Creative Capital Award and delivered a TEDxLSU talk. In 2020, he was included in the 2020 Grist 50 Emerging Environmental Leaders. In 2021, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was appointed Adjunct Faculty of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University.
Ballengée’s artwork has previously been exhibited throughout the USA and internationally in 18 countries, including Canada, Argentina, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Russia, India, China, South Korea and Australia. In the summer of 2013 the first career survey of Ballengeé’s work debuted at the Château de Chamarande (Essonne, France), and travelled to the Museum Het Domein (Sittard, Netherlands) in 2014. In 2016 a 20-year retrospective of his work was held at University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie, Wyoming.
His art has been featured in several major US publications, including ARTnews, Art in America, The New York Times, New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Orion, Audubon Magazine and Sculpture. Internationally, it was also featured in Beaux Arts (France), Greenpeace Magazin (Germany), Liberation (France), L’Oeil (France), The Observer (England), The Guardian (England), Financial Times (England), BBC News (England), D’Ars (Italy), Domenica (Italy), Il Venerdi (Italy), SNACKS (China), The Sunday Guardian: New Dehli (India) and others.
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Natalie Veal
Image source Natalie Veal
Born in 1967, Natalie considers at least 50 years of her life to have been filled extraordinarily with art in some form, drawing and painting on everything with anything from a very young age. Natalie drew her first lifelike portrait of her Great-Grandfather at the age of eleven, and painted her first portrait in oils of little sister Chantelle not long after. Throughout Natalie’s life, art has been a comfort, an inspiration, a communicator and a wonderful form of expression.
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Phil Goatcher
Image source Outback Family History
Phillip William Goatcher (23 November 1851 – 8 October 1931), often spelled "Philip", signing his work "Phil. W. Goatcher", was an English-born theatre scene painter who had a considerable career in America and Australia. His American-born son James Goatcher followed in his father's footsteps in Sydney, then both left for Perth, Western Australia, where they set up in business as painters and decorators. In later life James Goatcher was a highly regarded watercolor artist.
Goatcher was born in London, a son of Phil Goatcher (died 22 December 1897), who may have been a scenic painter. After leaving school, he signed on as an apprentice on the sailing ship True Briton.
True Briton docked at Melbourne in 1866, and he had a brief reunion with his aunt and uncle Boxall in Ballarat, and despite their entreaties returned to the ship. He again made port in Melbourne a year later, aboard Dover Castle and this time decamped and returned to Ballarat where he found employment as an assistant to the scene painter John Hennings, who took a shine to the boy and gave him some lessons, both there and with H. M. Freyberger at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, of which Hennings was a co-lessee. Around 1868 he took off with one John L. Hall for the Thames goldfields in New Zealand, but after failing to "strike it rich", took a job with Charles Massey, painting scenes for the Robert Heir company at the Theatre Royal, Grahamstown (now Onerahi). He stayed with that company until they were back in Sydney, then joined an American ship as an ordinary seaman.
Goatcher left the ship at San Francisco, where he soon found work, then in 1870 was taken on at John McCullough's California Theatre, painting scenery with William Porter for several of Wilson Barrett's productions. It was while working at the California that he first encountered David Belasco, J. C. Williamson and Maggie Moore. A year later he was on the road again, touring Central America and the West Indies, where he notably painted a drop-curtain for the Kingston Theatre in Jamaica. In 1871 he was in New York, painting under Matt Morgan, one of America's great scenic artists. He moved on to the old St James' Theatre, Boston, where W. H. Leake had the lease. From 1873 to 1875 he was in England, for much of that time in partnership with W. B. Spong, then abruptly and without saying goodbye, left for America. For three years he was in Philadelphia, under contract to the Kiralfy brothers, decorating their newly-acquired Alhambra Palace Theatre, and scenery for William E. Sheridan at the Chestnut Street Theatre and in New York working at Abbey's Park Theatre. That was followed by ten years at Wallack's Theatre in New York, when he did some of his best and most important work, Antony and Cleopatra for the Potter-Bellew Company, and other productions for Edwin Booth, Wilson Barrett and Lillie Langtry. He was naturalized as a US citizen in 1882. During this period he met William Elton, who would go on to an eminent career in Australia. In 1886 he was a scenic artist for Jeannette Thurber's American Opera Company. He claimed to have painted the scenes for the first American production of H.M.S. Pinafore. During the summer breaks, Goatcher produced under contract numerous drop-scenes painted to give the impression of a lustrous fabric, such as satin, so effective that the deception was not seen until close up; they were used in various theatres across America. In 1888 he joined with John H. Young in Manhattan as Goatcher & Young, scenic designers, but despite lucrative contracts such as a Macbeth production starring Lillie Langtry, and a huge cyclorama depicting the Shenandoah Valley, the shop was a commercial failure. He left with his sons James and Philip jnr for London, where he was engaged by the Adelphi Theatre, then in July 1890 was given a three-year contract by J. C. Williamson to work for him in Australia.
His first commission on returning to Australia was as assistant to John Brunton on The Gondoliers at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne for Williamson and Arthur Garner in October 1890, followed by Buchanan and Sims' The English Rose at the Theatre Royal. Other triumphs in this period were the pantomimes The Merry Monarch in 1891, Beauty and the Beast with George Gordon in 1893, also Around the World in Sixty Days and Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper at the Lyceum Theatre, Sydney in 1894. Topping them all was Djin Djin, the Japanese Bogie-man, with scenery from Goatcher, George and Jack Gordon, and W. B. Spong for Christmas 1895.
In 1895 he was commissioned to decorate the interior of George Adams's new Palace Theatre, Sydney, and took on the dual responsibilities of lessee and director. His plans fell through, however, and he was forced to declare insolvency, and returned to the paintpot and brush. In 1898 he won a commission to decorate the Singer Sewing Machine showroom in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building, using Wunderlich zinc ceiling tiles to create an Oriental atmosphere. Five years later he would decorate the Singer company's Melbourne showrooms in the Block Arcade, and in 1907 decorated the smoking room of the Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, with motifs of progress and modernization. In 1902 he was engaged to supervise decoration of the new Her Majesty's Theatre, Auckland, New Zealand.
Around 1903 Goatcher, with his wife Emma and younger son James, left for Western Australia in the hope that Perth's drier climate would be beneficial to his health, as he had been suffering from a chronic respiratory complaint, and in 1904 set up in business as "Phil W. Goatcher & Son, Art Decorators and General House Painters". He did, however, take on several scene painting commissions in the eastern states, notably The Chocolate Soldier, which opened in Melbourne in August 1911 before transferring to Sydney in November, in time for his 60th birthday.
He made an oil painting of The Assumption at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Fremantle, and another in 1922, entitled "Come unto me all ye who labour" mural at the Heritage-listed All Saints' Anglican Church, Collie, a variation on the Adoration of the Magi depicting the Virgin and Child being reverenced by the local Aboriginals, church dignitaries and miners.
Goatcher was noted for his trompe-l'œil act-drops in various designs which gave the illusion of (for instance) exotic scenery behind rich and elaborate curtains. The purpose of an act-drop is to hide on-stage activity by scene shifters between acts, and for the more expensive productions would be new designs, freshly painted and possibly a different screen for each act. Being highly visible at times during times of no other activity, they were the subject of scrutiny and contributed significantly to the success of the play. Unlike other works of art, the paintwork on act-drops was considered disposable, and at the end of a show's season the canvas, if still serviceable, would be washed down (the paint used being water-soluble) and reused for the next production. A rare survival of this process is an 8.45 by 6.25 metres (27.7 ft × 20.5 ft) act-drop painted by Goatcher in 1908, held at the Town Hall in the town of Boulder, Western Australia. It was discovered in 1990 amongst a lot of discarded material by a local artist. Restoration began six years later and cost $250,000.
Guided tours are held several times a week, and visitors may see the work lowered and raised by its original machinery (it has a timber frame). The carefully preserved hall is itself of further historic interest as the site of performances by Nellie Melba, Eileen Joyce and Joan Sutherland.
The Goatcher Auditorium at Wesley College in South Perth was named in his honour in 2008.
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Margaret Kous
Image source Taj Kempe
Ernie Turpin is qualified in cartography and management and has spent a significant amount of time working and teaching in those areas. He has also had a wealth of experience in computerized mapping and art teaching.
Having resigned from the State Public Service at age fifty five to become a freelance artist, Ernie embarked upon a full time art tutoring career - whereby he travelled throughout the State of Western Australia as an ‘artist-in-residence‘ over a period of some twelve years.
In particular, Ernie worked primarily with indigenous groups in remote locations, completing mural projects and tutoring students in various forms of art. He also was regularly contracted to work with a number of mining companies, craft groups, hospitals, local authorities, prisons and metropolitan schools, etc., which required extensive travelling into some of the most scenic terrain of Western Australia.
Ernie is now in retirement, spends most of his leisure time in the Perth Metropolitan Area working in his studio or giving talks and art demonstrations to a range of different audiences.
Margaret Kous was born in Mildura, Victoria in December 1949. Her parents took her to Auckland, New Zealand, in a flying boat in January 1950. In 1982, Margaret moved to Collie, Western Australia, with her husband Carl, where they raised a combined family of six children.
Margaret studied art at Collie TAFE completing a Diploma in Art. She also studied at ECU Bunbury, completing a Bachelor of Creative Industries majoring in Visual Arts. She then completed a Diploma of Education Primary, teaching in in various schools prior to her retirement.
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Ernie Turpin
Image source Taj Kempe
Ernie Turpin is qualified in cartography and management and has spent a significant amount of time working and teaching in those areas. He has also had a wealth of experience in computerized mapping and art teaching.
Having resigned from the State Public Service at age fifty five to become a freelance artist, Ernie embarked upon a full time art tutoring career - whereby he travelled throughout the State of Western Australia as an ‘artist-in-residence‘ over a period of some twelve years. In particular, Ernie worked primarily with indigenous groups in remote locations, completing mural projects and tutoring students in various forms of art. He also was regularly contracted to work with a number of mining companies, craft groups, hospitals, local authorities, prisons and metropolitan schools, etc., which required extensive travelling into some of the most scenic terrain of Western Australia.
Ernie is now in retirement, spends most of his leisure time in the Perth Metropolitan Area working in his studio or giving talks and art demonstrations to a range of different audiences.
Visit: CollieMuralTrail
Midnight Tuesday
Image source Midnight Tuesday
Midnight Tuesday was formed when established Western Australian artists Philip and Dawn Gamblen were joined by Peter Gee to create public artwork. Phil and Dawn have been working together as an artist team in the field of public art for fifteen years. During this time, they have worked collaboratively with Peter on art projects that have involved lighting, kinetics and technology.
Philip and Peter specialise in the use of mechanics, electronics, robotics and lighting to create interactive art that is often informed by technology and science. Many of these artworks rely on the use of wind or solar power to activate them or use lighting to simulate movement. Dawn's practice focuses upon implied movement, instilling her sculptures with a sense of dynamic energy and liveliness utilising strategic placement of repeated forms.
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Harrie Fasher
Image source Silversalt Photography
Harrie Fasher has established herself as a leading contemporary sculptor whose practice merges technical innovation with a deep commitment to strengthening Australia’s regional arts ecology. Based in Portland, NSW, an Honours graduate from the National Art School (2010), Harrie is represented by King Street Gallery on William, Sydney, and Australian Galleries, Melbourne.
Her large-scale handmade figurative and abstract sculptures explore psychological states through the language of material and form; evoking presence, vulnerability, and resilience.
Working primarily in steel, bronze, and concrete, she pushes the boundaries of material exploration through experimental casting and fabrication.
Harrie has been recognised by major sculpture prizes such as Sculpture by the Sea and Sculpture at Sawmillers and a plethora of awards including a recent Creative Australia Grant funding a solo exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery “Before Dawn” in November this year.
Since 2019, as principal artist-in-residence at the heritage-industrial site, Foundations Portland, Fasher has developed a 900m2 industrial studio capable of producing work from intimate pieces to monumental sculptures. She has built bronze foundry on-site, allowing her to experiment beyond constraints of commercial fabrication, whilst providing a platform for training and employment.
Balancing her own creative success as a leading contemporary artist with building a sustainable arts infrastructure, Fasher’s practice bridges regional, metropolitan, and international contexts, creating pathways for artists and community while contributing to Australia’s artistic excellence and regional cultural vitality.
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