Artists

JACQUES EMERY

Jacques emery is a performer, composer and sound artist from Sydney, Australia. His work crosses many musical disciplines and is particularly focused on the sounds of everyday life as well as the impact of technology and internet culture on musical practice. He has a growing body of recorded work from numerous projects on his digital label soundsaresounds and has participated in performances in venues such as Firstdraft Gallery, 107 Projects, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Oxford Art Factory.

ARIELLA FRIEND

Ariella Friend is a Sydney based artist. Working in an expanded painting practice Friend’s work challenges the boundaries between painting, sculpture and architectural spaces. Her work also attempts to promote an understanding of the complexity of the issues of consumerism and recycling whilst looking at the way we value modest every day materials. Ariella holds a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communications) with Honours from the University of Technology, Sydney and is currently completing a Master of Art (Sculpture, Performance, Installation) at UNSW Art & Design.

REBECCA GALLO

Rebecca Gallo is a Sydney-based artist and art writer. Her art practice encompasses sculpture, installation, drawing and video. These elements are combined in works that examine the value and meaning we invest in objects. From the symbolism of rocks to the potential of industrial cast offs, objects and their associations, are reconfigured and re-presented to propose new systems for classifying and thinking about them.

MOON HEE KIM

Moon Hee Kim is a photomedia artist studying Master of Art, Photomedia UNSW Art and Design (formerly COFA). Kim started the Bachelor of Fine Art at the National Art School, Sydney. At NAS she has been exposed to the contemporary art as well as the traditional art making practices, this including drawing, painting, ceramic, sculpture, photography. She transferred to Master of Art, Photomedia at COFA University of NSW in 2014 to further concentrate on the contemporary means of art in Photomedia. Kim has participated several group exhibitions in Australia and in Korea. One of which includes her recent exhibition at the Ulsan International Environment Photography Festival. Recently her artwork ‘Lost Insight’ was selected by the Korea-Australia Arts Foundation (KAAF) art prize, and is therefore displayed for a month at the Sydney based Korean Culture Centre.

BRONWYN HUNTER

Bronwyn has always rebelled against being boxed into ‘traditional’ female roles and interests. Hence she ran away from ‘women’s work’ from an early age. But she was led to hand made textiles in her 30s and found it to be a welcome creative outlet from earning a living in the corporate world. After another retrenchment, along with encouragement from others, she began to sell and exhibit work and teach the fine art of felt making. Currently she is completing a Master of Art at UNSW Art & Design (COFA) with a focus on creating multidimensional forms. With seemingly magical qualities and endless possibilities, felt remains present in her work but certainly not in ‘traditional’ ways and often in collaboration with other mediums. Much of her work reflects her experiences and passion about issues of injustice – particularly with respect to restrictive social expectations placed on women. She endeavours to tap into emotional responses to life whether they be loss and sorrow or joy and fulfillment.

FREYA JOBBINS

Freya’s art practice includes, assemblage, collage and installation and printmaking. Known for her provocative assemblages created from dolls and plastic children’s toys, Freya also creates larger site specific installations. A finalist in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2012 & 2014, PARAMOR Art & Innovation Prize 2015, Willoughby Sculpture Prize, Blacktown City Art Prize, Fishers Ghost Art Prize, and winner of Sculpture in the Vineyard 2014,  Freya’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has been exhibited in the Toy Art & Design Exhibition 2014, the Old Jaffa Museum of Antiquities Tel-Aviv Israel, and currently has a work on display at the EXPLORATORIUM San Francisco.

NADIA ODLUM

Nadia Odlum is an emerging artist and researcher, currently based in Sydney. She commenced her studies at the National Art School, graduating in 2012 with First Class Honours and the Award for Academic Achievement. She is currently completing a Masters of Fine Art at UNSW Art & Design, and recently undertook a residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. Odlum’s practice-based research involves the creation and exploration of perceptually challenging works of art as a mechanism for further understanding current theories of embodied perception and cognition. In particular, she is interested in the processes of perception associated with the navigation of physical spaces, particularly urban and architectural environments. Through the creation of visual and spatial experiences that disturb or highlight these perceptual processes, she seeks to grant the viewer a heightened awareness of their own body, and its existence in physical space. Through the implementation of kinetic and interactive elements, the work encourages audience participation and physical engagement, thus establishing the viewer as complicit in the questioning of their own mental and perceptual faculties.

MEG RAUCH

Meghan Rauch is an installation and sculpture artist living and working in Sydney, Australia. Rauch is completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at the University of NSW and received the Dinosaur Designs Award at the UNSW Annual Exhibition in 2014. Driven by her research in colour theory and perception relativity, Rauch’s practice is shaped by the cultural eye, psyche and perception of colour in the environment. Previously, Rauch has worked with materials such as hessian, coir and woven landscaping materials to create colourfield environments. More recently she has focused her colour studies to explore issues of the natural vs artifice, geographic vs virtual environments and integration vs isolation. In doing so, Rauch’s material-led practice utilises blue pigments to question and understand our historical perception of spirituality and our transference of this to the virtual in our contemporary and technologically driven society.

JOAN ROSS

Joan Ross is a Sydney based artist and graduate of COFA (MFA), 2012. Joan’s’ art practice is process based through significance of material, with kangaroo fur often in her work and the recurrent thematic of Kangaroo and ‘fluro’ in her practice. Her recent works combine digital prints, video and auditory components and are charged with humour, wit and irony, using early colonial Australian paintings and contemporary life to unfurl narrative and discourse, and to direct and illuminate the viewer around themes of colonisation and post colonisation, with the ‘Fluro’ thematic  used as a metaphor on ideas of social and cultural pollution. Joan is a leading Contemporary Artist and features in many collections: National Gallery of Australia, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Gold Coast Regional Gallery, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Penrith Regional And Lewers Bequest, Campbelltown Art Centre,  Artbank, University of Sydney, University of Wollongong, Macquarie Group Collection, Kaldor Art Projects: MOVE and Private collections, Australia wide, London, Beijing.

JODI STILES

As an emerging artist Jodi completed the Bachelor of Visual Arts at SCU in 2003. The graduation exhibition proved successful as she was approached by Artworks Gallery who represented her work for the next seven years. Jodi is currently continuing a sustainable art practise focusing on contemporary abstract painting. Her approach demonstrates a visual exploration and documentation of the painting process. There is a sense of immediacy to the work which is gestural and expressive. Adding layers to the canvas creates depth to resolve and balance each composition. Her inquiry into the painting process continues the new and contemporary developments in Australian Art.

LOUISE WHELAN

Louise Whelan works across various fields of photomedia from documentary and fine art through to corporate, advertising, editorial, film stills and more recently video art. Louise is widely published and exhibited. She photographs for the state libraries of NSW and WA and the National Library of Australia. She has more than 30 national and international awards to her name including Winner, Julia Margaret Cameron Award (Documentary and Editorial, Finalist, National Portrait Prize (2012 and 2013).