Art Moderne

Zhong Chen

In a space where globalisation and transcultural experience amalgamate with belonging, Zhong Chen’s mesmerising work explores contemporary issues of history, culture and identity. Drawing inspiration from his upbringing in China and his global experiences later in life, Zhong’s style has developed and transformed over time to mirror the breadth of his eclectic world. While he takes pleasure in a constantly evolving style, Zhong’s trademark can be found in his formal brush strokes that pay homage to traditional Chinese painting. Now, as an internationally renowned artist, his works are widely collected across the globe.

Since settling in Australia in the 80,’Zhong Chen has become one of Australia's most celebrated artists, having been a finalist in some of the most prestigious art prizes in Australia as well as many successful exhibitions both nationally and internationally.

Zhong Chen has also an “Art Series hotel,” “The Chen” in Melbourne in recognition and as a retrospective of his distinctive art practices.

Gong

Sitting

Charlotte Elizabeth

Charlotte Elizabeth is a British-born artist who has been working with paint professionally for over Twenty years. A prestigious training in theatre design preceded a busy career as a Theatrical Scenic Artist in London’s West End.

Working with some of the best scenic artists in the world Charlotte created huge scale backcloths and murals for many famous venues. The Royal Opera House,

The ENO and even the Olympic Opening Ceremony make up her CV. Examples of Charlottes work can be seen on stage and screen all over the world.

A move to Asia inspired a change in direction, Charlotte has been empowered to exhibit her own personal work. Her debut series of paintings has been met with much acclaim, ‘Singapore Skies’ are large scale ethereal abstract cloudscapes. Each piece inspired by the incredible sky high architecture of Asia and the dramatic tempestuous climate. The work is both dramatic and tranquil, with many clients remarking upon the mindful and meditative quality the pieces evoke. Charlotte has now returned to the UK and is exploring dramatic oceans, shorelines and big bold moons.

“My years as a scenic artist has taught me to be bold, ambitious and confident when working with paint. I delight in the magical transformative quality of working with layer upon layer of colour, pigment and tone. I’m inspired by the glory of nature’s elements and the drama of the skies. Every painting is a journey, layered with my identity, as a woman, an artist, a mother, a fighter, a nurturer. My work is an instinctive, sensorial, tactile experiment where the colour does the talking and I merely allow the images to reveal themselves.”

Searching for the Stars

Flower Moon

Steve Rosendale

I have placed romanticised cityscapes in high contrast alongside tattered postcards. Nostalgic stills from a luminescent past which seem strangely familiar yet eerily distant. I use a palette of cross processed Kodachrome in order to create drama and atmosphere, a work that appears 'half remembered’.

I was glued to the television as a child and often use film stills to create my work. The postcards I stumbled across in second hand shops and they seemed like they were already little works of art. This use of what I call 'second hand' imagery are just the tools I use in order to obtain the real goal of creating a work of art that carries the drama and atmosphere of an experimental new wave film.

I collage together these little vignettes of postcards, films and photography in order to combine memory, dreams and fantasy into a finished artwork.

Steve Rosendale

Gareth Edwards

Gareth Edwards is a British contemporary landscape painter.

Gareth is a graduate of Goldsmiths College, an elected RWA Academician, and is a long-time resident of St Ives’ historic Porthmeor Studios, previously occupied by luminaries of British painting such as Patrick Heron and Ben Nicholson. He is a sessional tutor at the Newlyn School of Art and a prominent member of the Newlyn Society of Artists.

Demonstrating a powerful approach to process and the materiality of paint, his work invites us to contemplate ideas of the human ‘journey’our physical journey through time and space, and our psychological journey of existence. At their heart, his paintings aspire to a state of beauty and to what the artist describes as ‘emotional weather’, exploring equivalents in external environment and internal atmosphere.

“Contemporary Landscape painting has its detractors, but I believe it remains full of potential. My work considers the meaning and metaphor of natural forces, in the tradition of Constable and Turner, artists who recognise the power, beauty and grace of nature and our relationship with it.”

Ocean View Heights

Desert Road Mirage

Mairi Ward

Mairi Ward paints intuitively, as a response to her surroundings, from the perspective that she is emersed and inseparable from her environment. The results are abstract works composed of intricate layers of overlapping with interlocking forms and colours. The paintings reflect moments of personal freedom, whilst being present and in the moment. Mairi lives and works in Tasmania preferring to spend the majority of her time in the spectacular isolation in the Tasmanian countryside. She exhibits across Australia and has participated in many international shows. Arts Tasmania, Tasmanian Regional Arts and the Australia Council for the Arts have supported and invested regularly in Mairi's work practice. Mairi has been selected for five public art commissions and has been a finalist in several prestigious Australian art prizes.

Michael Ciavarella

Michael Ciavarella is a ceramic artist, art teacher, cultural ambassador and entrepreneur. As curator and director of The Matchbox Show, he creates a platform for artists and ceramic enthusiasts alike to come together from all around the world. Michael is an advocate for cultural understanding through art and communicates such meaning in his artwork. His concepts incorporate national heritage and identity. As an art teacher he broadens students minds technically and theoretically. Creating a practical and professional environment for which emerging artists can elaborate on.

His latest works explore identity and visual silence through abstract expressionism. A chance for reflection and reprieve in an over stimulated world.

Because

Mireia Serra

Through contemporary bronze and iron sculpture, I have achieved my own style, personal iconography and methodology. My universe includes symbolic elements: maps, globes, staircases, seas of methacrylate, books... The details of my characters present situations and frames that are to be read in depth and complicity, which allows me to capture abstract concepts, feelings, sensations and everything that flows inside my inner world. Sometimes I try to transform everyday dilemmas into something beautiful: with a little artwork, that captures the beauty of a moment. I confess that a point of intrigue can be breathed in some of my sculptures. They show stories, dreams and illusions and I try to approach them subtly. The main character of my stories are very everyday elements and situations that show snapshots full of emotions and feelings of the journey of life: women taking their time to decide at a crossroads of their life, men enjoying their moments of relaxation, small pleasures, moments of pause, meditation, little epiphanies... Behind a precise description of reality, there is a meditated story, which each one can read his own way...

Andrew Bryant

“These current spiral sculptures are a direct response to the ceramic process of ‘making’ and embracing the unpredictable nature of the medium. Their ascetics are derived from the centrifugal force of the wheel and the pyroplastic response to clay and glaze in intense heat. The concept for my work is underpinned by the caprice of a ceramic form being likened to a living, breathing entity, which is ultimately evidenced by their skeletal remnants.”

Andrew throws with various paper clays, heavily grogged clays and porcelain. He throws on the wheel, deconstructs and assembles his pieces. He uses crater glaze, fuming with stannous chloride and textural glazes such as shino and crawl glazes. His work is fired in various atmospheres including electric, gas and wood fired.

Andrew Bryant has exhibited his ceramic sculptures on a regular basis for 30 years both nationally and internationally, he has received several awards for is sculpture and has been an active presenter in many national ceramic conferences. He lives and practices on the Sunshine Coast.

Transformation Spiral

Spiral

Thrown

Form I

Glazes

Yanni Van Zijl

Yanni is synonymous with environmental activism. She aims to create work that provoke the audience into a renewed awareness to issues like climate change and deforestation.

When not wearing her environmental art activist hat she makes ceramic works for the joy of being in tune with the material, these sculptures are studies in flow and form. She invites you to experience the solitude within the spaces created. Play is encouraged, the pieces have more than one possibility, when collectively arranged an entirely different outcome is achieved.

These ceramic sculptures have aspirations of grandeur and she envisages them having a magnified presence in an urban landscape.

Erin Conron

Erin Conron completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts, with a major in glass, at the Canberra School of Art in 2007 and her Honours year in 2008. Since graduating, she has participated in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally.

In 2008, she was a finalist in the Ranamok Glass Prize and in 2012 was awarded the McGrath Emerging Artist Award from the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation. Most recently she was the winner of the Queanbeyan City Art Prize, and a finalist in the 2021 Byron Arts Magazine Prize, the 2018 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize and the 2017 Hindmarsh Glass Prize.

Erin’s work has been acquired by Australia's National Art Glass Collection as well as the European Museum of Modern Glass in Germany, and the KaplanOstergaard Glass Collection at Palm Springs Art Museum.

Aspect #1

Enamel