Exuberance Exhibition Catalogue
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Exhuberance<br />
Leonie Andrews | Nicole O’Loughlin | Robby Wright |<br />
Nicole Kemp | Di Ellis | Dijanna Cevaal | Philomena Hali |<br />
Susie Vickery | Belinda Jessup | Liz Payne | Cathy Jack<br />
Coupland | Carolyn Sullivan | Wilma Simmons | Makeda<br />
Duong Liam Benson | Amy Jones | Joy Denise Scott |<br />
Aimee Estcourt | Carol Cooke | Sharon Peoples
Craft + Design Canberra is partially supported by the ACT<br />
Government, the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy - an<br />
initiative of the Australia State and Territory Governments,<br />
and the Australia Council for the Arts - the Australian<br />
Government's arts funding and advisory body.<br />
Craft + Design Canberra acknowledges the Ngunnawal<br />
people as the tradition custodians of the ACT and<br />
surrounding areas. We honour and respect their ongoing<br />
cultural and spiritual connections to this country and the<br />
contribution they make to the life of this city and this<br />
region. We aim to respect cultural heritage, customs, and<br />
beliefs of all indigenous people,<br />
Craft + Design Canberra<br />
Wednesday-Saturday 12-4pm<br />
Or by appointment.<br />
Level 1, North Building, 180 London Circuit,<br />
Canberra, ACT, Australia<br />
02 6262 9333<br />
www.craftanddesigncanberra.org<br />
Cover Image: Carole Cooke, Imagine, 2022 Photo: Courtesy of Artist.
Exhuberance<br />
Leonie Andrews | Nicole O’Loughlin | Robby Wright |<br />
Nicole Kemp | Di Ellis | Dijanna Cevaal | Philomena Hali |<br />
Susie Vickery | Belinda Jessup | Liz Payne | Cathy Jack<br />
Coupland | Carolyn Sullivan | Wilma Simmons | Makeda<br />
Duong | Liam Benson | Amy Jones | Joy Denise Scott |<br />
Aimee Estcourt | Carol Cooke | Sharon Peoples<br />
6 July - 26 August 2023<br />
Craft + Design Canberra
Image: Amy Jones, Bindweed, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Image: Nicole Kemp, The Protector, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Image: Robyn Wright, Use It Respect It, 2022 Photo: Courtesy of Artist .
Exhuberance<br />
EXHIBITION STATEMENT<br />
Exuberant: 1. Lively, high-spirited. 2. (of a plant) prolific;<br />
growing copiously. 3. (of feelings etc) abounding, lavish,<br />
effusive. (The Australian concise Oxford Dictionary.)<br />
The original concept of this exhibition, <strong>Exuberance</strong>, was to<br />
explore exuberance through colour and how colour is<br />
expressed in contemporary hand-stitched artworks. This<br />
exhibition brings together a group of 20 Australian<br />
embroiderers/stitchers chosen for their exuberant use of<br />
hand stitch. The goal was to work independently from a<br />
common springboard for highly individualist artwork.<br />
There were several prompts by the curators Sharon<br />
Peoples and Carol Cooke, from which the artists could<br />
begin their long stitching projects. These included colour<br />
as an expression of exuberance, exuberant growth of<br />
plants and exuberance as a psychological state or<br />
emotion. Many artists took up readings based on Rachel<br />
Carson’s Silent Spring, one of the first influential books to<br />
galvanise global environmental movements. This is<br />
evidenced in many works by the exhibiting artists and the<br />
way in which they carefully balanced the potentially<br />
negative with emotional exuberance.<br />
Why hand stitching? During the Covid Lockdowns there<br />
was a world-wide upsurge in hand crafts made at home.<br />
Many online courses sprang up with interest in hand made<br />
textiles, and in particular hand embroidery. Capturing what<br />
was happening in Australia at the time interested the<br />
curators, Carol Cooke and Sharon Peoples.<br />
The artists were presented with a number of formal colour<br />
exercises, based on the colour wheel. Some artists<br />
rejected this notion, yet their reasons were very interesting,<br />
and this aspect is explored further in the book,<br />
<strong>Exuberance</strong>; A Stitcher’s Perspective. This book gives a<br />
deep understanding of artists’ processes as they worked<br />
towards producing final exhibition pieces.
Image: Wilma Simmons, Process Image, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Image: Wilma Simmons, Process Image, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Perception of Colour<br />
By Sharon Peoples<br />
Colour is difficult to describe in words.<br />
The vocabulary of colour is a<br />
constellation, a constellation of many<br />
adjectives. Over the last two to three<br />
years, conversations between Carol<br />
Cooke and myself about colour have<br />
been surprising, and, revealing about<br />
the complexity of colour. ‘What type of<br />
red is scarlet?’ ‘You call that purple?’<br />
‘Brown?’<br />
Colour is subjective. Responses to this<br />
visual phenomenon are often<br />
emotional and largely based on cultural<br />
conditioning and visual experience.<br />
Colour stimulates the brain via the<br />
eyes. Bringing together hand stitched<br />
works by twenty artists highlights the<br />
complexity of colour. The choice of<br />
artists through social media and<br />
publications were based on artists’<br />
individual perception of colour and<br />
capacity in stitch, their skills at mixing<br />
colour, the vibrancy of works and their<br />
conviction for conveying ideas. The<br />
curatorial rationale added, not only the<br />
suggestion of a wide colour palette of<br />
strong intensity, but also the emotional<br />
state of exuberance.<br />
It is difficult to pinpoint what<br />
exuberance is. Kay Redfield Jamison<br />
writes that “<strong>Exuberance</strong> is an<br />
abounding, ebullient, effervescent<br />
emotion. It is kinetic and unrestrained,<br />
joyful, irrepressible. It is not happiness,<br />
although they share a border. It is<br />
instead, at its core, a more restless,<br />
billowing state.” (2004: 4)<br />
For many participating artists in the<br />
exhibition, <strong>Exuberance</strong>, have explored<br />
with a child-like fearlessness as they<br />
produce unrestrained works. Their<br />
creativity abounds with some<br />
preferring novelty. We have often<br />
heard the phrase – ‘a child could do<br />
that!’ that!’– in relation to art<br />
movements such as Dadaism or<br />
abstract expressionism. But in<br />
stitching? Some artists take time<br />
unlearning many social inhibitions,<br />
coming to enjoy risk-taking in their<br />
work. They become intoxicated by<br />
finding something that no-one else<br />
has seen or found before and they<br />
grow to relish fearlessness in their<br />
artwork.<br />
When we listen to jazz music, we can<br />
hear risk-taking in improvisation,<br />
reflecting their individuality, ability, and<br />
style. Similarly, stitching exuberantly,<br />
enhanced by colourful threads seems<br />
to lead to an expressive flow,<br />
producing unique works.<br />
Linking up with Carol Cooke in the first<br />
few months added the dimension of<br />
producing a book on the project. This<br />
incentivised many artists to continue.<br />
Although the exhibition and the book<br />
were two different endeavours, they<br />
were nonetheless symbiotic.<br />
Why stitch? Working with threads,<br />
rather than paint or even glass<br />
whereby the liquidity of colour can<br />
morph into variations of hues, values<br />
and saturation; with thread, colour is<br />
less mobile and requires optical mixing.<br />
Each thread of colour retains its own<br />
presence. It is tempered by the<br />
relationship to surrounding colours and<br />
the textures created by the chosen<br />
stitch. The eye works at blending. It is<br />
not only the thread but the base on<br />
which it sits that adds to the equation.<br />
Experience of teaching the use of<br />
colour wheels had left the question of<br />
why textiles artists are taught colour<br />
through paint rather than through their<br />
own medium: thread. Painting a colour<br />
wheel in one sense is relatively easy:<br />
colours can be squeezed directly from<br />
a tube or mixed up on a palette.<br />
Colours can be made to blend or run<br />
into each other, tones lightened or<br />
darkened, water reducing intensity.<br />
With thread, the medium is not so<br />
malleable. The eye must do the colour<br />
mixing. Sampling and experimenting is<br />
necessary to work towards the desired<br />
colour outcomes. However, most<br />
stitchers rely on the colours produced<br />
by manufacturers.<br />
One quest in the <strong>Exuberance</strong> project<br />
was for textile artists to mix their own<br />
yarns or fabrics for colour wheels. The<br />
colour wheel is a tool and making such<br />
a tool from the media to be used has<br />
for me, as an artist, has led to<br />
expressing my colour desires through<br />
play by layering threads, stitching over<br />
and over to till arriving at the results<br />
pursued.<br />
In 2021, as we moved through climate<br />
disasters to the pandemic, the original<br />
concept of this exhibition, <strong>Exuberance</strong>,<br />
was to explore exuberance through<br />
colour and how colour is expressed in<br />
contemporary hand-stitched artworks.<br />
Originally it was the concerns over the<br />
destruction of nature by political and<br />
corporate interests that refute/dismiss<br />
the delicate interconnectedness of<br />
nature and the environment, that were<br />
difficult to ignore at that point in time.<br />
The catastrophic bushfires of the<br />
summer of 2019/20 left their mark on<br />
Australian people, on the environment,<br />
on the economy, the politics of our<br />
country and art.<br />
The day before New Year’s Eve 2019,<br />
driving along south coast of New<br />
South Wales, I watched a pair of<br />
wedge tail eagles panicking in the<br />
heavy bushfire smoke. Turning right on<br />
to the last road open to Brown<br />
Mountain, on passing police cars I
watched in the rear-view mirror the<br />
closure of the road. Looking up a huge<br />
pyro-cumulonimbus cloud added to<br />
the drama as fires totally engulfed the<br />
landscape.<br />
Many months later when the roads<br />
opened after the fires, in driving down<br />
to the coast to teach a workshop with<br />
a colleague, it was highly emotional.<br />
We pulled over and I walked into the<br />
totally burnt forest. The only colour<br />
amongst the blackened landscape<br />
was the intensely bright green fronds<br />
of the tree ferns which seemed to be<br />
gasping for air against the charred<br />
background that looked totally done<br />
with the world. This project,<br />
<strong>Exuberance</strong> is somewhat similar: a<br />
response to the restrains of the<br />
Pandemic lockdowns during 2020, that<br />
the notion of escape, of getting out, of<br />
‘growing copiously’ but with nowhere<br />
to go.<br />
During the art world stasis caused by<br />
the pandemic, the response to<br />
participate in such an exhibition was<br />
enthusiastic. Hand stitching is a slow<br />
process and required a long lead time,<br />
gathering up a group of artists to last<br />
the distance was tricky. To encourage<br />
a more thoughtful approach to works,<br />
several suggestions were made. Trying<br />
not to be prescriptive, but more as a<br />
prompt, a reading of Rachel Carson’s<br />
Silent Spring was offered, along with<br />
the play of stitching colour wheels.<br />
Some artists withdrew, others came<br />
on board as they became more visible<br />
on social media. Ideas developed<br />
beyond environmental concerns to<br />
more personal realms. Stitching away<br />
over the years, reflects the strong<br />
commitment each artist has.<br />
The final list of artists was Leonie<br />
Andrews, Nichole O’Loughlin, Robby<br />
Wright, Nicole Kemp, Di Ellis, Dijanna<br />
Cevaal, Philomena Hali, Susie Vickery,<br />
Belinda Jessup, Liz Payne, Cathy Jack<br />
Coupland, Carolyn Sullivan, Wilma<br />
Simmons, Makeda Duong Liam<br />
Benson, Amy Jones, Joy Denise Scott,<br />
Aimee Estcourt, Carol Cooke, and me,<br />
Sharon Peoples<br />
Sharon Peoples has worked as an<br />
artist in Canberra for over 20 years,<br />
exhibiting nationally and internationally<br />
as well as taking on commissioned<br />
work. She has had 10 solo exhibitions<br />
since 2010, the most recent was<br />
Working the Garden (2023, Southern<br />
Highlands Artists’ Collective). She has<br />
also participated in over 20 group<br />
exhibitions – the highlights being<br />
Stitched Art is Art with SEW (Society<br />
for Embroidered Work) at the<br />
Clerkenwell Gallery, London (2019) and<br />
Surface and Depth at the Palazzo Velli<br />
Expo Rome (2021), and the Art Textiles<br />
Biennale (2021) at East Gippsland Art<br />
Gallery. Her work has been collected<br />
by national (National Gallery of<br />
Australia, National Museum of Australia<br />
and Parliament House Collection) and<br />
state institutions.
Image: Aimee Estcourt, Amegilla Bomiformis, 2022 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Aimee Estcourt<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Aimee Estcourt experiments with colour and texture within<br />
her embroideries to bring seemingly simple subject matter<br />
to life, to incorporate the joy associated with personal<br />
experiences linked to the image. Colour is her passion and<br />
is used to emphasise the beauty of the subject matter.<br />
Stitching what Aimee loves, such as nature and travel<br />
memories, is a sentimental and calming process. By<br />
focusing in on tiny details within her stitching, ‘simple<br />
things’ can become surprising complex and been seen in<br />
a new light, full of life.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Aimee Estcourt creates vibrant embroidery art from her<br />
home on the Northern Beaches, New South Wales. She<br />
has always loved being creative, however when Aimee<br />
discovered embroidery over ten years ago, it soon<br />
became her passion. Her designs are inspired by her love<br />
of nature and things that bring joy to her life. For Aimee<br />
being playful with colour is the most important and<br />
enjoyable part of the process. Being featured in a number<br />
of needlework and textile magazines, such as Inspirations<br />
Magazine has been a highlight for Aimee. She is a Primary<br />
school teacher and mum of two boys, and finds stitching<br />
in the evening the perfect way to relax and unwind at the<br />
end of a busy day.
Image: Amy Jones,Distintegration, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Amy Jones<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Amy Jones’ work is predominantly based on botanical<br />
references, both abstract and figurative. She seeks to<br />
explore the notion of memory and change over time,<br />
creating dreamlike, abstracted gardens. The imagery<br />
chosen references personal symbols of remembrance,<br />
love, loss and renewal. Jones works primarily in textiles,<br />
using a mixture of new and recycled materials. The<br />
stitching itself is a process of reflection and meditation.<br />
Her current series is based on the need for green spaces<br />
and connection during lockdown and isolation. Jones also<br />
teaches textile workshops throughout Sydney.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Amy Jones holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (painting and<br />
drawing) and Education COFA, UNSW (2006) and has had<br />
four solo exhibitions: Jewelled Botanica (2019), There are<br />
no birdies in my garden Japanese Dreams (2012), Places I<br />
have never been (2011) and Japanese Dreams (2010). Shae<br />
has also exhibited in over 14 group exhibitions, most<br />
notably as a finalist in Northern Beaches Environmental Art<br />
and Design Prize (2021), Petite Miniatures Textiles<br />
<strong>Exhibition</strong> (2020) at Wangaratta Regional Art Gallery and a<br />
finalist in Seed Stitch Contemporary Textiles Awards at the<br />
Australian Design Centre and Tamworth Regional Art<br />
Gallery. Aimee was commissioned in 2021 for the cover of<br />
“Well Hello” by Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales for Penguin<br />
Books.
Belinda Jessup<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Belinda Jessup is an Australian textile artist working from<br />
her home studio surrounded by her garden, a constant<br />
inspiration. She, like so many gained a love of textiles<br />
through her mother and grandmother, both teaching<br />
Belinda many techniques including garment making, hand<br />
embroidery, knitting and crocheting to name a few. These<br />
women embedded their love of gardens, gardening, and<br />
the natural landscape in her from an early age. Colour and<br />
shapes inform Belinda’s work. With a renewed interest in<br />
hand embroidery exploring a more textural approach to<br />
bring her focuses on the natural world including tree and<br />
rose portraits.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Belinda Jessup holds a Bachelor of Art (Visual) Honours<br />
School of Art, National Institute of the Arts, Australian<br />
National University and a Diploma Open Foundation,<br />
University of Newcastle. Her weaving training also includes<br />
Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio Florence and Scotweave<br />
Jacquard RMIT University Melbourne. She has exhibited in<br />
over 20 group exhibitions, most recently Connection<br />
Point- Contemporary Established Fibre Textile Artists of<br />
ACT and NSW, Canberra Museum and Gallery (2022), Art<br />
Textile Biennale 2020, East Gippsland Art Gallery,<br />
Bairnsdale, Tree Conversations: Networking with the<br />
Wood-Wide Web, Basil Sellers <strong>Exhibition</strong> Centre, Moruya<br />
(2022) and Place Makers, Craft ACT Gallery Canberra<br />
(2021).
Image: Carol Cooke, Little Piece Of Me, 2023 Photo Courtesy of Artist
Carol Cooke<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Carol Cooke is a Canberra based artist who explores two<br />
threads of enquiry, textiles and sculpture, to create 2D and<br />
3D works. This is supported by a drawing practice and<br />
extensive journal records. Textiles are her preferred<br />
medium and are often incorporated with mixed media.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Carol Cooke holds a double degree in Visual Arts (2016)<br />
and Art History and Curatorship (2018). She majored in<br />
Textiles. Carol exhibits in Canberra, interstate and<br />
overseas. She has been a finalist in the Small Sculpture<br />
Prize (2019), Woollahra, NSW and Mini Art Series The<br />
Corner Store Gallery (2019), Orange, NSW. She has also<br />
been a finalist in prizes that include the Adelaide Perry<br />
Drawing Prize (2019), Sydney and M16 ArtSpace Drawing<br />
Prize (2019), Canberra. Carol completed two residencies in<br />
2019: the Icelandic Textile Centre residency and the Fibre<br />
Arts Australia residency and sculpture exhibition. She<br />
published her first book Improv-Embroidery in 2022.
Image: Carolyn Sullivan, Fields, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Carolyn Sullivan<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Hand stitching has been part of Carolyn Sullivan’s life<br />
since she was 8! Like many girls in the 1950’s, she was<br />
taught the craft at school. It was in 6th class, when she<br />
got sent to the “naughty corner “because I was talking too<br />
much, that I realised how the meditative quietness of<br />
being on my own, making something, was special.<br />
Nothing has changed - except sometimes she is allowed<br />
to stitch and talk!<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Carolyn Sullivan holds a Bachelor of Arts (Sydney<br />
University) (1972), Diploma of Education (Sydney Teachers'<br />
College) (1972), City and Guilds Embroidery Part 1, Opus<br />
School of Textile Art, London (2002) and a Diploma of Arts<br />
(Merit) Art History, Sydney University, 2004. Her work is<br />
held in the collections of Wangaratta Art Gallery, National<br />
Wool Museum, Geelong, Southern Downs Regional Art<br />
Collection, Stanthorpe, Queensland and the
Image: Cathy Jack Coupland, Coral, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Cathy Jack Coupland<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Cathy Jack Coupland is motivated to stitch, inspired by<br />
nature, history, art, poetry, colour and other artists,<br />
encouraging further exploration of new concepts and<br />
techniques. Cathy’s style is relatable; her trademark is<br />
colour. Known mostly for her machine embroidery,<br />
covering and manipulating the entire surface with thread,<br />
she also works by hand, noting ‘that to design and work<br />
for either, is to live in two very different worlds’.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Embroiderers’ Guild NSW Inc. Her most recent exhibitions<br />
include Finalist Stanthorpe Art Prize (2018, 2016, 2010),<br />
Invited exhibitor, Australasian Quilting Convention,<br />
Melbourne (2018) and Different Directions, Embroiderers’<br />
Guild NSW Inc (2017-2018).
Image: Di Ellis, Party Days, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Di Ellis<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Di Ellis is a Melbourne based artist with a degree in Fine<br />
Art Printmaking. She has exhibited both in Australia and<br />
internationally including shows in the USA, Denmark and<br />
the United Kingdom in both print and now textiles. Ellis<br />
hand stitches on reclaimed fabrics to suggest place.<br />
Through the grim days of Covid in the last Melbourne<br />
lockdown she reminisces both nature walks in her series<br />
of native plants picked in the 5 km radius of home and<br />
stepped back to the carefree late sixties with images of<br />
the first multinational influencers Barbie and Ken.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Di Ellis is a Melbourne based artist with a degree in Fine Art<br />
Printmaking. She has exhibited both in Australia and<br />
internationally including shows in the USA, Denmark and<br />
the United Kingdom in the mediums of print and now<br />
textiles. She has had six solo exhibitions, most recently<br />
being Strike A Pose (2022) at Wyrena Art Lounge, Croydon<br />
and Vestments (2021) at RMIT Art link Space in Melbourne.<br />
She has participated in over 20 group exhibitions including<br />
[Wall]Flower (2022) at Geelong Art space, Vic, In my<br />
Backyard Print Exchange Show, (2021) Castlemaine Press<br />
Castlemaine, Vic and Front Lines: Takayna to Adani (2020)<br />
at Salamanca Arts Space, in Hobart.
Image: Image: Carolyn Artist Sullivan, name, Fields, work 2023. title, year. Photo: Photo: Courtesy Photo of Credit. Artist
Dijanne Cevaal<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Known for her blog “Musing of a Textile Itinerant”, Dijanne<br />
Cevaal is based in the Latrobe Valley area in Victoria but<br />
teaches worldwide, predominately in France. Her work is<br />
inspired by nature, her surroundings, and travel. She uses<br />
dye and print techniques to take white cloth into a multi<br />
layered textile creation embellished by hand and machine.<br />
Much of Dijanne’s work also incorporates stories that are<br />
the textile equivalent of written stories. The traveller’s<br />
blankets are meditations in stitch on various places<br />
traveled to both in reality and in the imagination. In recent<br />
times the nardoo growing in small dams near her home<br />
have become a source of fascination and something that<br />
proves to have a fascinating backstory of the exploration<br />
of Australia. Visually it is a myriad of greens as it spreads<br />
and adds a colourful note to the tannin-coloured waters<br />
of the waterways it inhabits.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Dijanne Cevaal holds a Masters of Visual and Performing<br />
Art (2005) Charles Sturt University, NSW and a Bachelor of<br />
Arts, Bachelor of Law (1980) Australian National University,<br />
ACT. With over 20 solo exhibitions to her name, her most<br />
recent include Morning Walks in the Pandemic (2021),<br />
ArcYinnar, Victoria, Guest exhibitor at ChARTres, Chartres,<br />
France (2019), Guest Exhibitor Pour l’Amour du Fil, Nantes,<br />
France (2019) and in 2018 she was not only a Guest<br />
<strong>Exhibition</strong> but also Guest of Honour at ChARTres, Chartres,<br />
France. Dijanne has written numerous books on textiles<br />
and quilting and has curated travelling exhibitions, mostly<br />
to Europe and the Middle
Image: Joy Scott, process picture, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Joy Scott<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
From an early age Joy Denise Scott has had a love affair<br />
with stitch. Yet, it was 2019 before Scott first began<br />
creating embroideries. Stitch works that have an intimate<br />
connection to her poetry. Her writing and embroideries<br />
are concerned with how lived experience is shaped by<br />
feeling. To visually communicate the material qualities of<br />
such an abstract concept with integrity, Scott has<br />
adopted an improvisational approach. Believing it as a<br />
form of alchemy she sees her improvisational stitch<br />
practice as one of crafting a symbiotic connection with<br />
her poetry, stitch forms and colour palette resulting in<br />
embroideries that resonate authenticity.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Joy Denise Scott holds a PhD in Social Science from the<br />
Curtin University, WA (2013), a Master of Business (Arts<br />
and Culture) (2005) and a Post Graduate Diploma of Arts<br />
Management (2003) from the University of South Australia.<br />
Her most recent creative work in 2022 includes<br />
TwentyFIVE + Crossover exhibition with Western Australia<br />
Fibre and Textiles Association, Design-Stitch-Gather,<br />
maker project for first- and second-generation migrant<br />
women with an interest in design and textiles and the<br />
Australian Textile Awards, juried exhibition, presented at<br />
the Embroiders Guild, Victoria. In 2021 her arts practice<br />
included The Australian Fibre Art Awards, Gallery 71,<br />
Sydney, and a joint exhibition with Anne Farren in TEXTILE:<br />
The subversive stitch.
Image: Artist name, work title, year. Photo: Photo Credit.<br />
Image: Leonie Andrews, My Summer Garden, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Leonie Andrews<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Leonie Andrews is a visual artist working in a range of<br />
media. Her work uses stitch, print making and<br />
photography, to explore found objects and situations, the<br />
local and the mundane.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Leonie Andrews holds a Bachelor of Arts, Visual Arts,<br />
Australian National University School of Art (ANU SOA)<br />
(2006), Canberra and a Bachelor of Arts, (Anthropology),<br />
ANU (1979). She has had five solo exhibitions: Abandon, 76<br />
Queen Street Gallery, Sydney (2022), The Opening<br />
Stitches Project, M16 Artspace, Griffith, ACT (2020),<br />
Between Here and Now, Canberra Contemporary Art<br />
Space, Manuka, ACT (2018), The Embroidered Truth,<br />
Tuggeranong Arts Centre, ACT (2014) and Substrate,<br />
Structure, Surface, (2010) Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre,<br />
Canberra. She has been part of 15 group exhibitions and<br />
was a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize in 2019 and the<br />
Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award, the Gold Coast<br />
Art Prize and the Goulburn Art Award. In 2016 she was<br />
awarded an Asialink Artists Residency in Tokyo, Japan.
Image: Liam Benson, Hither, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Liam Benson<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Liam Benson, a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice<br />
incorporates performance, photography, video and<br />
textiles. Benson’s work explores identity and culture as a<br />
living dualistic process which is both informed by and<br />
challenges historical, political, and social consciousness<br />
and the representation of this exchange through<br />
iconography. Liam’s practice is informed by working<br />
collaboratively with diverse communities through an<br />
ongoing conversation about how culture, sub-culture and<br />
identity interrelate and evolve. His works are held in<br />
significant public and private collections including The<br />
MCA Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank<br />
and Western Sydney University.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Liam Benson holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of<br />
Western Sydney (2002) and over ten solo exhibitions<br />
which includes You Already Know (2022) Glasshouse<br />
Regional Gallery, Port Macquarie, Mapping the<br />
Immeasurable (2020) at Artereal Gallery, Rozelle, I have a<br />
wealth of unconditional love and it’s yours if you want it,<br />
(2017) Artereal Gallery, Sydney and Inheritance (2017) at<br />
Gallerysmith, Melbourne. He has participated in over 18<br />
group exhibitions and Benson’s works are held in<br />
significant public and private collections including The<br />
MCA Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank<br />
and Western Sydney University.
Image: Liz Payne, Process Photo, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Liz Payne<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Liz Payne is an artist living and working in the inner city of<br />
Sydney, Australia. Using a variety of media from pencil and<br />
paint to textiles, beads and embroidery, Liz’s work<br />
explores abstraction through colour, shape, texture and<br />
form. A question of perception and expectation is a<br />
considered component in Liz’s work, explored not only of<br />
materials and medium, but the expectations of life and the<br />
traditions of the everyday, and there is always a pursuit of<br />
breaking the rules from the predicable and conventional.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Liz Payne holds a Certificate IV in Computer Graphic<br />
Design, Shillington College, Sydney (2003), and a Bachelor<br />
of Visual Arts, University of Western Sydney, Sydney. Her<br />
participation in over 20 group exhibitions include Fisher’s<br />
Ghost Art Award finalist (2021), Campbelltown Sydney<br />
Remagine Art Prize (2021), Bowral Sculptural Prize finalist<br />
(2021), Bowral. Significantly in 2019 her work was included<br />
in Gorman: 10 Years of Collaboration Celebration exhibition<br />
at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
Image: Makeda Duong, Elegy, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Makeda Duong<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art<br />
in 2013 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts, Makeda Duong has<br />
participated in several group and two solo exhibitions and<br />
undertaken a residency at Nexus Arts. She also<br />
participated in two mentorships, with local artists Sera<br />
Waters and Cheryl Hutchens. Her current practice<br />
attempts to unravel and represent aspects of her lived<br />
experience in relation to themes such as race, gender,<br />
and mental health. Recent themes in her work explore her<br />
experiences as a mixed-race person living in Australia.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Makeda Duong holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts, (Textiles) -<br />
University of SA, South Australian School of Art, Adelaide,<br />
SA. In 2016 she successfully completed a NAVA Arts<br />
Business Basics Course. She has had two solo exhibitions:<br />
Mixed Race Female (2020) as part of South Australian<br />
Living Artists Festival (SALA) at Nexus Arts, Adelaide SA<br />
and The Cursed Boyfriend Sweater (2015) at Urban Cow<br />
Studio, in Adelaide SA. Her group exhibitions include<br />
Embroidery: Oppression to Expression (2021) The David<br />
Roche Foundation Museum, North Adelaide, Flotsam and<br />
Jetsam (2021) Post Office Projects, Port Adelaide, SA,<br />
Contact (2021) Kerry Packer Kivic Gallery, UniSA, Kinder,<br />
Kuche, Kirche (2019) Jamfactory at Seppeltsfield SA and<br />
Release the Beast (2018) Brunswick St Gallery, Melbourne<br />
VIC.
Image: Nicole O'Loughlin, Glen Dhu Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Nicole O'Loughlin<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Nicole O’Loughlin is an interdisciplinary artist who works<br />
across a variety of mediums to explore societal issues,<br />
pop culture and women’s issues. She works across<br />
textiles, painting, drawing and printmaking. Using<br />
traditional media in a contemporary context Nicole<br />
challenges the idea of craft and pushes back against the<br />
industrialisation of the hand made.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Nicole was commissioned by contemporary feminist artist,<br />
Kate Just, for a piece as a real life example of the Covid 19<br />
quilt project, for display at the Museum of Contemporary<br />
Art, Sydney. Her Covid Quilt is represented in the<br />
Museums Victoria Collection (2021).
Image: Philomena Hail, China Bowl, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Philomena Hail<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Philomena Hali lived in Alice Springs for 31 years, teaching<br />
& working in various capacities in town and desert<br />
communities. She is primarily a textile artist/maker,<br />
however, is not that easy describing what she does as<br />
she has learned many things over the years. Stitching &<br />
embroidery were learned from a young age. As her family<br />
are from the island of Madeira, embroidery is a way of life<br />
there, so she was made to learn. However, her own work<br />
resembles nothing of their excellence.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Philomena Hali trained as a nurse and now works as an<br />
artist. She has had three solo exhibitions: Narratives of<br />
Cloth & Fibre (2015), Marriott Gallery, Central Craft, Alice<br />
Springs NT, Year of the Outback (2002) Rosny Park School<br />
House Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania, and Textile<br />
Retrospective, (2011) Shibori exhibition, Wollari School,<br />
Orange, NSW. Her group exhibitions include Korea Bojagi<br />
Forum (2023), Seoul, South Korea, Brooching the Subject,<br />
Timeless Textiles Gallery NSW (2023), Western Australian<br />
Fibre & Textile Assoc. (WAFTA) (2022), Small Works (2022)<br />
Brunswick St Gallery, VIC, Sustainable Couture,Fashion<br />
event, Alice Springs, NT (2021) and Brooching the Subject,<br />
Timeless Textiles Gallery NSW (2021)
Image: Robbie Wright, process picture,, 2023, Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Robby Wright<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Robyn Wright lives on the Tweed River on the New South<br />
Wales far north coast, about 10kms from the Queensland<br />
border and the Gold Coast. Although she has access to<br />
the coast and an unban environment, her inspiration is the<br />
hinterland, the tropical landscape of the Border Ranges.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Robby Wright’s extensive education includes Teacher<br />
Training Alexander Mackie/National Art School Sydney, a<br />
Bachelor of Arts, University of New England, a Master of<br />
Letters, University of New England, a Diploma of Education,<br />
University of New England, a Master of Communication,<br />
Curtin University, Perth and a Bachelor of Arts, Southern<br />
Cross University, Lismore. She has participated in 12 group<br />
exhibitions that include the PAN Group <strong>Exhibition</strong> (2021),<br />
Roxy Gallery, Kyogle, the Australasian National Brooch<br />
Show, Contemporary Art Society, Richmond, Victoria,<br />
WRAP (2021) East Gippsland Art Gallery, the Bentley Art<br />
Prize (2019) Bentley, NSW and the Australasian Quilt<br />
Convention Travelling <strong>Exhibition</strong> (2018).
Image: Sharon Peoples, The Watering Hole, 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Sharon Peoples<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Sharon Peoples spends a lot of time wandering and<br />
wondering about gardens and their visitors. It’s not plants,<br />
so much as the labour and politics of gardening. From her<br />
own domestic garden to the local bushland and a little<br />
further afield to surrounding national parks, she is<br />
energised and draw inspiration by walking in these<br />
environments. In a similar way, she thinks about the labour<br />
and politics of stitching. Fragility of both the environment<br />
and the human condition is reflected in the media she<br />
uses, while oscillating between hand and machine<br />
embroidery to examine issues.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Sharon Peoples worked as an artist in Canberra for over<br />
25 years, exhibition nationally and internationally as well as<br />
taking on commissioned work. She has had ten solo<br />
exhibitions since 2010, the most recent were Working the<br />
Garden (2023) at the Southern Highlands Art Collective<br />
and Messenger from the Garden (2020) at Timeless<br />
Textiles in Newcastle. Sharon has participated in over 20<br />
group exhibitions – the highlights being the latest Seed<br />
Stitch Contemporary Textile Award (2022) at the Australian<br />
Design Centre, Sydney, Surface and Depth (at the Palazzo<br />
Velli Expo, Rome 2021) and Stitched Art is Art both with the<br />
SEW (Society for Embroidered Art), the Art Textiles<br />
Biennale (2021) at the East Gippsland Art Gallery and the<br />
Australian Fibre Art Award (2021) at Gallery 76 in Sydney.
Image: Susie Vickery, Calyptorhynchus Iridis , 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Suzie Vickery<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Susie Vickery began this series with the title, <strong>Exuberance</strong>,<br />
and the themes of Stitch, Colour and the Environment,<br />
and then did a mind map to inspire some ideas. She had<br />
already been making cockatoos, as part of a fundraiser<br />
for the campaign to stop the logging and mining of<br />
cockatoo habitat in Western Australia so she expanded<br />
on that, trying different materials, types of embroidery and<br />
ways to mount them.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Susie Vickery’s career centres on embroidery and textiles,<br />
both practical and academic and her core skills were<br />
developed over twenty years as a costumier for theatre<br />
and film. Over the last twenty years she has built expertise<br />
in two further areas: development work and fine art<br />
embroidery. Her awards include a finalist in the<br />
Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, Cinefest Oz: Cinewest<br />
Best Short Film - Peregrinations of a Citizen Botanist<br />
(People’s choice favourite film), WAFTA Professional<br />
Textile Prize and Christine Risley Award, Goldsmiths,<br />
University of London. Group exhibitions include Influence -<br />
Lost Eden Gallery, Dwellingup, Twenty Five Plus - Holmes à<br />
Court Gallery, Perth, The Curious Five go Surfing - Indian<br />
Ocean Craft Triennial, Peregrinations of a Citizen Botanist -<br />
Art on the Move tour of Western Australia and Another<br />
View - Royal Birmingham Society of Arts, Birmingham, UK.
Image: Wilma Simmons, What is Within: Thorax with eucalypt leaves , 2023 Photo: Courtesy of Artist
Willma Simmons<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Wilma Simmons’ work started with observing what is<br />
around her - her local surroundings - her garden and her<br />
neighbourhood. Most of her art work begins: “I walk, I<br />
observe, I record ( memory, sketch, photograph), I reflect, I<br />
discuss, I research and then I stitch”. Changes in her<br />
environment correspond to changes in Wilma’s mood and<br />
emotions. Not only does she like to stitch Nature’s varied<br />
contrasts in colour and texture, she is sensitive to<br />
changes within herself as she responds to daily<br />
observations. Intuition tells us what research studies have<br />
proven; Nature benefits our well-being. When deprived of<br />
direct experiences with nature, it has been shown that<br />
even watching a documentary about the world around us<br />
can lower stress levels and evoke some degree of<br />
calmness and relaxation. The more she stitches stitch her<br />
surroundings, the more engaged she is in discovering and<br />
researching the impact the environment has on human<br />
beings.<br />
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY<br />
Wilma Simmons has been very fortunate, in the past, to<br />
have lived in many different places in New South Wales<br />
and Queensland, as well as in Finland and Papua New<br />
Guinea for study and humanitarian missions. She now lives<br />
in Newcastle NSW. After early retiring from her previous<br />
career as a high school principal in 2005, she decided on<br />
a new direction in art. Although her formal training is in<br />
contemporary clays and art doll sculpture, she began to<br />
devote more time to textiles, and stitching, Wilma felt she<br />
could never be classed as an embroiderer. She thinks she<br />
has the infamous award of being the person who took the<br />
longest time ever to complete the Creative Embroidery<br />
Course with the Embroiderers Guild of NSW - about 23<br />
years!
Image: Nicole Kemp, The Protector , 2023 Photo Courtesy of Artist
Nicole Kemp<br />
ARTIST STATEMENT<br />
Nicole Kemp has a Bachelor of Education arts and crafts.<br />
She works as an artist and teacher, presenting a diverse<br />
range of creative experiences from formal paint draw<br />
classes to stitch/textiles and Craftivist workshops. She has<br />
worked as a textile artist and teacher for many years and<br />
will never get over how undervalued her work is.