Recipient of the ACAE Gallery Award. _________________________________ PAINTING AS AN ACT OF TRANSLATION Through painting, I aim to echo musical forms into the visual. The resultant body of work explores the kinetic symbology of music, linguistics, hybridity, and inner worlds.
FROM YOUR BIRTH TO THE ONE YOU GAVE ME Within my work I aim to explore notions of rebirth and queer femme identity, utilising text and humour. In the digital age, I am surrounded by constant sources of stimuli, which
IMPRINT & IMPRESSION An exploration of the materiality of fabric through the print medium. How one material can be transformed through the matrix, and furthermore, the print itself. A print-based triptych that explores the nature of fabric in its form
Recipient of the BDS Sculpture Prize. _________________________________ BENEATH DAPHNE I am an aspiring sculptural and installation-based artist located in Kulin country, Melbourne Australia. I will soon be graduating with my Bachelor of Fine Art, specialising in Sculpture at RMIT. I
ADDITIONAL VALUE A series of matchbox sculptures to explore material and consumerism. In the wave of consumerism, commodities are taking over our lives and defining everyone. I am hoping to expose this power and draw attention to the power of
My work is a wide-ranging entanglement of found imagery and intersecting concepts that manifest in chaotic and often psycho-surreal narratives. Ultimately, I see my practice as a form of sensation seeking and psychoanalytical tool that speaks of the human condition
MAKING SPACE FOR DETAIL Reflecting the adolescent urge to document everything, my work is an act of noticing, collecting, and giving attention to the minute minutiae, the detritus of our culture and the beauty of the mundane, transforming each detail
FOUND MOVEMENT IN FOUND SPACE Dance as art and choreology are the foundation of my current practice, looking at the relationship between personal movement style and visual aesthetic as the remnants of an artist left in their work. Starting with
THE DIVINE EQUINE. Amy Gagnon (b.2000) is an artist residing and practising on Wurundjeri Land in Naarm (Melbourne). She is currently in her final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at RMIT University. Recent exhibitions include the group
REFRACTIONS OF REFLECTIONS is an exploration of the inner self channelled through the waves of water—an embodied experience of fluidity within my identity. The extensions of water, and the structure it holds is as transient as our flow with life
SCENERY FROM THE SUBCONSCIOUS A subconscious exploration of memory and place through the use of intuitive marks and abstraction. This multi-media project explores the artistic potential of the subconscious mind and its relationship to place. More specifically, the natural world
OF AIR , LIGHT AND WATER Shifting colours move through bands of blues and violets with a shimmer of red. The atmosphere becomes dusky as the large fabric installation lights up: iridescent silky silver-blue flows from above, mingling with
OBJECTIFIED SWANS Through the lens of a sexual fantasy featuring the feminine within a 70s kitsch-pornographic-inspired environment, Objectified Swans attempts to undermine female binaries and expose them to be patriarchal weapons adopted to suppress a woman’s sexual
Recipient of the Drawing Studio Award. _________________________________ THE NATURE OF LOVE ‘Trauma and shit going down in childhood is [not] inherently interesting…it’s chronic, commonplace, sometimes dramatic and often tedious in its stranglehold of repetitions, daily struggles, and predictable and
THERE WON’T BE ANOTHER TIME is an exploration of childhood. Looking at both the universality of childhood experience, and the differences in my and my parent’s upbringing, I consider the question: What would it be like to meet our parents
THE FEMININE ART OF SHOOTING: the collision between fine art and firearms My shooting is still. Not violence, not fervour. My shooting is controlled breath as I kneel in the grass, surrounded by trees. Millimetric adjustments of my cheek and
Recipient of the Emily Hope Award for a figurative work— Donor Professor AD Hope Endowment. _________________________________ DOMESTIC RITUAL My practice explores the domestic space and the mundane with a focus on the processes and objects involved in food preparation. The
Recipient of the Chapman & Bailey Award for Excellence in Contemporary Painting. _________________________________ LANDSCAPE / ESCAPE ‘As an artist I’m trying to reflect something back to myself. A feeling, understanding, sense of the world…’ —Kiki Smith Exploring the silent language
THE GOTHIC NURSERY An exploration of childhood spaces through immersive art. From one world you will stepinto another yet unmetShadows rising in the corners,are you one of the mourners?The child no longer seeninto a world in betweenEverything left to
CATHERINE’S REEF Through ceramic hand-building, I create sculptures that are heavily textured, painted with bold, bright primary and secondary colours. My ceramic outcome often consists of an installation of sculptural objects grouped to create a larger work. Present-day environmental issues,
LESS OF AN INTERNAL MONOLOGUE MORE A PATCHY CONFERENCE CALL is a body of work that seeks to understand and connect with others, through the exploration of my own inner workings. As a woman with ADHD, my works are inevitably a
DIGITAL SKIN (she/they)Charlie is a Naarm-based artist working on the land of the Wurundjeri people. Starting their practice as a fine art painter, Charlie now explores new media with a focus on hybrid retro-future technologies, creating installations that consider feelings
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands we live, work and learn. I would also like to
STILL WATERS RUN DEEP explores the existence of a ‘safe space’ in response to personal sufferings of anxiety and insomnia. The large acrylic paintings on calico material are designed with intuitive, unconscious gestures as a means of healing through the
Recipient of the 44 Frame Factory Graduate Award. ___________________________________ IN/VISIBLE: FEMIN-INE/IST RESPONSES TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE This project uses hand-made textiles and print-informed media to explore women’s responses to domestic violence. It is informed by my developing understanding of trauma theory
WUNDERKAMMERN OF OBJECTIFIED SIGNIFICANCE – WOMAN CLAIMS THAT A LEFT FOOT BOOT IS HER DAUGHTER AND HER HUSBAND IS A DIRTY COUCH I am a Naarm (Melbourne) based multi-disciplinary artist, who makes installations, video and sculptural works as well as
COSMIC SALAD: DE-FIGURES AND UN-SCENES life’s about hazard and fate. – dad I think there is a structure to chaos, and a divinity in the absurd. Through visual experimentation and the re-contextualisation of found objects, my work explores
CHAOS AFTER SORROWS Dan Su’s intuitive abstract painting explores the tensions that stir as we enter and pass through heightened emotions and states. Beginning with a linen or canvas substrate, and employing the visual language of abstraction, Su uses broad
THE VERY STATE I am Darcy Lazarus and tonight, you are my voyeur. They are listening to you. While you’re on the phone to your Mum, engaging in half-whispered pillow talk or speaking to your cat in a nauseating
POINT OF VIEW (musing from previous years of art school) I can see the internet as a machine that has already swallowed us all whole. The internet then spews over itself, reformulating its own contents to produce more—feeding itself on
SADNESS TOWARDS FADED TEARS My name is Deanna Versace. I’m an emerging artist in Australia who uses the pronouns she/her. I have been part of the RMIT institution for four years, completing my bachelor’s degree in printmaking. I had the
Recipient of the Troppo Print Studio Graduate Award. __________________________________ RHYTHMIC DISTURBANCE is a creative project that explores the lived experience of traumatic grief under intense media scrutiny and public opinion. The project uses experimental print-informed techniques to reflect how the
Recipient of the Wayne Conduit Memorial Award. _________________________________ When people ask, I say I paint pictures of vases. These paintings have been drawn from particularly endearing eBay listings of ‘fat lava’ pottery. Digital images have become so ubiquitous that we
SQUISH Summary: Studying the nature of skin/flesh and its movement. Differing skin types, as in aged, blemished, scarred etc. and what those contexts translate to within the human structure. Skin in daily movement and light, stretched, pulled and squished in
STRUCTURED BODIES focuses on the never-ending relationship between memory, place and the body and explores these connections through drawing and painting. Driven by the impact of contextual surroundings on the self, the places we choose to inhabit, the places we
EMOTIONAL! is a children’s picture storybook that explores emotions as they are experienced in all of their new, strange intensity by children and aims to assist them in understanding these feelings. It follows the journey of a young, horned girl
AND SHE WAS LYING IN THE GRASS When sharing experiences with others, it’s easy to assume that people feel or think the same way as we do. However, by simply being alive our perspective will never be the
1994, YEAR OF THE MUTT Evelyn Challinor (b.1994) is a mixed-race Chinese-Australian artist, originally from Gadigal and Yuin Land. She currently resides in Naarm, practising between the fields of fine art and horticulture. Through the process of thinking-through-making, my practice
A REBIRTH. My paintings move between abstraction and figuration, drawing imaginative succour from peasantry and European brides. My work explores the power of melancholia, weaving themes of longing and passing time through transparent colour fields and abstract compositions. I contrast
AFTER HOME. Through exploring connections to home, familiarity and nostalgia in conjunction with the ideas of the afterlife, the uncanny and the unsettling, this project merges the two to create a series that not only includes objects from home set
BLURRED is an abstract installation work encompassing themes of cultural identity, accidental photography, and liminal spaces. The intersection of these themes is an experience-based work on how blurred identity and layers of the self can become. Accidental photography and the
SENSE OF SELF Lover, You Should’ve Come Over [diptych], 2022, ink and acrylic on stretched canvas, 90cm x 90cm. SENSE OF SELF is an exploration of identity through spirituality, symbolism, colour and connection with mother nature. It involves heavily
0 to ∞ ‘My painting is not limited at all. I have many possibilities, in terms of approach. And the reason I have that is because I’m not limited by a certain narrative that I want to get across.
FOS”CELL“ISED For this sculptural project, I will sculpt and cast a collection of stylised cells out of plaster, using a silicone-based mould as well as brush-and-pour techniques to create a unique assemblage that represents my themes of materiality, identity and
QUIET OBJECTS My Practice is a continuous cycle of making and material exploration, approaching each new work with curiosity and play. This body of work consists of various painting-and-textile wall works that sit alongside small-scale ceramic sculptures. Through the juxtaposition
UN… DERR.. STANDING… COMMUNICATIVE DRAWING INSTALLATIONS This project looks at the busy mind as author—in the dialogue between the author and the viewer, between the internal and external. The work functions as a gateway between the two, as a means
WHAKAPAPA BLEEDS RED a material exploration of blood quantum discourse in a decolonial context Ko Ngongotaha te maunga (Ngongotaha is my mountain) Ko Rotorua te roto (Rotorua is my lake) Ko Te Arawa te waka (Te Arawa is my
I want to express a highly free modern aesthetic work beyond the pictorial framework of orthodox painting. The project explores the formal and conceptual aesthetics of Minhwa paintings in a nuanced way through material explorations. For me, these paintings
EUDAEMONIA: A rebellious approach to expanded painting Osborne-Snell’s practice encompasses functional art displayed on the body as well as textile wall pieces. His emphasis on unconventional, wearable art creates multidisciplinary parallels between art, fashion and design. Snell works with a
WHAT CAME FIRST; THE GIRL OR THE BODY is an exploration into what makes us who we are. It is an insight into my own personal being, an answer to the question; ‘am I my own person, or am I
I AM, I WAS. I was, I am is a textual and painterly exploration of neurodivergence and queerness. The ideas of facets of one’s being are always present, inseparable from childhood to adulthood. I was, I am utilises striking text,
SEX ME UP Ivry Elisabeth is currently creating paintings and tufted tapestry works that explore gender—particularly limiting perceptions of the female identity. Within these works, she has a tendency towards the incorporation of figurative or symbolic elements and kitsch aesthetics
DISTANT RAYS Thermoformed acrylic, citrus dichroic film, a dedo light, a turning mechanism, fishing line, brass eyelets, a speaker and a looped 10-minute soundscape (a recording of the artist playing a rain stick she made and Tibetan bowls). Jade’s work
Recipient of the Perry Summers Sculpture Book Prize. _________________________________ RELOADED LANDS I am a sculptural installation artist located in Wathaurong Country, Ocean Grove, Victoria. Throughout my practice, I explore environmental themes and eco-activist art. I am influenced by my intrinsic
Recipient of the Artbox Commission Graduate Award. _________________________________ PAPER DETECTIVE is an exploration of non-destructive collage, digital reproduction, and the symbiotic nature of culture and media. Clippings from 90s comic books and fine art books are recontextualised to create modern stories
IMAGINATIVE EXPLORATION OF CREATIVITY is an interactive video installation that explores the potential of our imagination and the human ability to think. Through the use of video projection, sculptural objects and audience participation, I invite my viewer to join the
I’LL NEVER LOVE ANYONE AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU… OR YOU… OR YOU… OR YOU… This body of work is as an exploration of self and is a love letter to the many characters I have loved across my
THE HEART THAT BLEEDS IS THE HEART THAT GROWS. A series of illustrative works exploring the essence of healing in solitude. The story-like depictions present a lonely and treacherous process of healing and understanding one’s inner conflict. The objective nature
SKIRMISH springs forward, embellishing the gallery space with contemporary allegory. Jazz Duncan’s figures breach the confines of dreams in lively gesticulation. Each evoking curiosity, revelation, and gestalt shift in the onlooker. JAVELIN, the first work in this series, envisions a
Recipient of the BDS Sculpture Prize. _________________________________ COMFORT IN THE FEAR is a work exploring the relationship we, as humans, have with our childhood, and how as we grow into adults we change to see what was once a familiar
LIMINAL In the summer—weather permitting—I tend to sleep with my bedroom window open. Recently, I have been alerted to the presence of ringtail possums by the tell-tale scratching sound of their tiny claws as they run up and down the
MARRIAGE Everyone has a different interpretation of marriage at different stages of their lives. Different cultures and family backgrounds also shape people’s view of marriage. Based on her culture and background, Jennifer presents her unique views and interpretations of marriages
Recipient of the Northcote Pottery Award and the RMIT Ceramic Student Association Club Year 3 Award. _________________________________ CLAY, CONTROL AND I. Jess Dybing’s work explores the changing states between flow and matter on the pottery wheel. Whilst the process of
Recipient of the Sculpture Workshop Prize. _________________________________ ✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿ ╭(′▽`)╯╭(′▽`)╯╭(′▽`)╯╭(′▽`)╯╭(′▽`)╯╭(′▽`)╯ My name is Jiefei Chen. I was born in Sichuan Province, China, and moved to Adelaide, Australia, with my family when I was fifteen, and live in
COMING HOME My art practice explores my deep relationships to people and places. I create artworks that raise questions and expand my perspective in understanding the complexity of an environment, as well as the fragility of life and memory. ‘Coming
MY BODY, MY POETRY The focus of My Body, My Poetry is the exploration of my Chinese culture with a focus on themes relating to loneliness and gender empowerment. The work employs photographing and capturing video footage of body movement
NARRATIVES OF THE SUBTLE BODY Based in Melbourne (Naarm), my current practice investigates the subtle body as a spiritual-physical system via the framework of Tantra and Hatha Yoga. Through the process of lost wax casting using non-precious and precious materials,
DYSTOPIA IN THE WORLD OF FLORA I’m Kasandra Hendy, and I’ve lived here in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia my whole life. I’m 22 years old (b. 3/8/2000), and I’m almost at the end of my study of Fine Arts at RMIT University
Recipient of the Kayell Digital Print Award. __________________________________ MONUMENTS OF PAPER AND SHADOW I am an emerging print-informed artist who draws on my experience as a contemporary female Australian Army veteran and war widow to investigate a tense and problematic
INVITATION TO A MICROCOSMOS is an experiment into the documentation of singular experiences, moments and people in my everyday life. Images are built from photographs of friends, family and environments. This form, a kind of self-portraiture, captures elements of celebration and
This series of works explores the intersection of intimate quotidian moments and unworldly places through the language of paint. Focusing on figuration, my work investigates how an imagined scene speaks to the human condition and evokes a sense of memory.
FAULTS IN THE BREAKROOM I am Keisha Yan/ Fed, a narrative artist based in Melbourne and Singapore. Currently, my interest is in exploring the overlap between the natural world and the industrial one through absurdist and surrealist scenes. These explorations
Recipient of the Walkers Ceramics Award. _________________________________ Kerrin Samuel is a multimedia ceramic artist who creates artworks that explore the human experience. She draws inspiration from observations of contemporary culture, politics, geopolitics and religion which she sees as powerful vehicles
ABOUT THE ARTIST In the most recent last two years, I have been exploring several themes and ideas in my investigations. My projects from the last two years have been strongly focused on transitioning personal memories and inner feelings
Recipient of the RMIT Ceramic Student Association Club Year 3 Award. _________________________________ Hello! I am an emerging Melbourne-based sculptural ceramicist. I have an expanded ceramic practice utilising hand building, modelling techniques and using emotive surface colouring and treatments. My work
Recipient of the Kayell Digital Print Award. __________________________________ HOLY MARYA (MARY) I was born in Iran, where, for the past four decades, a compulsory hijab has been a means used by religious authorities to suppress women. Since arriving in Australia
THE NATURAL PROGRESSION This is a body of work initiated with the intention of depicting the fish in the tanks at a Chinese Restaurant as a homage to my childhood memories of gazing up at the tanks filled with living
PUNKTURED explores ways in which a contemporary jewellery practice can translate the energy of punk music culture into the 3-dimensional, focusing on ways in which music can both inform and reflect one’s identity. Jewellery has an innate connection to identity
Leon Zhan is an artist currently working across painting and sculpture. Born in Melbourne to Chinese immigrant parents, Zhan’s highly finished pictorial practice is heavily influenced by his own diasporic experience. Negotiating the orient and the occident, his work articulates
THE HUNT This body of work explores personal identity and societal structures through visual narratives and metaphors. Raised in rural Australia, I utilise the ceramic form to create artworks that subvert contemporary notions of value, creating silhouettes that reference working-class
Everything casts a shadow, but you can’t always see it. Maybe the shadow is what is left behind. Cat hair on a jumper, bike grease on your shins, food stuck in your teeth. Or maybe the shadow of an object
Recipient of the RMIT Ceramic Student Association Club Year 3 Award. _________________________________ Lily Lindsay is a ceramic artist who makes both functional and sculptural artworks. Her figurative work uses myth, symbolism, and motifs to express personal memories and lived experience.
THE TWENTY-FOUR FORMS OF TAI-CHI Tai Chi Chuan is a physical practice which is rich in traditional movements and sequences. Tai Chi Chuan refers to movement that is derived from the philosophy of Tai Chi and utilises the concept of
MADAME BUTTERFLY—a highly distorted interpretation of Puccini’s opera by the same name—is a short film revolving around Madame Butterfly, who is living in self-imposed exile inside a magical cocoon on the top of a faraway mountain. The heroic knight who
AWAKENINGS ON HIGHLANDS I was born in China and immigrated to New Zealand with my parents at the age of 14. I then spent my university years in Australia. The multiple locations confused the formation of my sense of personal
USE/LESS I am an emerging sculptural artist located on Wurundjeri Land, Melbourne. In my practice, I typically explore childhood and comfort, often using glitter and iridescent materials to recreate the childlike excitement that fades in adulthood. Sewing is also an
MAMA SAID (SERIES OF FORMS) Using a combination of textile processes and mixing materials, Maisie creates textural and fluid forms to discuss the body’s many-faceted existence. The artist combines materials such as fabrics, latex, plastics, inks, mirror, wire and the
GROWING UP This series shares my study journey as an international student in Australia and the first time that I was separated from my family and friends in Hong Kong. It documents my psychological status around expanding my comfort zone
Recipient of the Sunshine Print Artspace & Open Bite Student Association Graduate Award. _________________________________ STRATA reflects on the relationship between place and identity as a means of reconciling my immigrant experience. Utilising stone lithography and installation, I explore the concept
PEOPLE, PLACES AND PICTURES explores friends, family and environments, all of which have brought me joy and inspired my artistic practice. These positive connections have been investigated through vivid colour, familiar symbols and organic shapes. The vibrant symbols, created by
Mayah Eden Lasky, also known as ‘Melasko’, is a multidisciplinary artist based in Naarm. Primarily exhibiting photography, film, and video installation, her work deconstructs stereotypes and misconceptions by employing a socially-engaged documentary practice. Recently, she has delved into topics such
HOLD AND RELEASE An exploration of causality and trauma therapy through performance, kinetic energy and handmade sculptural elements. This work embodies the instance of trauma tethered to an individual until met with the tools to
SCUM ANGEL is an ode to the symbology of the bat. In a collaboration with artist and peer Anna Pearl, we created an installation which imitated a bats lair. Cages, poetry, paintings and objects in combination with screens
SURRENDER TO A DREAM Large scale installation, sound, sculpture, & video. I have reflected on my experience of a reoccurring fever dream experienced in my childhood. The dream entailed me as a child, in miniature scale, in my parents’ basin,
My work relates to aspects of Pop Art and incorporates elements of painting, drawing, photography and collage through the subject matter of portraiture. My practice approaches aspects of traditional portraiture, such as the materiality of oil painting and coloured pencil,
Recipient of the Australian Print Workshop Award. _________________________________ MIGRATIONAL DISPLACEMENT Ongoing complexities that surround the possibility of a posthuman period bares witness to generational migrational displacement and the breakdown of psychological and cultural identity. The aim of this project throughout
GOD’S FAVOURITE is an ongoing drawing-video project that explores concepts of the human body and its interface with technology. I developed my themes of futurist body modification, sickness and spirituality using my body as the ‘host subject’. My approach to this
AT THE LIMIT OF SIGNIFICANCE is a body of paintings developed through subtle collections from what Bernard Spolski calls the ‘public linguistic space’, where the advertisements, graffiti, and overlapping voices of strangers combine to form the public linguistic landscape of
COMEDIC MELANCHOLY (Urban Metamorphosis of the Animal Body and Landscape) The artworks I create consider the relationship between animals and humans, within the Anthropocene. Emphasis is placed on understanding the animal experience. My work further considers themes of urbanisation, symbiosis,
Recipient of the BDS Sculpture Prize. _________________________________ THE WASHING is an installation that documents a performance in a natural landscape. A daily act of washing and walking but in absurdity, and the tension of vitality. A nihilistic and Sisyphean portrait
Recipient of the Print Studio Experimental Print Award. __________________________________ REWILDING THE GALLERY SETTING: Nurturing connection with the natural world Rewilding, as a general term, refers to the reintroduction of flora into spaces from which it has become absent. Through print-informed
On a cold snowy night deep in the Canadian forest, a converted yellow school bus stood. Inside, a blow-up pool with my young New Zealander mother and Welsh father, as they watched me come into the world. This bus continued
THIS IS SO FUCKED UP My current work comes together through a combination of observing my everyday and my inner thoughts and then turning them into oil paintings. I do this by capturing my surroundings with photos taken on my
THE DIARY: EXCERPTS OF MOMENTS AND REFLECTIONS My studio practice revolves around self-exploration and healing and, with this project particularly, engages in the field of confessional art. Through the mediums of drawing, painting and installation, I create this project from
HIKIKOMORI (VR FILM) SHEAPPEAREDTOMEINMYBATHROOMDURINGANIGHTLYPERIODOFISOLATION. SHESENSEDSOMETHINGWASMISSINGFROMTHEHOUSEANDSHEWASRIGHT ITHASNTFELTTHESAMESINCE. SHETOLDMESHECOULDMAKEITALLBETTER. SHETOLDMETHATSHECOULDTAKEMESOMEWHEREELSE. ICOULDBEHAPPYALLTHETIME. SHETOLDMETHATIDIDNTNEEDTOBESOSADANYMORE. ANDILISTENEDTOHER. ILISTENEDANDIFOLLOWEDHERANDIWENTTOPLAYGROUND. YOUSHOULDJOINMEITSSOLOVELYHERE. IMNEVERGOINGTOLEAVE. ALLTHATSHITBACKHOMEISGONEANDIAMSOHAPPYANDICANBREATHEANDILOVEITHERE. WELCOME. TO. PLAYGROUND. You are a child again. Something is wrong in your home and you need to escape, you need to find somewhere safe,
GENESIS An exploration of materiality and mythology through the use of organic mineral materials and Ukiyo-e presentations. Oliver’s work explores the relevance of traditional forms in Japanese Ukiyo-e and Asian mythology, by exploring traditional media such as gold leaf and
EYE DROPS: A collection of works taking reference and inspiration from personal photos of a moment of significance, using bold colour and abstraction to visually warp. The chosen images are distorted in a way to hide a clear visual representation
I make work that anthropomorphises animals—namely pigeons—to showcase common negative feelings of anxiety and mental health in general. Watching and being watched, we are all judging without knowing it all. I create works that pose questions and have multiple meanings
Recipient of the Tolarno Hotel Award. _________________________________ VIOLENCE AND INNOCENCE My artistic practice is an exploration of my identity and place within my family’s history in post-WW2 Australia. It is a direct response to my relationship with my family’s photographic
BIG BAD WOLF: WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl who would always wear a red riding cloak, and everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood. One morning, Little Red Riding Hood
FUTURE RELICS I am aiming to make ‘future relics’: items that imagine a distant civilisation finding the detritus of our consumer society, combined with remnants of nature, and being intrigued by these symbols of past riches. My pieces often begin
WALLS I am an abstract oil painter that lives and works in Melbourne. My paintings focus on colour perfection and fun shapes. I graduated high school dux in studio art, and am about to graduate with my Bachelor of Fine
BODIES TUMBLED INTO BODIES: Exploring multispecies entanglements Welcome to the rhizome, you can erase a line in the web but little spores still blow towards you in the wind. ‘Ecology’ is derived from the Greek word ‘oikos’, which is defined
DANCE MUSIC: RHYTHMIC EXPRESSION IN PASTEL AND SOUND I am an emerging artist and practising musician based in Ocean Grove, Victoria. My bold and fluid style, both in drawing and music, has emerged from a quiet self-confidence that allows me
NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A CORNER My studio practice throughout this year has largely been an expression of internal dialogue and emotions translated onto canvas through a surrealist lens. My current project focuses primarily on the notion of infantilisation and
Recipient of the Koodak Award for Enamelling Prize for Technical Excellence— Donor Mr Gabriel Ripka. _________________________________ ACCOMPANYING IS NOT WAITING This project consists of a series of realistic, full-figure animal enamel portraiture forged using metal plates and enamels. The choice
GOSSAMERY I am a Peruvian-born sculptural installation artist working in Naarm, Australia. My work explores how we experience embodied meaning through interconnection with our environment. I pick my materials based on their sensorial and somaesthetic qualities. As such I have
Recipient of the Firestation Print Studio Graduate Print Access Prize.__________________________________ SETTING A PLACE I am an emerging, print-based artist living and working in Djilang/Geelong, Victoria. Having spent the last couple of decades raising my two daughters, I decided to return to
Koodak Award for the Highest Academic Achievement in Third Year Gold & Silversmithing — Donor Mr Gabriel Ripka. _________________________________ AT WHAT COST By focusing on the use of materials possessed with an honest simplicity, together with a deep-seated respect for nature and the environment, my
CAVE LINES & TOUCHSTONES / LEY LINES & SHADOWLANDS This project references origins, cultural identity, and transference, based on an exploration of my Celtic European ancestry. It is designed as a contemplation of my colonist-settler heritage as an approach to
BOTANICAL CHIMAERA Sirui has a strong passion for exploring how aesthetic forms in nature have inspired the development of her jewellery project in creating its unique aura or atmosphere. She wants to evoke her unique feelings of the vitality in
Recipient of the Megalo Graduate Residency Program and Open Bite Student Association Travel Award. _________________________________ WHERE THE OCEAN IS THE SKY I & II My practice for the last decade has been in graphic design. However, after moving to Melbourne from
WET CAPSULES/SOFT-GORE My work employs the basic internal and external structures that mammals belonging to earth are made up of. Skin, muscle, organs and bone are the physical elements that highlight the simple yet interesting organisation of our bodily systems
PEACOCKING is a ceramic exploration into sexuality and the reproductive systems of animals and humans. This year I focused my investigation on the courtship displays shown by certain birds-of-paradise and the seductive body language shown by humans. My research has led
Elements of thought relating to the passage of time circulate with a focus gravitating towards human connection, relation and experience. In recognising the connection and collection of moments we share through solidarity and commonality, an exploration of mark-making, materiality and
SWALLOW is a single-channel experimental short film created as an exploration of the cinematic psychological thriller and horror genre to engage with the discomfort of the self, exposing the deafening fear of being alone. The film blends the horror of
BENEATH THE SURFACE Tahlia Diaz’s artworks reference nature expressed through the experience of mourning and grief. She has devised a unique form of coil rolling that creates a deteriorated and heavily textured clay surface by carefully assembling the repeated stretched
A World We Left Behind Do you remember your dreams upon waking? What is the earliest memory you can recall? This project is intently concerned with memory, but doesn’t aim to depict any type of overt imagery related to existing memories.
Exploring the notion that materials are imbued with memory, my practice investigates the affective power of objects when included in figurative and still-life imagery. Collecting and preserving objects that once sat as quiet backdrops to our daily lives has become
Valentin Ostrom is a French-born jewellery artist whose Mediterranean countryside upbringing defines much of his identity. Valentin’s sensitivity to the natural world and previous science background play out his exploration of biology, botany and natural phenomena in an artistic context.
Recipient of the Kayell Digital Print Award. __________________________________ THE SPACE BETWEEN Propelled by an endless fascination with the natural world and our relationship to it, my work is often site-responsive, based on my own engagement with the urban and natural
MODERN DAY ROMANTICS – an exploration of hook-up culture and the modern dating scene. With online dating being at the forefront of the modern dating scene, this print-based research project investigates hook-up culture and the impact that the cyber
Recipient of the Print Studio Experimental Print Award. __________________________________ This project is an investigation into how I can create a more sustainable printmaking practice by making a relief block that is infinitely recyclable. A lino block is a thick
MY SOUVENIRS FROM MELBOURNE This project is based on observations of buildings in the City of Melbourne. I employ digital illustration and animation to create a series of sketches, combining my Asian background with further city exploration while on my
MIRROR AND ILLUSION Xiaoyou Fu is a contemporary artist. By exploring photography and mixed media, I looked at other ways to communicate emotion and depict ambience. I also exhibited certain ethereal aspects of Eastern culture in an abstract form. Through
BY THE POND is a series of works in response to the pond in Carlton Gardens. These paintings draw from my experiences of this place and the duck’s impressions on me. Over the past year, I have been visiting the
PERSONA I have slowly slipped into the life of an immigrant since 2017 when I started studying in New Zealand—then attending university in Melbourne from 2020 to 2022, where I will be graduating at the end of the year, and
DYING BUT ALIVE IN THE FALSE WORLD Reborn—Can The Cyber God release souls of Bionic Ghosts from purgatory? This project focuses on cyberculture and contemporary beliefs regarding spirits and ghosts, expressed through the medium of an immersive space.
UNSTILL My work engages with ideas relating to inspiration and influence. Our perspective on everything doesn’t come naturally, we learn how and what we see. Unstill is a series of non-narrative, still life oil paintings, made using multiple layers where
THE MAGICAL JOURNEY: CORAL AND PHOENIX is a fictional story about the magical adventure journeys of Princess Coral and Phoenix. The five metre long mixed media painting is divided into twelve storylines. The stories reference Western and Eastern myths, religious stories,
AN UN-COMING OF AGE The still-life object acts as a vessel in the exploration of the beauty of the everyday. Its accessibility and familiarity allow the bowl, the vase, the cup, to resonate universally. The stylisation of the vase becomes
