Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art)
Painting Studio
Angela Mezzatesta. ‘A Natural Simulation’, 2023, Tengucho, kozo and washi paper, foraged pigments and dyes, cotton thread, wooden beads, dimensions variable.
2023 Awards
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Angela Mezzatesta
Chapman & Bailey Award. A WALK AMONGST NATURE. My practice relates to New Materialism, a philosophy that allows me to open up to an intimate, reciprocal engagement with my materials and immediate surroundings. My current work sits between painting and more …
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Belinda Field
The Wayne Conduit Memorial Prize. My main area of interest is in contemporary still life painting. My works are observational, using traditional painting methods and working from life. The works often begin by moving, organising and arranging objects before building more …
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Bo-dene Stieler
Dean’s Award for Excellence Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art). YELLOW CORRIDOR ‘Look into yellow, feel immersed in colour, anchored when close. The plane of the wall intersecting through my bodily matter to secure, tether me to site.’ My practice involves more …
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Jessica Guo
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. TOTAL RECALL: IN UNDERSTANDING THE SELF FROM ONEIRIC FRAGMENTS I used to have this recurring dream when I was younger. I would be lying on a conveyor belt in a warehouse by myself, in more …
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Judy Hiu Lam Kong
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. FLOATING I am obsessed with excavating my inner self. My art practice and my life experiences cannot be separated. I am experiencing the ongoing reposition of my cultural identity and collective unconsciousness between my home more …
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Juli Nyeste
Velling Award. My multidisciplinary practice deals with the surreality of the everyday and endeavours to celebrate the beauty of the mundane through my personal lens as a Hungarian-Australian artist living in Naarm/Melbourne. My paintings and objects eschew the making of more …
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Molly Morris-McGinty
Highly commended – Wayne Conduit Prize. NOCTURNAL FLUX – A DIARY OF THE NIGHT My work explores the vitality of the space of night through the influence its atmosphere has upon perception. The work is a dive into the complexity more …
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Ruby Tirekidis
Highly commended – Wayne Conduit Prize: Narrative is what drives my art practice. My most recent body of work explores the notion of visual storytelling and has been inspired by a personal mythology I have been writing. My paintings tend more …
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Sharon Xin Xu
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. SAFETY WITHIN DIVERSE BODIES Sharon Xin Xu (b.2000), 徐欣, is an emerging Cantonese-Australian artist working on unceded lands of the Eastern Kulin nation, Naarm (Melbourne), and the Eora nation, Warrane (Sydney). Her work predominantly examines more …
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Vittoria Cugno
Tolarno Hotel Painting Prize. CANDID: AN APPRECIATION OF MOMENTS THAT ARE OFTEN OVERLOOKED Vittoria Cugno (b.2001) is an emerging Melbourne based artist who specialises in oil portrait paintings. In the past year, Vittoria has focused on capturing candid moments in more …
2023 Graduates
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Amelia Gill
WEATHER PAINTINGS These works are about the sensibilities of past upper classes, and the cyclical growth of vegetation. I am a painter and draughtsman based in Melbourne and was born on a farm in New Zealand. In my work, through
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Angela Mezzatesta
Chapman & Bailey Award. A WALK AMONGST NATURE. My practice relates to New Materialism, a philosophy that allows me to open up to an intimate, reciprocal engagement with my materials and immediate surroundings. My current work sits between painting and
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Arkady Gollings
Reds, Greens, and White. They remind me of Christmas, an American one. A clown mask. The colours on a Liverpool Football Club scarf, a big bushel of Red poppies or a traffic light if White replaced the orange light. Red,
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Ash Worthington
CHERCHEZ LA FEMME! My work is concerned with how women are viewed both in an art world setting and in other narrative forms. We see images of women covering the walls of galleries, so we assume they are present. We
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Belinda Field
The Wayne Conduit Memorial Prize. My main area of interest is in contemporary still life painting. My works are observational, using traditional painting methods and working from life. The works often begin by moving, organising and arranging objects before building
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Bo-dene Stieler
Dean’s Award for Excellence Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art). YELLOW CORRIDOR ‘Look into yellow, feel immersed in colour, anchored when close. The plane of the wall intersecting through my bodily matter to secure, tether me to site.’ My practice involves
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Cheng Peng Long
As an artist who loves nature and walking, nature is often the subject of my work. I am accustomed to observing the details of things and depicting them in my works, which is reflected in the sculptural paintings of various
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Elle Goudis
Elle Goudis is a female artist who is based in Melbourne/Naarm. She is currently studying in her final year (2023) of a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University with a specialisation in Painting. She explores the concept of portraiture
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Emma Lynes
I LOOK AT YOU, AND YOU LOOK AT ME: RECOGNISING THE SELF IN THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT. My work explores the inherent power of the natural environment and its ability to be used as a mirror with which to explore the
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Fiona Soeding
TRANQUILO (A VISUAL ODE TO SERENITY) Since the beginning of 2023, my artistic journey has shifted its focus. I originally explored how external influences, such as The Seven Deadly Sins, shape our beliefs and behaviour. This exploration deepened my understanding
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Greta Ermacora
This project translates the narrative of a person’s intimate life, the moments they find precious by translating casual collections of ephemera and sentimental pictures into permanent formal paintings. Inspired by the seemingly universal way people present their individual collections like
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Honey Lili Bella Garrett
Traversing Girly ✩ Through the act of painting, I traverse the thematics of ‘girly’, a murky term unto itself, and cultivate a dream-like world that subtly reclaims and elevates traditionally trivialised, overtly feminine symbols. My practice is a playful
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Janet Drury
WHAT’S THEIR STORY? The whole thing started with a dusty dilapidated cardboard box at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. It almost went straight into the skip, but B had had dementia and we’d already found a roll
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Jessica Guo
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. TOTAL RECALL: IN UNDERSTANDING THE SELF FROM ONEIRIC FRAGMENTS I used to have this recurring dream when I was younger. I would be lying on a conveyor belt in a warehouse by myself, in
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Jessica Miranda
YOUR BODY IS NOTHING is an exploration of the abject female body. It is a personal project that began as a way to process my own bodily trauma. I wanted my work to focus on the experience of living
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Judy Hiu Lam Kong
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. FLOATING I am obsessed with excavating my inner self. My art practice and my life experiences cannot be separated. I am experiencing the ongoing reposition of my cultural identity and collective unconsciousness between my home
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Juli Nyeste
Velling Award. My multidisciplinary practice deals with the surreality of the everyday and endeavours to celebrate the beauty of the mundane through my personal lens as a Hungarian-Australian artist living in Naarm/Melbourne. My paintings and objects eschew the making of
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Kaiyan Miao
TRANSCENDING TRADITIONS is an exploration of personal identity, cultural heritage, and reconnections with the bygone. I am inspired by events that happened but were not documented, embarking on a journey through my untold family history. I uncovered many stories, beliefs,
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Kawthar Zoubiri
Through painting, I find it is extremely important to be drawn to the piece, as the maker, to learn something new and be a part of the work. Ethnicity is very personal and I’ve drawn aspects of my tradition in
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Lucy Wilde
SELF PORTRAIT WITH OMA (‘Grandma’ in German) is based on an old photograph taken during a visit when I was a young child. For the occasion we got to visit a local waterhole that I would frequent as I got older.
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Luna Yi Jia Yang
RECLAIMING INSECURITY Stemming from my own insecurities caused by unrealistic beauty standards present in modern media, these works directly challenge conventional beauty standards. Women’s bodies are scrutinised, our organs for eating food and birthing life are subject to beauty standards
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Lydia Sant
TALE OF TIME: EXPLORING THE POETIC EROSION OF 35mm CINEMA FILMS My work explores the remnants of cinematic histories, while also considering its connection to today’s digital landscape. I seek to prompt reflection on the enduring significance of analog methods
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Maya Solomon
HAVEN Colour, pattern, aesthetics, and the home – my oil paintings on canvas capture interior narratives devoid of time but full of nostalgia. My pieces reflect on the human experience and highlight the trivial things in life that mostly go
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Milli Windshuttle
GIVING AND RECEIVING AND GIVING AND RECEIVING is a visual exploration of the relationships between people and their societal, interpersonal and internal environments, asking the questions: What do we give to society and what do we receive from it? Can we
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Molly Morris-McGinty
Highly commended – Wayne Conduit Prize. NOCTURNAL FLUX – A DIARY OF THE NIGHT My work explores the vitality of the space of night through the influence its atmosphere has upon perception. The work is a dive into the complexity
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Moon Ramone
Through painting I aim to capture the essence of consciousness by exploring the delicate balance between mind, body, thoughts and feelings. By utilising the juxtaposition of haptic and meticulous paint and drawing techniques, the paintings serve as a visual representation of the
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Natalie de Niese
TRAPPED is a series of three installation works that draw on my own recent and reoccurring situations that make me feel trapped, producing a body of work that emphasise things that I and others struggle with internally and silently, which are
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Rania Pappas
A SIREN’S CALL Conceptually, I see my work as framed by current gender power imbalances that exist in our world. My personal experience with sexual assault acted as a catalyst for the themes I now explore. My incentive for selecting
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Rebecca Porter
DRAINS, WALLS. I paint in a subtractive way and flood the gaps with whatever annoying thing persists in previous work that I’ve erased or destroyed. At the same time I was thinking of connections between Wittgenstein’s rejection of a fountain,
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Rini Siahay
TRANSIENT STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS explores the socialisation of beauty ideals, particularly in the context of girlhood, and how those values affect one’s perception of oneself and the world around them. There is a stage where a girl comes to realise
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Ruby Tirekidis
Highly commended – Wayne Conduit Prize: Narrative is what drives my art practice. My most recent body of work explores the notion of visual storytelling and has been inspired by a personal mythology I have been writing. My paintings tend
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Sarah Vandepeer
WHAT’S IN MY ARSENAL explores the intertwined narratives of what it is like to be a woman who has given a life of service, in support of her country, within an historically male bastion. The resulting work is multi-layered, delving
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SELENA WENEN XIAO
Selena Xiao is an artist who has drawn inspiration from both China and Australia, capturing the elements of our world through her unique perspective. She not only explores traditional Eastern artistic techniques but also boldly experiments with new media combinations.
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Sharon Xin Xu
ACAE Gallery Emerging Artist Award. SAFETY WITHIN DIVERSE BODIES Sharon Xin Xu (b.2000), 徐欣, is an emerging Cantonese-Australian artist working on unceded lands of the Eastern Kulin nation, Naarm (Melbourne), and the Eora nation, Warrane (Sydney). Her work predominantly examines
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Sherline A Shen
HER VOICE. This installation artwork concerned with oriental feminism is inspired by the White Paper Movement in China which protested the COVID-zero lockdown. The white paper was blank in the initial development to reflect that anyone can express their voice
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Sienna Mensch
LIQUID CHAOS Sienna Mensch (She/They) is a Geelong/Djilang based queer abstract artist, who lives and works on Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri country. Sienna’s work is an exploration of how different colours and forms interact with one another to evoke emotion from
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Sinéad Wheeler
A DELICATE CONFLUENCE. My practice explores the place where polar forces converge, where light and matter meet, the immaterial and material, the ethereal and the structured; where destructive harshness and soft delicacy exist in the same space. My multimedia works
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Tarik Abouabdillah
My creations are the machinations of my subconscious, I never know what I’m doing when I do it. I simply start and keep on going, it doesn’t feel like I’m making work, rather that it’s making me. I have been
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Vanessa Vun
SUBLIMINAL DREAMSCAPES Subliminal Dreamscapes is a series of works that aim to explore the fragility of mortality, nuanced morality and the essence of life. Through dark aesthetic choices and compelling
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Vittoria Cugno
Tolarno Hotel Painting Prize. CANDID: AN APPRECIATION OF MOMENTS THAT ARE OFTEN OVERLOOKED Vittoria Cugno (b.2001) is an emerging Melbourne based artist who specialises in oil portrait paintings. In the past year, Vittoria has focused on capturing candid moments in
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Zahava Pinson
Project ILLUMINATE Documentation of the ancient Jewish ritual of Candle-Lighting on Friday night before sunset, as well as on the eve of Jewish holidays. The custom is for women over the age of three to light a candle (married women
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Zina-Lily Carley Rice (zeeen)
FESTERING DESIRE – A LONGING FOR THE MAKE-BELIEVE you are what I drown myself in, a virus, my obsession. This series of work culminates as a result of years of therapeutic abreaction – bringing forth repressed emotions of fear, guilt,
