Ayad Alqaragholli
Image source The Studio Gallery
Ayad has exhibited extensively internationally; often in the Middle East, in particular Jordan and Baghdad for more than twenty years.
Most recently he has created large-scale in situ public art projects artworks in China at the High-Tech zone of the acclaimed Qingdao International Lan Bay Art Park, China and a major public art sculpture as an invited symposium member for the Changbai Mountain International Symposium on the Chinese/North Korean border.
Ayad is known for his large-scale public art projects and has recently completed the Presbyterian Ladies College Centenary Sculpture
“The figure is very important in art history. The first artists drew figures on the walls of caves and in time they then began to make obelisks. Afterwards they made figures of heroes from their history in the form of sculptures. The contemporary human can read the story of the history of the world from the artwork that has been produced throughout the ages.
The figure has accompanied me in my mind since I was a child, because I grew up in the region of Ur, southern Iraq and all around me was the history of Samaria which made a big impression on me. Therefore this influenced me to become an artist and sculptor.
My artwork is a documentary from what I see in my daily life. The figure in my artwork means love, land, peace and freedom and modern history needs to translate and document reality. In philosophy the meaning of art is about the history of mankind.
All my artwork is built on two things - form and idea, narrative and beauty. The idea for my artwork begins in my mind as a dream about humans, then animals and ending with birds. Also I connect the two different cultures of Samaria and Australia in my artwork which reflects the old world and the new world, so I adapt the old to become new and reflect this in what I produce. My memory carries a lot of observations from my childhood through to my new homeland and peace in Australia... some things are sad and some things are happy and ending with peace. In the past my artwork meant sadness and in the present it means peace.
I use many materials in my artwork but my favourite is bronze because bronze is a material that has been used throughout history, it has the 'smell' of history.
What makes me glad is when I see somebody who shows kindness to another person and also the sound of birds in the morning inspire me to be creative in the new day, but mostly it gives me satisfaction to make a sculpture of a figure which is part of history.”
Visit: alqaragholli, thestudiogallery
AC4CA (Australian Centre for Concrete Art)
Image source AC4CA
The AC4CA was initiated in 2001 by gallerist and academic Julian Goddard and a group of artists living and practicing in Fremantle, Western Australia. The groups stated objectives were to
‘establish a national/international foundation which promotes artistic activities relating to the guiding principles of the international movement known as Concrete Art. The general principles of Concrete Art reflect an emphasis on the material basis of art making, non representation, purity/singularity and a focus on the process of construction’
Since its inception the AC4CA has grown into an international network of artists holding regular collaborative exhibitions in and outside Australia and continuing to foster public wall-works.
The cross-generational and international composition of membership attests to the currency of the group’s interest and the nature of Concrete Art. The AC4CA has managed to evolve in a way that reflects its opportunities and possibilities while staying true to the initial intention of supporting and presenting neo-Concrete Art in the public domain. This clear intention continues to direct and drive their activities.
Visit: ac4ca
Helen Smith
Image source Helen Smith
Helen Smith lives and works on Gadigal land, Sydney
Her practice is influenced by a formal, minimalist view-point with simplicity of form and geometric abstraction generally contributing to the outcome. Oil on canvas paintings, large scale wall works (quite often completed as projects with her collaborator in life Jeremy Kirwan-Ward) and a number of ongoing photographic series derived from an interest in social and cultural systems form the basis for her enquiry.
Helen Smith was born in 1963 in Cooma, New South Wales. In 2000, she graduated from Curtin University of Technology, with a Bachelor of Arts. Since 2002 she has been an active member of the Australian Centre for Concrete Art (AC4CA).
Together with Jeremy Kirwan-Ward she has collaborated on a number of site specific, large-scale wall works including an installation in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, in Hegenheim, France and at the Institut Fur Alles Mogliche in Berlin.
In 2018 Helen participated in an artist’s residency with artisan print maker Sally Gimson in the United Kingdom and exhibited with Institut Fur Alles Mogliche in Berlin. She has participated in research residencies at Point B Residency in New York and in 2013 at the Institut Fur Alles Mogliche in Berlin.
Her works are included in the collections of National Gallery of Australia, the Daimler Collection in Berlin, Artbank, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Australian Embassy in Madrid, Curtin University Collection, The University of Western Australia, Murdoch University, Bankwest, Hebel_121 Collection and various private collections in Australia and Europe.
Visit: helensmith, artcollectivewa
Jordan Sprigg
Image source Jordan Sprigg
Based in country Western Australia, Sprigg uses recycled metals found from retired machinery, scrap heaps and clearance sales. Some of the pieces found dating over 100 years old and used by the earliest settlers of Western Australia. The objects he produces range from dragonflies, owls and seahorses, to larger scale sharks, eagles and even horses.
The scrap iron sculptures are purposely left in their rusted state to highlight the age of the metal and the history of each piece. From springs, gears, bearings and nuts to bolts, shovels, pliers and saws, the list is endless as to what the artist makes use of in his work. Understanding and appreciation of these timeworn parts of a past life allows space for creation of a new life in their current composition.
Visit: JordanSprigg, Instagram, Facebook
Shaun Tan
Image source Stefan Tell
Shaun Tan works as an artist, writer and film-maker in Melbourne. He creates semi-mechanical and animalesque beings that seem born of both the natural world and industrious humans. Whimsical, cerebral, socially aware, grotesque and cuddly, Tan's artistic universe runs the emotional gamut.
He is best known for illustrated books that deal with social and historical subjects through dream-like imagery, widely translated throughout the world and enjoyed by readers of all ages.
Shaun is the recipient of an Academy Award for the short animated film The Lost Thing, the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK.
Shaun Tan was born in Fremantle, Western Australia and grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth.
Stuart McMillan
Image source StuartMcMillan
Stuart McMillan is a multidisciplinary artist based amongst the forests, bushland, caves, waterways and coastline of Wadandi Boodja - Margaret River Region which he has called home for more than 20 years.
“Translating my experience of the world using a diverse sensory pallet including and not limited to sculpture, photography, painting, print media, drawing and immersive installation, I continue to explore concepts of the human condition, interested in how the external world influences the internal being, within a myriad of habitats.”
Visit: StuartMcMillan, Instagram, Facebook
Nola Farman
Image source Realtime
Nola Farman is an interdisciplinary artist with a diverse practice that includes large scale public artworks, environmental works, installations including video, sound and sensors, small sculpture, drawing and artists books. Often her artworks are participatory and need the viewer to complement the work. Farman writes and researches.
Visit: nolafarman, realtime
Ian dowling
Image source Margaret River Art Trails
While Ian Thompson Dowling uses a diverse range of ceramic production techniques to work across all scales, each of the forms of his art are closely interrelated.
"Using the medium of ceramics I work to produce three broad formats of related visual art."
He uses repetition of related elements across large surfaces to develop rhythm and perception of movement. These wall or floor pieces can be temporary as in the recent Fremantle Arts Centre exhibition or permanent as in public and private art commissions.
Individual ceramic sculptural forms are built using a variety of techniques. Currently these explore contrasting surfaces contained in fragmented pieces, small parts of a whole. Most of this work implies unbounded space beyond the piece itself.
The design of innovative pieces for the presentation of food using techniques and concepts found in the other areas of his practice.
Visit: IanDowling, Instagram
Workshed mosaic
Image source Workshed Mosaics
For more than two decades Workshed Mosaics has guided people of all ages and abilities through the classic art of mosaics, where tiles and grout combine to make striking, colourful, and intricate designs.
Founded by husband-and-wife team Paul and Lisa Petale, Workshed Mosaics celebrates this uniquely accessible art form with friendly, personal instruction that empowers individuals to express themselves.
Whether teaching school holiday classes, working on a classroom project, or producing major art installations for public spaces, Workshed Mosaics always strives for artistic harmony while leaving space for individual expression and happenstance.
Instead of simply smashing tiles to make patterns, Lisa and Paul have developed their own distinct style of mosaics.
This involves cutting and shaping tiles with hand tools to achieve incredibly detailed, balanced and eye-catching works.
Through this method, they combine the accuracy of ancient Roman tesserae with the free expression of modern style.
Visit: workshedmosaics
Sir George Frampton
Image source Public Statues and Sculpture Association (painted by Meredith Frampton, 1919)
Sir George James Frampton Sculptor R.A., P.R.B.S. was a sculptor and craftsman, born in London.
He worked first in an architect’s office, then for a firm of architectural stone carvers, before training, 1880–81, at South London Technical School of Art under W.S Frith and, 1882–87, at the Royal Academy (RA) Schools. His group, An Act of Mercy, exhibited at the RA in 1887, won him the gold medal and travelling studentship, and in 1888–90 he was in Paris, studying sculpture under Antonin Mercié. Here, at the Salon of 1889, his Angel of Death gained him a gold medal. On his return to London, he briefly worked in the studio of Joseph Edgar Boehm.
In the 1890s, Frampton became interested in the Arts and Crafts movement and wrote influential articles on enamelling, woodcarving, and polychromy, etc. Two works which demonstrate his skills in combining various media, as well as his interest in French symbolism in these years, are Mysteriarch (for which he was awarded the médaille d’honneur at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900), in plaster, partially gilt (1892; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and Lamia, in ivory, bronze and opals (1900; RA collection).
Frampton was a member of the Art Workers’ Guild from 1887 and Master in 1902. He was at the forefront of the movement to reintegrate sculpture and architecture, his assured sense of architectural design clearly embodied in his sculptures for J.W. Simpson’s Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove (1897–1900); in T.E. Collcutt’s Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, City of London (1898–1901) and in Aston Webb’s Cromwell Road entrance arch for the Victoria and Albert Museum (1905–06). Frampton was elected an Associate Royal Academician 1894 and full RA 1902 (exhibiting regularly at the RA 1884–1928). In 1908 he was knighted. He was President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, 1911–12, having been a founder member. Among his most popular works is his Peter Pan, Kensington Gardens, London, 1912 (further casts in Brussels [1924]; Newfoundland [1925]; Camden, New Jersey [1926]; and Sefton Park, Liverpool [1927]; plus two posthumous casts, Perth, Australia, and Toronto, Canada [both 1929]). Recognition brought increasing numbers of public commissions, including many for monuments to Queen Victoria (firstly at Calcutta, 1897; then variants at Winnipeg; St Helens, Lancashire; Leeds, etc). One of his most splendid private commissions is the set of silver-gilt figure panels of Arthurian heroines for the door of the Great Hall for Two Temple Place, Lord Astor’s London house, 1895–96.
Visit: victorianweb, pssauk
Keizo Ushio
Image source Keizo Ushio
Keizo Ushio is one of Japan’s most highly regarded sculptors and is renowned internationally for his extraordinary granite sculptures.
His ingenious carving technique, based on the mathematics of the Moebius strip is extremely difficult to realise in granite, making his work popular with the public and collectors across the world.
Ushio graduated from the Kyoto City of University of Arts in 1976 and, upon receiving First Prize at the Henry Moore Exhibition at the Hakone Open Air Museum in 1979, began developing his signature style of sculpting. His carving technique is influenced by the mathematics of the Moebius strip, typically known as a one-sided, one-edged surface, which is notoriously difficult to create with materials of great weight and density. It is the achievement of this elegant reversed loop using the unyielding medium of granite that makes Ushio’s work at once elegant and astonishing. The artist says of his work,
“I want to tell a story of man’s wisdom, exceeding both space and time. My sculpture is the proof of my existence.”
Ushio has exhibited to international acclaim with his work represented in exhibitions, public locations and private collections in Japan, Spain, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Israel, India, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Ushio’s work has proved extremely popular with Australian collectors and the public alike since he began exhibiting in Australia at Sculpture by the Sea in 1999.
“I remember standing in Marks Park at Bondi in 1999 and dreaming how Sculpture by the Sea would grow over the next 10 years and that I wished to participate for 10 years. More than 10 years have already passed and I have many kinds of dreams about Sculpture by the Sea. Happily, I have exhibited in all Sculpture by the Sea since then in Sydney, Tasmania, Perth and Aarhus. Now I dream to see Sculpture by the Sea go to five continents, including Japan. Personally, one of best dreams to come true is increasing new friends around the world through Sculpture by the Sea.”
Visit: Keizo Ushio, facebook, sculpturebythesea, wikipedia
Debra Bettoni
Image source Tari Jeffers, Manjimup-Bridgetown Times
Debra Bettoni is a painter who works and resides in Pemberton, WA. She enjoys painting close detail and bright colours.
“I enjoy detail, I’m not a landscape painter, I like big, bold colour and I like painting fruit, even if no one else likes it”
Visit: thewest
Leanne Bray
Image source City of Karratha
Artist and designer based in Perth, Western Australia.
From large multidiscipline public art installations, to a bold and colourful studio practice, Leanne’s work incorporates her cultural passions with her design background, translated into an exciting arts practice.
Her site specific public artwork is defined by the ability to create harmonious design, often incorporating bold swaths of rich patterning, with complex, beautiful layers of colour. Having always fostered an innate passion for repetition and pattern, and the beauty created through the considered composition, Leanne uses a range of skills and experimentation: from detailed and intimate renderings inspired by nature, through to architectural scale works involving textural layering and exploration of surfaces.
Leanne’s African life and its influences are worn like a proud mantle and it’s inevitable that her work is richly informed by years of direct engagement with world textile traditions, and primary crafts, with the influence of earthy patterning creating a narrative for her own storytelling, in neat and sometimes not so neat pieces.
Visit: leannebray
Suzanne Fellows
Image source GoggleWorks - Centre for the Arts
Suzanne Fellows works in printmaking, painting, drawing, book arts and digital surface pattern design.
“My imagery expresses a love and respect for the magic of the natural world – a love that springs from childhood summers spent hiking, canoeing and picking wildflowers in West Virginia and New Hampshire. This deep connection is something that we cannot afford to lose or we all will be lost.”
Fellows has been actively teaching at colleges, galleries and art centers for 18 years. She received her BFA in Communication Design from Kutztown University and an MFA in Fine Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Visit: goggleworks
Rone (Tyrone Wright)
Image source Timothy Marriage
Finding the friction point between beauty and decay is a thread that runs through much of Rone’s work. As a street artist best known for his haunting, stylised images of women’s faces, he understands better than most that beauty can be fleeting. Seeing his artworks gradually worn away by natural and human elements has taught him to appreciate the unexpected beauty of an image as it begins to blend back into its more prosaic surroundings.
Rone has gone from spearheading Melbourne’s fledgling street art movement in the early 2000s, as a member of the Everfresh crew, to being a celebrated fixture on the international street art scene. An inveterate traveller, his distinctive female muses have followed him around the world, and can be found – in various states of decay – peering out from beneath overpasses and emblazoned on walls everywhere from New York to New Zealand and many places in between.
These days, Rone’s work is found as often in galleries as it is on the streets. His work has been acquisitioned by the National Gallery of Australia, commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria to work with Jean Paul Gaultier and shown by galleries including Stolen Space in London, Urban Nation in Berlin and Allouche Gallery in New York.
Rone, the Melbourne artist, has carved a distinct niche for himself, renowned for his large-scale "walkthrough" installations that breathe life into forgotten spaces. Transitioning from painting murals, Rone embarked on a transformative journey, collaborating with the very spaces themselves to evoke captivating narratives.
Together with his collaborators, Rone orchestrates the construction of these immersive installations, reminiscent of movie sets. Every aspect, from designing the furniture to meticulously placing cobwebs and dust, is executed with unparalleled attention to detail. The result is an enchanting fusion of sight, sound, and atmosphere, as carefully crafted soundscapes intertwine with dynamic lighting sequences.
Breaking free from the confines of the traditional gallery model, Rone has embraced a path less traveled, affording him the flexibility to explore new artistic horizons. His most recent triumph unfolded within the iconic Flinders Street Train Station, an architectural gem that stands as the epitome of Melbourne's identity.
Drawing from his street art background, Rone recognises the pivotal role of context in the appreciation of art. Unable to fully convey such context within the confines of a white-walled gallery, he embarked on a journey to present his work within its natural environment. Initially capturing his creations through photography, RONE swiftly extended an invitation to viewers to experience these sites firsthand. This innovative approach paved the way for collaboration with sound and lighting experts, offering Rone an entirely new dimension to incorporate into his art beyond the flat image.
Rone's work is a testament to the power of transformation, breathing new life into forgotten spaces and engaging audiences in a multi-sensory journey. With each installation, he pushes the boundaries of artistic expression, inspiring viewers to question their perceptions and embrace the beauty of impermanence.
Visit: rone.art
Don Walters
Image source Don Walters
Don Walters is an Australian sculptor, painter and graphic artist.
He lives and works in Ocean Grove on Victoria’s surf coast, south of Melbourne. This stretch of coastal landscape is a constant influence on his artwork whether through abstraction or as a setting for his whimsical narrative paintings, water colours and mono prints.
Visit: donwaltersart
Mandy Evans
Image source Instagram
Mandy Evans is a lifelong artist from Western Australia, and has been successful for over 30 years. She thinks this is because she keeps pushing boundaries and changing “… It keeps me passionate and obsessively working”
Visit: mandyevans, instagram
Anita Revel
Image source Instagram
Anita Revel is a multidisciplinary artist based in Western Australia. She is a muralist, sculptor, interior designer and celebrant working in the Margaret River region.
One of Revel’s common motifs are large, colourful, disembodies wings ideal for taking selfies. Vibrant colour is a consistent feature throughout all of her work, which includes portraits, animals, and flowering plants.
Her arts practice is underpinned by pattern and movement, and features ethereal backgrounds, whimsical vignettes and evocative, colourful abstracts. Working mainly in acrylics, Anita also diversifies her work by creating vivid murals, quirky installations and oversized dreamcatchers.
Her motto is: expressive, colourful, delightful, repeat.
Visit: anitarevel, instagram
Olga Cironis
Image source Art Collective WA
In her art practice Olga Cironis explores personal and collective identity within today’s cultural globalisation. From a strong migrant feminist foundation Olga scrutinises ideas around belonging and place by researching counter histories and human interaction within ecological dilemmas starting with personal experience. Often inviting public participation and story sharing, Olga succeeds to seduce the public to further delve, reflect and question our connection to nature and place in the world.
Olga Cironis is a highly respected award-winning artist, living in Fremantle WA, with a multidisciplinary art practice spanning over 30 years. Since graduating with a Master of Visual Arts from SCA/University Sydney 1996, Cironis has exhibited nationally and internationally. Cironis has undertaken local and international art residencies and projects. Her work is featured in numerous public, corporate, and private collections globally. In 2021 Art Collective WA published a monograph featuring much of Olga’s art practise over the past 30 years.
Olga Cironis is a member of Art Collective WA.
Visit: artcollectivewa, sickaf.amandaalderson
Jennie Nayton
Image source Instagram
Jennie combines elements of photography, drawing and sculpture together in her unique artform which is based on techniques of origamic architecture. Her works begin as marquettes in paper but are then translated in a variety of mediums, such as stainless steel, tessellating ceramic forms, large free standing cast concrete forms, acrylic and bronze.
She graduated in 2004 from Curtin University with a Bachelor of Arts (Art) with Honours. Since then she has held three solo exhibitions, her last one Pause the Moment held at Gallery East in 2010. She won the 2007 City of South Perth Acquisitive Art Award and has been a finalist in a number of group exhibitions including the Off the Wall Feature at Art Melbourne 07, Art Sydney and Art Brisbane 08, the Fremantle Print Awards (2002, 2006 and 2008), the Sydney Art on Paper Fair (2005), the City of Joondalup Invitation Art Award (2005 & 2006) and the City of Perth Photomedia Award (2006). In 2009 Jennie moved into Public Art and has since won 11 major public artwork commissions, these commissions are in installed in various locations across the Western Australia including one on Adelaide Terrace in Perth. Jennie is included in a number of state and national collections including Artbank, the State Library of Queensland and Parliament House in Canberra.
