Melanie Vugich’s still life paintings are a joyful celebration of colour, form and the quiet beauty found in everyday objects. Her richly detailed compositions often feature fresh flowers, fruit, vintage textiles and handmade ceramics – arranged with care and painted with a deep appreciation for pattern, texture and harmony.
Sam Suttie’s work is characterised by its meticulous still life compositions, often featuring native Australian flora, birds, and symbolic elements. Her paintings are created from her imagination, drawing upon reference materials and occasionally three-dimensional objects. The arrangements are imbued with metaphysical themes and social commentary, reflecting her interests in environmental issues, climate change, and biographical narratives.
This collection focuses on an obsession with the light in the sky at dawn and at dusk. The paintings were inspired by wanderings and early commuting into the rising dawn and the setting sunlight. They are imbued with a sense of peace, calm and hope unique to the start of a new day and the sense of unwinding and drawing in at day's end.
Andrea is a prolific artist who is represented by various Galleries within Australia and collections worldwide. She creates work that observe the ordinary, but celebrate the beauty within.
Andrea presents us with a collection of work that invites us to emerge from the blur of the last few years and find some clarity in the future. Using the landscape as reference, “Blur” envelopes the viewer in a haze that evokes comfort and hope.
Ordinary Things is a celebration of the tenacity, joy, dedication, humour, and chaos that permeates my life as a working-from-home artist. It is an exploration of the endless balancing act of being a mother, wife and creator. The works blur the boundaries of domestic and artistic life, where household items or children’s toys playfully invade the composition as if they’re in the process of being tidied up. The exhibition also explores the bittersweet passing of childhood, highlighting the brevity of this period of innocence and playfulness, where the young child’s locus in the domestic sphere begins to expand and well-loved childhood toys are abandoned.
Jo Fernandez is a representational landscape artist living in the historic village of Millthorpe, in the Central Tablelands of NSW. Her work is inspired by the landscape of this region - the expanses of land and sky, distinct seasons and their impact on light and colour.
Known for her cloudscapes, her works invite us to pause, reflect and restore a sense of our place in nature.
For this body of work my focus is to bring out the fundamental highlights of life. Becoming a father and dialing into the journeys and adventures of our lives so far, with an ever evolving response to landscape, a celebration of it’s diverse beauty.
Through my practice, it is important to keep my hands on the materials. From cutting the timber to size, building the supports and finally to finish framing the works, my love and respect of materials is my entry point into my creative process.
Landscape painting is to me, like being in a massive garden and responding to the energy and experience I find there. Reimagining the land to create my own visual world. This is a way to connect and engage with the landscape on a level that expands past my human self, something more, my higher self.
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land, the Gumbainggir people and deep gratitude for allowing my stay on country.
This collection of still life and interiors paintings is my way of celebrating the everyday objects that keep me connected to loved ones and to places that have provided sanctuary… My coffee pot, favourite jug, tableware and pieces of cloth came from my apartment in Florence, where I lived and worked for 25 years; coloured glassware, ceramic vases and vintage teapots have been gathered in the 12 years since I returned to Australia; books have been bought on my travels or were left to me by my beloved mentor, Susan Nevelson. Functional household items have become deeply meaningful to me over the past year and I find myself mixing bolder colours and deliberately seeking out beauty and familiarity as a counter to heartbreaking news and the tyranny of distance.
My love of the Australian rural landscape and all things bovine continues to grow. I love nothing more than to stand among my beauties and appreciate their different noses, ears, eyes and hair do’s - yes cows have their own, unique little tufts just between their ears.
I initially painted cows in a naive style and included their surroundings. As my work progressed and my love of cows grew I wanted to better express each individual cows personality. I decided to make them into pure portraits. I want the viewer to question if they are a photograph or painting.
"In this particular series of works, I have reflected on my time spent in the Central West. I have focused mainly on the ever changing afternoon sky, its kaleidoscope of colours, the clouds, its transformative effect on the land and its vastness. It’s about the end of the drive, you’re almost home and nature is putting on its final show before the night sky creeps in." - Fiona Barrett-Clark
Charles Smith lives and paints in Mudgee, NSW. Charles has been drawing and painting since school but running a bespoke furniture making business in Sydney restricted his art to a hobby. After moving west from Sydney, Charles took up painting full-time in 2016.