Artist Statements

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Index

Maria Coyle page 2

Michelle Day page 3

Cas Davey page 4

David Frazer page 5

Kir Larwill page 6

Ben Laycock page 7

Robert Maclaurin page 8

Julie Millowick page 9

Aleisha Ng page 10

Jan Palethorpe page 11

Rhyll Plant page 12

Alex Prado page 13

Katherine Seppings page 14

Dean Smith page 15

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Maria Coyle

Maria Coyle’s career as a sculptor began as a part-time occupation in the mid 1980’s when she was mentored by sculptor Frank Turtle, working in his studio 1 day weekly for 3 years, followed by a Diploma in Ceramics at Outer Eastern Tafe College - completed in 1996.

A very large commission from the Rendezvous Allegra Hotel in Adelaide in 2000 consisting of 2 life-size figures and 18 medium sized pieces was a turning point in Maria’s career and she has been exhibiting and working

continually as a full-time sculptor since then.

Exhibiting mainly in Melbourne and Sydney, her work has been acquired in private and cor-porate collections in all states of Australia, the USA, UK, Japan, Italy and Asia.

Maria has a large, light-filled studio and sculpture garden on her 3 acre property in Castlemaine which is open to the public.

Maria’s greatest inspiration is Henry Moore - adopting his ‘less

is more’ principle; her female figures, mother and child, and multiple children sculptures have minimum detail and yet are emotive and sensual.

Having worked in many mediums, Maria now works predominantly in clay and stone. Her contemporary figurative sculptures vary from small to life-size and are displayed throughout the garden as well as in the studio. She sells directly to the public and is happy to undertake commissions.

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The main objective of my work is the landscape, the sky, mist and the light on the horizon line is a major influence. Shapes and forms in the landscape are becoming a focus of my newer work. What are the hidden beliefs and meanings that many cultures have regarding rocks, mountains and mounds?

“My eyes are constantly being drawn to our local mountains and hills. They are like beacons guiding me towards them. The effect of the light and the way the mist envelops the mountains and rocks is enthralling.”

I am becoming more aware of our own local landmarks, Leanganook (Mt Alexander) Mt

Michelle Day

Tarrengower and Lalgambook (Mt Franklin) and the stories and legends surounding these Mountains.

“The misty or veiled repre-sentations of rocks are reminders of past and present cultures that inhabit this land.”

The ethereal beauty of the land is interpreted more as a subliminal concept by the application of many layers of oils, ground pigment and wax, which provide a depth and textural quality to my works both on canvas and paper.

The layering and scraping back of different mediums and colours have a special significance,

representing a symbolic and spiritual reference to memory and the land.

My trip to Ireland created an interest in the legends, beliefs and folklore of the rocks, mountains, mounds and cairns in the landscape. My Masters research is based on the Irish in Australia and effects of moving a culture from one landscape to another. The Irish had many traditions, beliefs and folklore concerning mounds and rocks in the landscape. Are their beliefs concerning the otherworld, portals, Fairy mounds and traditional rites evident in the Irish immigrant’s memory?

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Cas Davey

Cas Davey is a glass blower, sculptor and cheese lover living in Castlemaine.

Her work currently focuses on issues around power production and destruction.

Series of sandblasted glass trees sit amongst discarded “analog only” TV parts and computer “bits”.

The glory of the underwater world after a recent trip scuba diving in Borneo has provided some lighter inspiration for a series of blown glass neckwear.

Cas works in her studio melting glass in an open flame using a technique called lampwork. She exhibits her work in Castlemaine and Melbourne.

Her studio is opened on occasion to allow people a peek inside the interesting world of a glassworker.

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David Frazer

David Frazer is a painter/printmaker who has had over 20 solo shows in australia since 1996. In 2011 he had his 1st solo show in London at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery.

In 2004-5 a survey show of his work toured 6 regional victorian galleries. In 2006 Deakin Museum of Art also held a survey of Frazer’s work.

In 2007 the ABC aired a documentary on Frazer as part of the “artist at work” series. Also

in 2007 Frazer was the major prize winner of the 1st International Print Biennial in Guanlan China.

In 2010 he accepted an artist in residency at the Guanlan Print Base in Guanlan China. His work is held in most of the major Art galleries in Australia and his

hand made artist books can be found in the National Library of Australia, the state library of victoria and NSW, Monash Uni rare books collection and the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne.

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Kir Larwill

I am a printmaker and painter living and working in Castlemaine, Victoria. I have a small studio in a shared space in the Castlemaine CBD. I do my printmaking in this studio, or at the studio of friend and colleague Diana Orinda Burns, in Sandon.

My prints are generally about the beauty and meaning that can be found in the everyday, in the mundane and the utilitarian, and in the unremarkable corners of home. They are an exploration of household objects and familiar surrounds, and of the humour, weight and significance of ordinary things.

The prints I make are unique state, one-off monoprints. They are made with multi-plate layers, the final work often having been run through the press 4, 5, even 6 times. The palette is often cool, and quiet, drawing attention to the drawn line and the scratched, textured surface of the print.

Last year, I undertook a completely collaborative print-making project with Diana Orinda Burns and Robyn Gibson. We made six, large, completely collaborative pieces, titled “Background”, which we exhibited at the La Trobe Visual Arts Centre in Bendigo.

Working in collaboration was a huge challenge, an enormous adventure, and something that yielded very exciting things …. I look forward to similar projects, with the same two printmakers, in the coming year!

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Ben Laycock

As a painter and occasional sculptor my main focus has always been on the environment. I grew up in ‘Dunmoochin’, an artists enclave on the outskirts of Melbourne, surrounded by bush. I began drawing the natural world around me from a very early age.

I have travelled extensively throughout Australia, seeking to

capture the essence of this vast empty land; an island continent with a unique ecology, that has evolved in isolation over millions of years to resemble no other place on earth.

Parallel to my fascination with the Australian landscape, I have always been involved in community arts: Working with El Salvadorian refugees

in Melbourne, disadvantaged kids in Nicaragua, aboriginal people in remote communities, and diverse ethnic groups in my local area of Central Victoria.

I am presently living in Barkers Creek, near Castlemaine with my partner in a house we built ourselves out of recycled materials.

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Robert Maclaurin

Robert Maclaurin is a prize winning landscape painter with an international reputation.

A Menzies Fellowship in 1995-6 at the late Clifton Pugh’s Dunmoochin Foundation Studio, first brought Maclaurin to Australia from his home in Scotland.

A major solo exhibition at The Talbot Rice Arts Centre during The Edinburgh International Festival in 1999 featured many works inspired from those first two years in Australia. This exhibition received huge critical acclaim encouraging Maclaurin to

emigrate in 2001, making his permanent home and studio just outside Castlemaine, Victoria.

Well known for his impressive landscapes, and widely collected in Europe and America, Maclaurin exhibits solo exhibitions regularly with gallery representation in London and Edinburgh. He is now represented in Australia by Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney.

“You feel Maclaurin’s en-couragement with the earth, his feeling for its fragile living surface. These paintings are as

all true landscape should be; images of the real world, but metaphoric, lit by memory and enlarged by imagination, by sympathy and so ultimately by awe at the grandeur of what the Artist has experienced”. Prof Duncan Macmillan - leading authority and author on Scottish Art History.

Robert Maclaurin is presently working for a solo show at Australian Galleries, Melbourne for 2012.

The Artists website is at: www.robertmaclaurin.com

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Julie Millowick

Julie Millowick began her career in the darkroom of Athol Shmith and John Cato - gradually working her way out into the light.

After completing her under-graduate training at Prahran College of Advanced Edu-cation [1976], Julie worked as a corporate industrial photographer for 17 years. Her clients included Mayne Nickless, the State Bank of Victoria, Westpac, Victorian Arts Centre, Australian Wool Corporation and the Australian Wheat Board.

Working in the corporate sector, Julie frequently had to light the object that was being photographed. This was usually something very large - a semitrailer, a container truck etc and involved very complex lighting situations with multiple assistants. Julie has continued that method of working into her own personal exhibition

practice. The lights Julie now uses are quite simple portable flashes, but allow her to create the atmosphere she envisages for the photograph she is creating, and once the image is captured in the camera, that is final. There is no postproduction in photo shop.

For the last 20 years Julie has been documenting her own environment, including the people of Fryerstown using image and text, the impact of the drought on the landscape and also subjects that could only be referred to as domestic. All of this work has been made under the project name Close to Home. The images of washing have been a constant throughout this time, and several were used in the exhibition A Garden For Hazel.

The image in the Arts Open catalogue was a finalist in the Bowness Award at MGA, 2010.

Julie’s exhibition in the Arts Open Event - Very Good Drying Weather – will display examples of her long-term explorations of that cross cultural domestic task – washing clothes. The images will cover the photographic spectrum from the use of a digital camera to the vintage technique of the cyanotype.

Julie has work in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, The National Library of Australia, Monash Gallery of Art, State Library of Victoria and the Regional Art Galleries of Horsham, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Warrnambool.

jmillowick@netcon.net.au

30 Taradale Road,

Fryerstown, 3451

www.juliemillowick.com

03 54734481 / 0432368778

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Aleisha Ng

Our daily lives are bombarded with imagery, invited or otherwise. My art making practice is an attempt to slow down the ever arriving and departing production line of images – junk mail, billboards, newspapers, magazines – and to take a closer look. To take a considered look, and to wonder and marvel at

the natural world. How have we become so distanced from nature? And what does it mean for the human spirit? My work is my way of considering these notions, and attempt to claim back our mental landscapes.

My most recent paintings are a collection of night scenes. Travel-

scapes. The art born of gazing out of car windows. The ever changing, yet ever constant horizon rushing past as we hurtle on toward our destination. The evening sky gives way to night, that dark time before dawn that is loaded with myth and mystery.

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Jan Palethorpe

Little did I know when I stood at my easel as an art student at Brighton Technical College in 1975 that I would be banned from teaching in all Victorian schools, sacked from the Tramways board, on a good

behaviour bond for doing graffiti on the back of the Hyatt, slapped by a giant transvestite, and have my Masters failed by RMIT .....but it’s 37 years later and I am still making art.........

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Rhyll Plant

Born at Phillip Island, Australia, Rhyll Plant’s early association with natural history was stimulated by her close proximity to the sea and her parent’s particular interest in marine zoology. A youthful love of art and museums led to a full time career as technician and scientific illustrator with the then National Museum of Victoria.

Decades later and Rhyll lives in country Victoria, is an Honorary Associate of Museum Victoria where she continues to illustrate scientific publications, and has widely practised and taught the printmaking skills she learned while undertaking a Masters degree in visual art at LaTrobe University, Bendigo.

Rhyll’s passion for wood engraving emerged through the teachings of sculptor and engraver Tim Jones, and now sees her primarily incising and printing from Tasmanian Huon Pine. Illustration, science and humour inspire her imagery.

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Alex Prado

My work is concerned with the micro-macro relationships that occurs in nature. By removing natural objects from their environment and displaying them in constructed spaces, the work questions the status of these objects and our perceptions of the natural world.

Everything on earth is inter-connected; the small and apparently insignificant is integral to the whole. A friend once told me that the line left on the sand when waves recede echoes the

shape of its coastline. Though I questioned its veracity, it was a good story that ignited curiosity, then research. My attention, once held by macro landscape views, was now captured by the earth’s minutiae.

In micro soil patterns I saw aerial photos of landscapes and Google earth images. This led to an obsession with documenting, photographing, carving out and collecting these small squares of nature. Here, framed and contained, nature is found in unnatural right angles.

I work across a variety of media including video, photography, sculpture and installation art. My practice is influenced by ecology, sustainability and Zen Buddhism. I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and have been based in Melbourne for the past 20 years. I am recipient of an ArtStart grant for professional development from the Australian Council of the Arts, and have been involved in many collaborations with indigenous and culturally and linguistic diverse communities through various artist residences in Australia.

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Katherine Seppings

Sometimes light falls on a landscape so beautifully that for a brief, breathtaking moment it appears like Heaven on Earth.

Photography is ‘drawing with light’ and although I began my life as an artist, I became obsessed with recording the world around me with a camera, capturing moments when I felt blessed with the way

light fell. Photography is a way to express my strong sense of a spirit of place and to record the changing seasons. I desire to share my awareness of light, colour, space, form, texture, ambience, cultural detail, history and social issues.

As a traveller, I love to wander the back streets of cities, towns and villages, where each step

presents a new scene or new scenario, and not really knowing where I am going, I am always sensing, always watchful, discovering things I have never seen before, stepping through doorways into other worlds; living life as an art and as an adventure; living to tell the tale.

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Dean Smith

From the day his parents set up a crude backyard kiln at their Brisbane home, Dean, then a young teenager, instantly found his purpose and passion. He later spent some time potting under the guidance of Master potter Ted Secombe who introduced him to crystalline glazes.

Almost 20 years on and largely self-taught, Dean’s expertise in crystalline glazing, his highly refined throwing technique, and

the unique aesthetic of his work has brought him well deserved rewards.

Later this year he will travel to Taiwan to receive the Silver Prize at the Taiwan International Ceramics Biennial in Taipei, in conjunction with this, Dean will be undertaking a three month artist’s residency at Yingge Ceramics Museum. This will also be an exciting opportunity for him to meet some of the worlds

top crystalline-glaze artists and technicians.

In 2010 Dean was awarded the Premier’s Award for Excellence at the Tasmanian Craft Fair.

Dean has been living and working from his home studio in Castlemaine for almost six years now with his partner and their young son.