2017 Queensland College of Art Fine Art graduate catalogue

FINE ART QUEENSLAND COLLEGE OF ART, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY

GRADUATES CATALOGUE 2017

FINE ART GRADUATES CATALOGUE QUEENSLAND COLLEGE OF ART GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY 19–25 OCTOBER 2017

4

FOREWORDS Bianca Beetson

30 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE

47

PAINTING Suzanne Baker

Tristan Eyles

Christopher Bassi

Tristan Griffin

Rosie Bird

Helen Hardess

Carl-Wilhelm Blomquist

Elijah Jackson

Michelle Cooley

Tiana Jefferies

Alannah Dair

Zachary McCann

Edwin Hamill

Kim Ah Sam

Lisa McNamara

Eilish Hazell

Hal Oram

Kate O’Brien

Brit Jackson

Joe Pegler

Kierra-Jay Power

Danielle Milne

Melissa Stannard

Janey Reidy

Genevieve Mitchell

Dr Bill Platz

BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART 6

Nat O’Gorman

INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING 10

JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS

Annie O’Rourke

40

Pawel Obrocki

Laura Connell

Gemma Dawson

Aaron Perkins

Isobel Fiechtner

Trudie Gardiner

Rebecca Porter

Emmalyn Hawthorne

Chloe Healey

lalita Sherwell

Conchita Hurst

Charlotte Kippax

Branka Sinobad

Christine Stoner

Rachael Mutzelburg

Jake Stewart

Cassandra Vanderkop

Sean Prentis

Alice Trow

Mia Wells

Chin (Andy) Wang

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA

Darcy Williams

16

Natalie Wood

Elise Black

Sarah Zschech

Erin Blyth

Jewel White Stone

Caitlin Davis Erica Dunkley

72

Karla Edwards

FINE ART STAFF 2017

Tamika Maree Grant-Iramu Shannon McAuliffe Susan Mullen Matthew Newkirk Jungha Park Robyn Pell Lizzie Riek Maddy Storm Symonds Michelle Wild

73

SUPPORTERS

FOREWORDS

This year’s Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art (CAIA) graduation exhibition is called Ytitnedi. A play on words, Ytitnedi is ‘identity’ backwards, which highlights the way in which the students have had to look back in order to look forward when undertaking their research on personal identity. It suggests the need to connect the fragments of our families’ histories so as to strengthen our personal and cultural identities.

Ytitnedi is about a reimagining of cultural identity and a reinvigoration of Aboriginal art practices. These graduates are reclaiming traditional and contemporary practices and challenging what are currently accepted norms of Aboriginal art and culture. The exhibition aims to erode the belief that Aboriginal art and culture are static and homogenous by exploring diversity and challenging artistic notions and cultural stereotypes.

Over their degrees, these students have embraced contemporary art practices and they work in a range of mediums, including painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Each of the graduating students brings a unique vision into the exhibition and, when viewed in its entirety, it reveals subjects and experiences shaping contemporary Aboriginal art today. Key works in this exhibition provide us with an insight into the future of contemporary Aboriginal arts practice in Queensland.

This exhibition is a snapshot of the achievements, excellence, and diversity of the graduates from the CAIA program; furthermore, these graduates are a testament to the ongoing success of the program. The staff of CAIA would like to congratulate these graduating students and wish them well for their future career pursuits.

Bianca Beetson Program Director, Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art Queensland College of Art Griffith University

4

In 1956, the American artist Ben Shahn was invited to give a series of lectures at Harvard University. These lectures were later compiled into a slim, pocket-sized book, copies of which have spent decades stuffed into the grubby denim pockets of art students. The book, The Shape of Content, travels some well-worn paths but it also contains the idiosyncratic observations and insightful provocations of a life spent making art.

I first read the book as an undergraduate Fine Art student, and have been surprised at how often its ideas have recirculated in my thoughts. In one subtle passage, Shahn writes, “While I concede that almost every situation has its potential artist … I am generally mistrustful of contrived situations, that is, situations peculiarly set up to favour the blossoming of art.”1 It’s a stirring notion that ‘every situation has its potential artist’. Art school cultivates potential artists to find their situations—not just to learn how to do things—and to impress themselves upon the world in motivated and specific ways that will inexorably transform them and the situations with which their works intersect. These are meaningful choices and they are deeply personal ones.

Shahn is correct that to artificially manufacture a meaningful situation is doomed to mediocrity and dissatisfaction. Finding those extraordinary convergences of self, practice, and situation is the aim that unites us all as artists and arts workers.

At the Queensland College of Art (QCA), Griffith University, we believe in our responsibility to maintain the integrity and rigour of art education and to support our art students as they prepare to lodge themselves in the world as artists and find their situations. It requires tremendous fortitude to take on art school, to open oneself up to the difficult self-reflection required, and to take the risks that are imperative to succeed, as these graduates have. The work in this exhibition is the outcome of a long and intense period of speculation, and is testimony to the commitment and determination of each student.

Along the way, these graduates have come together into a community of staff and students, shared in confusion and consternation, and revelled in perceptions and comprehensions that are unique to the art school experience. Although this exhibition represents the final culmination of each student’s studio concentration, it is only a small fraction of the whopping volume of knowledge, experimentation and production that they will carry out into the world.

The QCA class of 2017 is an exceptional cohort. They deserve our deepest congratulations and our unwavering support as they exit this stage and step onto another. On behalf of the Fine Art staff and the QCA community: Well done. We wait with keen anticipation of whatever you will do next.

Dr Bill Platz Program Director, Fine Art Queensland College of Art Griffith University

1 Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 8.

5

KIM AH SAM 6

BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART Blood and Fire 2016–17 collagraph and acrylic paint 77 x 23cm

I am a descendant of the Kuku Yalanji and Kalkadoon people.

Over the past twenty years, I have painted contemporary dot and line paintings. Since commencing my studies at QCA in 2015 as a mature age student, I’ve had the opportunity to learn the Western techniques of printmaking.

Women’s business “Gathering Bush Tucker” 2016–17 collagraph and acrylic paint 77 x 23cm

My work explores my deep spiritual connection to my country.

In 2014, I went back to country, a journey that helped me expand my art practice.

“Plenty” only take what you need 2016–17 collagraph and acrylic paint 77 x 23cm

Through my drypoints, I work aggressively, making marks to represent the land, portraying my journey through country and my connection to my cultural identity.

HAL ORAM BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART Sun King 2017 block print 100 x 70cm Family Knowledge 2017 block print 100 x 70cm Shadown of Goodidalla 2017 block print 100 x 70cm

I am an Aboriginal artist connected to the Jetrimarala, Munijali, and Kanolu peoples. My Grandmother inspires me to excel through my love of art and life. My artworks incorporate both traditional and contemporary techniques that demonstrate my cultural obligation of observing the wisdom of the elders and sharing their dreaming stories, while presenting a unique interpretation of Aboriginal totemic connection to the people and their land. My practice explores my passion for country, spirituality, and politics through mediums including watercolour, acrylic painting, lino prints, and sculpture.

7

JOE PEGLER 8

BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART Country 2017 lino print 50 x 70cm Homelands 2016 lino print Roo and Sand 2017 lino print

I am connected to the Ugarapul and Kullulli people, and my Aboriginal identity is of paramount importance to me as an artist. My themes include homelands, totems, animals and landscapes. I explore my interconnectedness with my homelands through my art practice. The sand hills at Cunnamulla are significant to me because they are my birthplace. My totems are my inherent birthright and relate to clan, kinship, and identity. My three totems are the red kangaroo (fathers), green tree frog (mothers), and the white owl. Through my art, I honour my family.

MELISSA STANNARD BACHELOR OF CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART melissastannard.wixsite.com/ lostandfoundlings Spirits of the Landscape, Strength & Resilience 2017 sterling silver, pendant and brooch dimensions variable Mnemonics of Nature series, Stingray, Crows Ash Collaboration and Vistas & Views 2017 sterling silver, rings dimensions variable

I am an endless explorer, expressing myself through process and materiality, inspired by my local environs of Lake Weyba, Noosa Biosphere, and the Eumundi Conservation park. These places evoke a sense of calm in an otherwise hectic world. Dadirri, an Indigenous inner deep listening and re-connecting with the land, informs my practice, as well as the human condition, family, culture, identity, and belonging.

I am a proud Gamillaroi, Wailwan woman living and practising on the Sunshine Coast on Kubbi Kubbi land. I gratefully acknowledge my ancestors and elders past, present and emerging.

9

LAURA CONNELL 10

INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING artstation.com/anhuiprincess Fantastical Succulent Morphology: I Suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome 2016 white border gloss photos and gauche 10.16 x 15.24cm, 12.7 x 12.7cm, 20.32 x 15.24cm, 25.4 x 20.32cm

As fantastical succulent interruptions, these animations focus on the mundanity of the suburban domestic. By inventing what I describe as succulent morphology, these works playfully explore my need to escape everyday reality through an obsession with preternatural worlds.

ISOBEL FIECHTNER INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING Re/frag/mental 2017 charcoal on paper dimensions variable

Questioning the fallacy of memory and impermanence, these charcoal drawings investigate the struggle of holding onto the past. Long travelled, I have jumped from place to place, people to people, leaving fading memories and forging new stories within new cultures. These fragmented images emphasise the ‘in-between’ often experienced through transience. These works explore how one’s perception of memory can change through time.

11

EMMALYN HAWTHORNE 12

INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING Bathtub with Seascapes 2017 video installation dimensions variable Sediment 2017 video installation with watercolour seascapes dimensions variable

My work actively searches for small moments of everyday life where experience ruptures and something unexpected and poetic is revealed. These installations use light, sky, fragmentation, and absurdity in conjunction with digital projection as a means of fracturing the familiar. In an attempt to rewrite the daily narrative, reality is intentionally misperceived and exchanged for something more sublime, even if only for a moment.

CONCHITA HURST INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING Found In Translation 2017 mixed media dimensions variable

A child of Spanish migrants raised in 1960s’ Brisbane, I use my work to re-inscribe meaning into objects, exploring family and memories through photography and story. Framed by my father’s biography Un Español Extranjero or A Spanish Foreigner, this mixed media installation is a palimpsest cataloguing memory and locating place. Addressing themes of displacement and relocation and the notion of home, this enquiry asks, “is one always an outsider?”

13

CHRISTINE STONER 14

INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING Ruminations on Containment 2017 charcoal on paper 150 x 75cm

As an enquiry into recollection, memory and psychological disturbance, Ruminations on Containment presents artefacts that evidence a re-imagined episode. This installation of isolated objects, including drawing, fabric, performance and video, invites interrogation, questioning the real and the hidden.

CASSANDRA VANDERKOP INTERDISCIPLINARY DRAWING Self-portraits (medicalised) at age twentysix (1) 2017 mixed media 29.5 x 29.5cm Self-portraits (medicalised) at age twenty-six (2) 2017 mixed media 29.5 x 29.5cm

This collection of self-portraits investigates self and medicalised imaging. By disrupting the tropes of Renaissance portraiture, my re-invention describes chronic illness and its unseen effects. These layered digital and hand-drawn works examine identity by attempting to re-insert the self back into the world in a constructed and playful manner.

15

ELISE BLACK 16

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Impressions 2017 screen printing, sewing dimensions variable

Inspired by natural organic forms, my art practice explores the process of abstracting photographs taken from urban landscapes into patterns. I then incorporate these patterns into new works. My graduate piece Impressions originates in landscapes important to me personally, and investigates how clothing and fashion can allow one to transcend identities. I also have a strong interest in the history of screen printing’s impact on fast fashion.

ERIN BLYTH INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Desolation 2016 lithography 42 x 59cm

In my art practice, I address issues of what the contemporary urban environment means within the push and pull of our relationship to the natural world. I am also interested in our attraction to those environments that we destroy even while morphing it into products that suit us. By creating images of a world familiar to our own, devoid of nature and human life, I highlight a grim outlook into what our future holds.

17

CAITLIN DAVIS 18

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Girl 2017 drypoint 35 x 40cm

My art practice draws from feminist perspectives to address existing social imbalances. I am particularly concerned with disparities perpetuated through gender, cultura,l and hierarchical social structures. The printmaking technique of drypoint and a fluid use of plate tone allow me to specifically discuss these concerns through this media.

ERICA DUNKLEY INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Inflorescence 2017 intaglio 20 x 20cm each

My work centres on investigations into the essence of flowers.

I engage with floral forms through abstraction and layered intaglio techniques in order to identify their innate character, their inner qualities and their essentiality. Most importantly, I am interested in finding what Aristotle called “the what it is� of a flower, or what a flower is in itself.

19

KARLA EDWARDS 20

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Amalgamation 2017 copper etching print 42 x 30cm

The focus of my work throughout my final year has incorporated hybridity and strong female forms through the practice of copper etching and aquatint. The works draw attention to the dominant personality within each of the figures, which is reinforced when combined with the animal head. Each character is highly individualised through the amalgamation of the human form and animal features.

TAMIKA MAREE GRANT-IRAMU INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Eversley Series 2017 linocut 70 x 50cm each

Inspired by the immediate environment of Brisbane, my practice focuses on minute areas of native flora. From these observations I create a diverse range of organic patterns and forms through a strong print aesthetic. The physicality of carving linocut has not only allowed me to achieve these artworks but it has also revealed a connection to my Torres Strait Islander heritage.

21

SHANNON McAULIFFE 22

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Jacaranda 2016 monotype & drypoint 15 x 15cm each

Each of these prints is a portrait of the natural world, showcasing its unique beauty through the vibrant use of colours and the formation of a tree. By using both monotypes and etchings, I have taken aspects of these unique qualities to create prints that remind me of the tree that inspired me: the Jacaranda.

SUSAN MULLEN INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA 1950s’ Brisbane Bathroom, 2017 photo release, drypoint, etching and relief 25.5 x 77cm

Currently concerned with the nature of time, memory, and a sense of belonging, I am interested in translating the universal connections we share in our relationship to the symbol of home. My investigations of post-war Brisbane household interiors have been realised through the printmaking techniques of photo release, intaglio, relief, and mono print. These images may invoke memory, locating us to time and place, as people with shared history.

23

MATTHEW NEWKIRK 24

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA

Knowledge is power. —Francis Bacon

matthewnewkirk.net

Information rules the world. —Winston Churchill

The Real Rag Trade 2017 30 Courier Mail front page headlines, 30 wire newspaper frames, digital prints 420 x 216cm

Question everything. ­—Euripides

JUNGHA PARK INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA junghapark.com untitled 2017 photography, silkscreen and relief dimensions variable

These photographs are of places that I have been to and of myself. I took them to remember; however, I don’t remember what it is I wanted to remember. It is as if I want to be remembered but at the same time I want to be unknown. All the viewer sees is what they want to see of me, an illusion of me. My identity is unknown but you still try to figure out who I might be.

25

ROBYN PELL 26

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA

The Anguish of Elders

robynpell.com

Sending you away has been, in some ways, a tragedy. I still think it was the right thing to do, even though events proved different from our fears. But it has been heartbreaking to miss these years of your lives. We shall meet again as almost strangers.

Keep Them Safe 2017 artist book, cyanotype prints 30 x 60cm Operation Pied Piper Postcard Project 2017 screenprints 14.8 x10.5cm

—Ted Matthews to his daughter Judy, 1944

LIZZIE RIEK INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA lizzieriek.wordpress.com Vocabulary of Ornament 2017 Intaglio

The standardisation of ornamental design in classical Western architecture resulted in a vocabulary, read and understood through a collective cultural understanding of symbols and ornaments. My evolving series of prints forms relationships between individual images and texts sourced from that vocabulary. My practice in general draws attention to a continuing multiplicity of this vocabulary evident in contemporary architecture.

27

MADDY STORM SYMONDS 28

INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA Thirst For Knowledge 2017 etching and mezzotint 31 x 40cm, 31 x 25cm

“They will know him by his hollow eye Ever thirsty, ever searching for the sweet quench of knowledge.”

I seek to reignite a passion for ancient myths, retelling them through refined printmaking. I seek a seductive quality in my etchings that strike a chord within the viewer. By taking inspiration from the great Renaissance masters’ use of intaglio and relief, I convey a sense of timelessness and immortality of myths that have survived countless ages.

MICHELLE WILD INTERDISCIPLINARY PRINT MEDIA The Case IV 2017 lithography, chin colle and installation 40 x 27cm

The focus of my graduate year has been is intrinsically bound to a personal narrative of identity, one that sits within a broader cultural and historical context, including place, time, movement, and memory. These elements together with the handmade and found object have the capacity to both reinforce or alternatively dissolve an individual’s sense of belonging. Concept, process, lithography, and etching equally inform my practice.

29

TRISTAN EYLES 30

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Pile 2017 railway ballast dimensions variable 12 Moving Image Investigations Exploring Romantic Nature (detail) 2017 twelve single-channel videos, audio dimensions/duration variable

My spatial practice explores found objects with moving images as a means to frame urban and exurban ecologies as places with lingering sublime and romantic qualities. Video work highlights direct experiential engagement, while objectbased work uncovers evidence of simulation and the hyperreal. Frequently employed devices include degraded imagery and ‘noise-sound’ to establish a divergence in narrative.

TRISTAN GRIFFIN INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE tristangriffin.com.au Trinity ‘speak see listen’ 2017 virtual reality headsets, web-based software variable

Trinity explores the capacity for new media arts to express abstract concepts through the cross-pollination of the physical, the digital, and the spiritual. Participants are invited to experience emerging technologies such as Sublime environmental Virtual Reality, spacial audio, theta wave oscillation, synchronous decibel modulation, and glossolalia translation.

31

HELEN HARDESS 32

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Foreign Matters (detail) 2016 photographs, found and constructed objects dimensions variable Inside, Outside, In 2017 digital photograph 84 x 118cm

I investigate human activity and natural processes impacting on each other in natural and urban environments. Witnessing the continual flux of life, I respond using video, photography, objects, and materials, to re-enact a sense of multiple histories, the mutable and the immutable, within the art installation. Through the displacement of objects and images in institutional settings, social and cultural agency might be possible.

ELIJAH JACKSON INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE The Stripper Pole 2016 0:29:01 filmed performance for your entertainment 2016 projection, chair, satin, spotlight dimensions variable Overlap 2015–17 projection onto drapery dimensions variable

I am queer artist, I am circus performer, I am hesitant writer and I am quiet protester, working with performance, video, audio, sculpture, and whatever else I may find necessary.

33

TIANA JEFFERIES 34

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE This Is Not a CD Rack / 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover 2017 single-channel video 0:03:45

I create spacial tensions that flirt with representation. Semiformalised, semi-familiar relationships form between found and obsolete objects as I dissolve an object’s original function to create a multivalent cultural item. Materials are Franciscan in their simplicity but treated as immortal monuments/ memorials to our culture.

ZACHARY McCANN INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Viscous 2017 video 100 x 150cm Untitled 2017 steel, copper 2 x 25 x 1cm Untitled 2017 flesh 7.5 x 29 x 4cm

35

LISA McNAMARA 36

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Trigger Warning 2017 hula hoops, plastic toys, caution tape, hooks and plastic tie 90 x 90cm

I am an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Brisbane.

Referencing art history, contemporary culture, and thirdwave feminist theory, my work draws from the domestic and explores objects that trigger memories of another time and place.

KATE O’BRIEN INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Sash 2017 glass pearls, cannetille and rhinestones on silk 200 x 18cm Deus Mortuus Est 2017 glass pearls, rhinestones and gold plated beads on worsted wool 300 x 150cm

My work is an exploration of history through the medium of textiles and their ornamentation. I aim to achieve a sense of the sacred in my finished works through the language of patina, physical weight, and hand-applied decoration. I am passionate about researching the symbolism of textile colours and fabric types and I enjoy the creating pieces that appear to have an intrinsic spiritual value, while in reality having none.

37

KIERRA-JAY POWER 38

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE 55–65 y.o. male of European descent 2016 sand cast bronze from 3D print 15 x 15 x 10cm

If classification is the mirror of collective humanity’s thoughts and perceptions, then collecting is its material embodiment.

Collecting is classification lived, experienced in three dimensions. The history of collecting is thus the narrative of how human beings have striven to accommodate, to appropriate and to extend the taxonomies and systems of knowledge they have inherited.

—John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, The Cultures of Collecting

JANEY REIDY INTERDISCIPLINARY SCULPTURE Raw 1 2017 jute dimensions variable Shimmer 1 2017 video still dimensions variable

I am an interdisciplinary mixed media artist. My work manifests itself as creations of energy, light, textural, tactile, and raw experiential pieces. My creative practice brings together components of our external physical existence with our deeper internal responses to specific materials. A practice that invites the audience to engage with the work in ways that evoke thought and sensory exploration.

39

GEMMA DAWSON 40

JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS  @gemma.dilemma.art fb.com/GemmaDilemmaArt Emerald Heart Chakra 2017 recycled sterling silver, emerald 4 x 4 x 1cm

My interest in crystals started from a young age and developed further through my teen years and into adulthood.

My Chakra series focuses specifically on the crystals associated with each of the seven chakras. The idea behind this series is to create pieces of jewellery with each chakra’s specific crystals as well as associated totems that can be worn on the person to amplify and strengthen the specific chakra each piece is designed for.

TRUDIE GARDINER JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS ď…­ @TrinketsFromTrudie Rhodochrosite for a Rhino 2017 oxidised sterling silver, steel pin, gallery wire, rhodochrosite 4.5 x 3 x 0.9cm Roses for the Rhinos no. 3 and no. 4 2017 oxidised sterling silver, human tooth, gallery wire, dog tooth Top: 2.3 x 2 x 1.6cm Bottom: 5 x 2.5 x 0.5cm

I’m influenced by a range of ornamentation styles; in particular, memento mori, antique silver tableware, ornate architecture, and florentine engraving patterns. I observe the beings and events that I find personal and significant.

Currently, these are issues of animal welfare and a study of the notion of protection. These concepts merge with my visual references to produce synthetically antique and precious works.

41

CHLOE HEALEY 42

JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS ď…­ @jewellery_by_chloehealey Rhino Beetle and Poinciana Tree 2017 oxidised sterling silver 8.8 x3.6 x 1.2cm Fragmented Insect Series 2017 sterling silver dimensions variable

The repulsion and beauty of insects have been a key focus of my work this year. By obscuring and highlighting parts of the insects in my jewellery series, I aim to question the viewer about what they are really looking at and how they perceive these pieces. Are you intrigued, repulsed, unsure? What are you really looking at?

CHARLOTTE KIPPAX JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS etsy.com/au/shop/ SolveCoagulaByKippax Exterior Feeling 2017 sterling silver, moonstone 4 x 5cm Search 2017 sterling silver, fine silver, citrine 1 x 1 x 1cm

I have been developing a collection of works based upon superstition and the wild; I am romanced by the beauty and grotesquery of the unknown. The darker aspects of my environment are a primary influence. Australian gothic seeps into the mind from the untamed savage world, beyond the safety of the city. My collection dances between the darkness and those who are drawn to the light.

43

RACHAEL MUTZELBURG 44

JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS Caving 2017 3.5 x 2.3 x 2.5cm sterling silver

I am driven by a curiosity for self-exploration. I enjoy documenting my conscious reflections of particular events in my life through the act of working with metal; both the process of creation and the end result of the pieces yield value in the sense of self-growth. Creating physical embodiments of thoughts and emotions allows me to navigate my way through adversity and relish the satisfaction of doing so.

SEAN PRENTIS JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS ď…­ @seanprentis Worry Stones of a Different Sort 2017 sterling silver, copper, bead cord 4.4 x 2.8 x 1.2cm and 3.6 x 1.8 x 1.8cm

At the heart of my design is a sense of playfulness. I use jewellery as a way to explore innocuous aspects of life that possess a subtle beauty. One such expression of this idea is fidgeting, a natural instinct we all carry out, but rarely consider. My pieces encourage the wearer to be aware of the tactile nature of objects, and how habits are formed and performed.

45

MIA WELLS 46

JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS ď…­ @miaclaudia.jewellery five in five 2017 various sizes recycled sterling silver, recycled copper, ethically sourced black coral, up-cycled pearls and smoky quartz

This body of work responds to two important themes that, for me, go hand in hand. My relationship with and respect for the coast underlies the strong sense of responsibility I have to promote the sustainable production and consumption of jewellery.

By using ethically sourced and recycled metals, I avoid contributing to the destructive and pervasive effects of fast fashion and bring elements of the natural environment into our worn material culture.

SUZANNE BAKER PAINTING What Lies Beneath 1 2017 oil on board 600 x 900cm What Lies Beneath 2 2017 oil on board 150 x 200cm

My paintings explore the socio-ecological concerns of the FIFO lifestyle, highly paid yet soul destroying, and the counterproductive pursuit of wealth in the search for happiness. The hi-vis uniform and the black mask-like face deny the humanity of the worker and conceal the vulnerability of the flesh beneath. In this way, the FIFO worker is a mirror for ourselves and a metaphor for the flaws that exist in the way we live.

47

CHRISTOPHER BASSI 48

PAINTING christopherbassi.com Untitled (10.05.17) 2017 oil on canvas 35 x 31cm Untitled (Pearl Eater) 2017 oil on canvas 36 x 30.5cm

My practice investigates identity in relation to the material.

Through a broad lens, I examine the nature of liminality, transculturalism, globalisation, and philosophical reflections on the constructed nature of identity. Drawing on theories of post-structuralism, postcolonialism, performativity and intertextuality my practice oscillates through figuration, material concerns and processes of making and its relationship to the body and subjectivity.

ROSIE BIRD PAINTING rosiebirdart.wordpress.com My hands 2017 oil on canvas 25 x 25 x 4cm Surrendering purpose 2017 oil on canvas 35 x 45 x 3.5cm

My paintings are concerned with human behaviour and emotional experience. The narratives within my paintings are often constructed through anthropomorphic symbolism.

These paintings have an air of existential contemplation. I am exposed and open for scrutiny from the viewer and myself.

The figure and the fish share a pictorial and ontological space of resignation and despair. This image exposes deep emotional disruption and displacement.

49

CARL-WILHELM BLOMQUIST 50

PAINTING BNE Day 2017 oil and acrylic on canvas 90 x 90cm BNE Night 2017 oil and acrylic on canvas 90 x 90cm

I am a Swedish artist who moved to Australia four years ago.

In my work, I paint what I encounter on a daily basis; in this case, I have painted Brisbane’s domestic architecture. I have taken different Queenslander homes from around Brisbane and put them together into my own composite landscapes.

This project constitutes a visual processing of my time in Australia.

MICHELLE COOLEY PAINTING Untitled 2017 charcoal, acrylic paint 52 x 76cm Untitled 2017 charcoal, acrylic paint 120 x 91cm Untitled 2017 charcoal, acrylic paint 91 x 85cm

My painting is centred on depicting a biological and ecological framework that echoes the modernist period of abstraction. Working with and responding intuitively with the medium, I am interested in the relationship between painting and ‘nature’.

51

ALANNAH DAIR 52

PAINTING Cocoon 2017 acrylic on fabric 120 x 100cm Hysterectomy 2017 acrylic on fabric 160 x 90cm

My practice is centred on an exploration of the physical and metaphysical body in painting. I have taken an expanded approach to painting, replacing traditional supports with fabric. In doing so, the fabric acts as flesh, as equal parts with the paint to create a whole unified object. The impetus for this series came from my experience with a medical condition called endometriosis, a chronically painful gynaecological disease.

EDWIN HAMILL PAINTING Faces 2017 acrylic and oil on canvas 40 x 30cm Lick 2017 acrylic on canvas 80 x 170cm Toilet 2017 acrylic and oil on canvas 60 x 40cm

My series of paintings reflects the awkardness of human experience (or my experience) and the double awkwardness of representing it through paint. I am not a good ‘realist’ portrait painter but I had very much wanted to be. When I attempt to create realistic figurative paintings, it makes me uncomfortable. So I decided to place that phenomenon at the centre of my work. Ironically, that process helped me overcome my self-consciousness

53

EILISH HAZELL 54

PAINTING Nobody Is Perfect Except Me 2017 tattoo ink on cotton 163 x 90cm Fashion Mullet 2017 oil on canvas 40.5 x 30.5cm Flash 2017 tattoo ink on board 80 x 60cm

My work draws on queer, post-structuralist, and feminist theories in order to create a unique personal mythology. I use self-portraiture as a means of provoking political questions of visibility, empowerment, and representation. Populating my work with multiple versions of self, I use parody, narcissism, and the politics of transgression in order to draw attention to the unfixed nature of identity.

BRIT JACKSON PAINTING The Remnants of Our Identity 2017 acrylic on canvas 40 x 31.5cm Are You Alone in Your Skin? 2017 acrylic on canvas 35.5 x 28cm

My work forms a continuous line of investigation into the roles of women in Greek mythology. My latest works consider the representation and agency of women in ancient mythological stories as a way of asking to what extent contemporary women maintain jurisdiction of their own bodies. I am interested in borrowing themes from mythology as a tool to reflect the state of present-day female issues.

55

DANIELLE MILNE 56

PAINTING daniellemilnestudio.com Untitled 1 2017 oil on board 50.5 x 40.5cm You think I’m small enough to walk under a coffee table?! 2017 oil on board 50.5 x 40.5cm I come before you to stand behind you 2017 oil on board 50.5 x 40.5cm

My work explores the symbiotic relationship between fashion and art. I am interested in what occurs when an image made for a fashion magazine is transformed into a painting.

Meaning, context, and value are radically changed and a new visual language is created. In this series, fashion images become portraits and I invent new narratives centred on the relationship between the subjects and the viewer.

GENEVIEVE MITCHELL PAINTING No Feet, No Head 2015 oil on canvas board 40.5 x 20cm Landscape 2015 oil on canvas board 25 x 30.3cm Meat 2015 oil on canvas board 20 x 40.5cm

Despite the different depictions of self, these are selfportraits. Yet in reducing myself to being nude, I unpack a history of degrading women in art. In embracing this, I’ve captured a side of myself that poses to be objectified. By acknowledging this, titling the paintings self-portraits and the personalisation of being both subject and artist, this series challenges the traditional of the nude and redefines portraiture.

57

NAT O’GORMAN 58

PAINTING Inessence 2017 oil on canvas 30 x 30cm Inland 2017 oil on board 50 x 60cm Inwood 2017 oil on linen 170 x 170cm

My current body of work explores the relationship or tension between the reality and unreality of our unique experience of place. It explores the relationship between the landscape and the observer and the connection between the observed and contemplated world.

ANNIE O’ROURKE PAINTING ‘’the thing that happened on St. Valentine’s Day went on spreading, out and out and out, in circles’’ 2017 oil and pencil on board 120 x 270cm

My current work explores the way that art and fiction coexist with reality and come together to create contemporary mythology. The works consider connections between the film Picnic at Hanging Rock and coverage of the wrongful imprisonment of Lindy Chamberlain after her baby’s disappearance. The women in these stories have been interpreted as victims, muses, sirens, and villains, inviting reflection on depictions of women in Australian visual culture.

59

PAWEL OBROCKI 60

PAINTING Longo post tempore 2017 acrylic and oil paint on canvas a. 76 x 60.8cm b. 60.8 x 50.6cm c. 60.8x50.6cm Wind 2017 acrylic and oil on canvas 91 x 122cm Machina-Installation 2017 painting, found objects (bricolage), wooden crates, painting installation Installation size 240 x 360 x 600cm

The painting installation The blind men and an Elephant in the Room is a parable and an idiom about the human condition, particularly with regards to the subjective loss of agency. This project investigates how cultural determinism, visual codes, and conventions usurp free will and a sense of individual power. It involves: détourenment, automatism, in-’spiration’, ageing, hoarding, bricolage… oh, and painting.

AARON PERKINS PAINTING  @aamapepe July 30, 2017 (we knew them to say hello and they seemed nice / they ate crumpets for breakfast) 2017 oil and oil pastel on canvas, online news service, and cryptic crossword 106 x 106cm

The assemblage of individuated worlds of opinion and concomitant undermining of narrative authority is the contemporary context for the process of history. Although referencing traditional reportage and utilising news articles, photography and crosswords, these ‘history paintings’ eschew objective narrative to offer a contemplative frame through which subjectivity might be imposed upon, and understood within, the historicised present.

Our Sunshine (Suprematist Lament) 2017 oil, oil pastel, pencil and gouache on canvas 76.0 x 50.5cm

61

REBECCA PORTER 62

PAINTING Uma painting 2016 oil on canvas 152 x 102cm Denouement 2017 digital print 48 x 48cm

A Swedish brand of dissociation.

LALITA SHERWELL PAINTING Nude with Maquette 2017 oil on canvas 76 x 71cm Ten Minutes in a Circle 2017 oil on canvas 76 x 83.5cm

This body of work refers to Pierre Bonnard’s trope of the bathing nude, to consider how painting protests against the alienating effect of our twenty-first-century digital culture.

The historical motif of the bathing nude and her obsessive need to wash is recast as a metaphor for the contemporary subject’s motivation to understand the body’s authenticity in contrast to its existence in many virtual worlds.

63

BRANKA SINOBAD 64

PAINTING Untitled 1 2007 oil on canvas 213 x 182cm Untitled 2 2007 oil on canvas 213 x 182cm

The act of painting as means of processing human experience is at the centre of my work and the force that I use to elicit a closer investigation of the motif. This body of work was inspired by documentary photographs of refugees trying to cross borders, an experience I have shared as a refugee from Yugoslavia. At the centre are human figures; they are no particular person or place but representative of the global problem of displacement.

JAKE STEWART PAINTING Stairwell 2017 acrylic on paper 21 x 29.7cm Tobias 2017 oil on board 89.7 x 60cm

An observation of spaces in flux, between past and present.

Structures forgotten or soon to be destroyed. Drawing attention to these transitional spaces through the medium of painting, my work examines what it means to have a place that is not governed by the societal conventions of aesthetics, law, or personal safety: places that are completely malleable, inherited by nature and the individual.

65

ALICE TROW 66

PAINTING Home 2017 oil on canvas 15 x 15cm Untitled 2017 oil on wood 25 x 20cm

My current work is about the twenty-first century experience of living through the frames of screens (phones, computers, etc.). Focusing on landscapes, and using the window as a metaphor for the screen, my paintings investigate how digital framing both affects our perception of natural space and increases our desire for the natural world outside.

CHIN (ANDY) WANG PAINTING Girls 2017 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm Boys 2017 oil on canvas 20 x 25cm

Prom is a cultural message to youth and it has been a space where teens navigate societal conventions about gender, sexuality, tradition, and values.

This body of work uses my high school images as a reflection of how youths respond to this dominant culture.

67

DARCY WILLIAMS 68

PAINTING Just Within the Same Picture Frame 2017 oil on ply 22 x 28cm Album Cover (side to side) (back to front) 2017 oil on ply 35 x 42cm

My paintings are concerned with personal identity within the subcultures and groups I belong to. Painting plays a role in practice as a way I can regain agency within these subcultures I align with. The varying states of self that manifest in each group are a subjective thread between disparate painterly documentaries on such themes as gym culture, family cultures, dating culture, or in the case of my most recent body of work, art school culture.

NATALIE WOOD PAINTING When You Are Queen 1 2017 oil on canvas 30 x 40cm When You Are Queen 2 2017 oil on canvas 40 x 30cm

My paintings explore the tension between the ideal self and the actual self, physically, mentally, and intellectually. The act of repetitively painting a foot or a face becomes a type of exposure therapy that brings me closer to self-acceptance.

69

SARAH ZSCHECH 70

PAINTING Side Mirror 2017 oil paint 50.6 x 40.5cm Hills Hoist 2017 oil paint 51 x 51cm

Due to the availability of smartphones, we can take photographs amid all of our daily activities. This has led to an increase in possible vantage points for photography, both due to the phone’s constant proximity to our bodies and through accidental photographs. By painting my own iPhone references I highlight the changing nature of the photographic gaze, made possible through iPhone technology. Â

JEWEL WHITE STONE PAINTING Untitled 2017 mixed media dimensions variable

With the recent re-emergence of the witch in contemporary art, and from the perspective of a personal interest, my paintings archive how ritual is used to both cope with and explore how current oppressive social and political systems operate. This series refers to the mind-based trauma of the first seven years of the MKUltra Project Monarch programming.

71

FINE ART STAFF 2017

ACADEMIC STAFF

SESSIONAL STAFF

STUDIO TUTORS

Dr Bill Platz (Program Director)

Mr Phil Aitken

Mr Adam Anderson

Dr Chris Bennie

Mr Nick Ashby

Dr Ali Bezer

Dr Simon Degroot

Ms Karike Ashworth

Mr Blair Coffey

Mr Russell Craig

Dr Paul Bai

Mr Chris Hagen

Dr Julie Fragar

Mr Paul Bardini

Mr Spencer Harvie

Dr Rosemary Hawker

Dr Nadia Buick

Dr David Jones

Ms Catherine Large

Mr Blair Coffey

Ms Alicia Lane

Dr Chari Larsson

Ms Maren Götzmann

Ms Sally Molloy

Dr Louise Mayhew

Dr Jennie Jackson

Ms Jessie Nash

Dr Julie-Anne Milinski

Dr Emma Lindsay

Dr Jude Roberts

Dr Tim Mosely

Ms Clare Poppi

Ms Jenny Watson

Ms Kellie O’Dempsey

Ms Caity Reynolds

Ms Michelle Vine

Ms Elizabeth Shaw

Dr Jude Roberts

Prof Ross Woodrow

Mr Nasan Pather

TECHNICAL STAFF

Dr Sonya Peters

Mr Andrew Forsyth

Dr Zoe Porter

Dr Brian Sanstrom

Dr Glen Skein

Mr Dave Sawtell

Mr Carl Warner

Ms Katie Stormonth

Ms Rachael Wellisch

Mr Jonathan Tse

Fine Art would like to acknowledge the contributions to teaching in Fine Art from our colleagues in allied disciplines at QCA Ms Bianca Beetson (Program Convenor, Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art) Prof Susan Best (Deputy Director, Research) Dr Laini Burton (Program Director, Honours) Ms Amy Carkeek (Photography) Mr Daniel Della-Bosca (Digital Media, Gold Coast) Dr Heather Faulkner (Program Director, Photography) Assoc Prof Elisabeth Findlay (QCA DD L&T) 72

Assoc Prof Donna Leslie (Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research) Mr Martin Smith (Photography) Mr Peter Theideke (Photography) Prof Jay Younger (Photography)

Ms Leilani Weedon Ms Kate Woodcroft Ms Susie Woodhouse

ADMINISTRATION STAFF Ms Sandra Kane

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

Iain Turnbull Memorial Bursary Bonnie English Memorial Art Theory Award