Miss Rona
Group Exhibition - Digital Gallery
The Artists & Artworks
I am a Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist. I am interested in representing the everyday in a new light, exploring mediums and artistic conventions to reframe, emphasise and bring out the narrative, emotion and essence of objects, time and place.
The 'Rona has given me the time to return to, and concentrate on my first love, painting. I'm interested in the elevation of previously taken-for-granted, everyday objects to their new cultural status as valuable, scarce and essential.
Jessica Schwientek is a fine art photographer practicing in Coburg, Melbourne. Her focus is on analogue and chemistry based photography. Photography is a loose term for Jessica's practice with an emphasis on the alternative and the experimental. Her work is intrinsic; looking in at the world, herself, society, anything. She is an outsider on the inside drawn to the safety of the fringes. She is an educator, facilitator and gallery owner intent on supporting the works and careers of her peers.
Catching Light
I live in a very dark space enclosed by apartment buildings on either side. There are bars on the few windows we have and lockdown, at times, felt like imprisonment. Every morning a single ray of light would shoot through the space and bounce off anything in its path. It became a morning ritual, to sit and watch and reflect. I would consider how far the light had come and all the things it touched on its journey. It would shift rapidly around the space and then disappear again as quickly as it came.
Suzanne Phoenix is a Melbourne photographer, artist, zine and bookmaker. Photos punctuate her life through portraits, performance, music, the street, and daily life. Suzanne has been exhibiting since 2013 and won the Upper Yarra Visage Photographic Portrait prize in 2015. Suzanne has a particular interest in documenting subcultures from queer communities to unique Australian events.
With the arrival of the global pandemic Suzanne’s photography practice came to a grinding holt and several self-publications were made featuring photographic work documenting the time.
Unprecedented is a brilliant word. Its use in these times is unprecedented. In the end everything is unprecedented.
The magazine features diptychs created with photographs made during the coronavirus pandemic restrictions in Melbourne, Australia from late March to end of April 2020. During this period I stayed home and went for walks in Warburton and Millgrove, with the occasional drive to the supermarket in Yarra Junction. Alongside the diptychs are key messages and quotes from our politicians.
@photospunctuatemylife
Keira Hudson is a Melbourne-based artist who specialises in alternative photographic processes, primarily wet plate photography. She studied printmaking and photography at RMIT University and has been exhibiting for over 10 years. Hudson’s works are included in national and international collections.
Finding purpose for house clutter: op shop books; dead roses; a candle; my partner's x-ray; my mother's doll; my grandfather's shutter release.
www.keirahudson.com
www.instagram.com/keirahudsonartist
keira_hudson@hotmail.com
Born 1980, Melbourne, Australia. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Mark Grant's photographic and video art practice is inspired by an optimistic/cynical post modern sensibility to contemporary western society. He draws upon found digital images and texts from popular culture to create new vehicles to explore notions of reality, perception, time and place.
You shouldn't believe what I say when I talk about this work.
@markjohngrant
Melbourne based photographer with a love of analog. You will usually find me with a camera in hand photographing things that others may find mundane or simply overlook.
I continued to take photos on film during isolation. Rubbish bins still overflowed and milestones where still celebrated even if void of guests.
@ellllly_
Daisy (born new york) lives and works in Brunswick. she uses digital and film cameras to explore themes of the feminine, the body, the family, motherhood, and the fraught connection between humans and the natural world. daisy studied photography with Joel Stern at Sarah Lawrence college in new york, and the aegean centre for the fine arts in greece.
During the pandemic, I have been driven more than ever before to use the camera to wrestle with and articulate my inner world. Making an image is an attempt to condense a feeling state – a desire, a dream, a fear – into a kind of visual artefact. To mark it, express it, maybe even let it go.
@daisynoyesphoto
Kiah Pullens is an artist working in Melbourne. Her work interlaces unconscious urges of pleasure, of fervour and anxiety through an automotive and intuitive processes. Usually working with archival and appropriated imagery, she transforms images which have been oft-overlooked into large scale analogue photographic installations. Oscillating fluidly between digital and analogue realms. Recently Kiah has expanded her practice to include sculptural objects. Discovering a third dimension, Kiah’s sculptures are made through similar automotive processes and inspired by archival photographs and source material.
A heaviness began to fill my quarantined space. The walls grew taller, the ceiling started to cave and my mind was trapped within the plasterboard. Breathing only the air that circulates within the boundaries of the home, contained to the perimeter day after day, I started noticing the shifting shadows on the walls. The moving light demonstrated time and also my stillness. My static self developed a new kind of uncomfortable, Limbo.
Stretching the muscles of my stiff body, I channel the aching and the pain. Rotating pulls a tension across my back. Sticking to a new routine will surely lift the ceiling off me. Reaching wide, I’m being pulled in both directions, down to the darkness and up to the light, yet I want to sit in the stillness. The desire for pleasure becomes overpowering but it releases a clogged mind. Squeezing, rubbing and pulling in all directions.
Limbo, 2020, is a sculptural work based around activities developed in isolation to keep my heavy, purple head of depression above the ground. Stretching, touching and pleasuring are the things holding me a float. The double ended gold tongue sits in a child's pose, still, heavy and static.
@fotopullens
erincox, a Reservoir based artist/curator who creates a diverse range of art, all with an underlying sense of quirk and fun. A feminist, fat activist, music lover and mother l, erincox brings this diverse range of interests and talents to her creative projects.
Just a pangolin made of love hearts
@thechickwhodraws_
Milko.1551, what can I say,
For the past 3 year I tried developing my style and what I want to say in the last 6 months I have been completing my diploma in fine arts Chisholm and want to get my work out.
I take great inspiration from existentialists, neo expression and German Expressionism, mainly Lino and I would definitely love to explore this in future.
During corona a lot of time was spent with my darling girlfriend Emily however being next to someone so long with nothing to do can make a young couple question everything. The feeling I tried to capture is one you feel after a fight, not wanting to say the wrong thing so you hold onto each other tight and unsure of what lays ahead.
@MILKO.1551
Julie is a visual artist who works across a range of media. Julie Milton (BFA, BAD,DipEd) is an artist, curator and an educator. Julie works across all media: outdoor installations, printmaking and photo media including digital collage. Her subject matter is not fixed, however, the strongest thread throughout her practice are her concerns with and interest in the ongoing and rapid changes to the natural environment and its effect on the future evolution of native flora and fauna. Over the past few years her love of photography has become the focus of her practise.
Whilst in 'lockdown" I continued to do some eco printing and taking photos of dying flowers. The eco prints were used as a back drop to the flowers. I wanted to utilise what I had within my reach and produce express a sadness and beauty of aging and isolation.
@juliemiltonmoon
Emma Armstrong-Porter is a visual artist and educator. Her practice most probably employs the graphical yet organic nature of relief printmaking but she also makes images of the often unseen using chemistry based photography techniques. Her art is influenced by the language of tattoos, living with autism and mental illness, institutionalisation, consumerism and suburbia, usually resulting in visual narratives.
DO NOT TOUCH!
@jessika_k_and_ruby
www.emmaarmstrongporter.wordpress.com
Jennifer Baird is a mid career, multi media artist. Working across printmaking, painting, collage and plastic bag constructions. She lives in Canberra and her recent work has been influenced by the landscapes and architecture of the city. With a fondness for the James Turrell 'Skyspace' in the forecourt of the NGA. There has been a development towards minimalism with a new stillness in her work. Also exploring abstracts in CMYK printmaking at Megalo Print Studios - 'I was meant to be a printmaker, I love the sound of the squeegee pulling ink through the screen.'
@jen_at_fifth_season
Jo Roszkowski works in a variety of media including ceramics, textiles, encaustic, photography and mixed media. As with all of her creative output, these works are inspired by the forms, colours and textures of nature, in particular the unseen layers and the minute, ephemeral details that form the greater whole. The ongoing engagement with these elements and the immediacy of the techniques evokes the changing nature of the natural world while providing homage to the fleeting elements of seasonal and generational change.
Jo is a Melbourne based artist who has studied photography, visual arts and therapeutic arts therapy.
Going into lockdown for Covid19 was destabilising and obviously isolating. Through social media I felt connected to the creative community in some tenuous way. When Noir Darkroom started sharing prompts for a photography challenge each day I felt more tangibly connected, not only to the other artists contributing, but to my arts practice that benefited from this structure to the day. Looking for solutions to each prompt kept me vigilant and sensitive to visual opportunities and I loved the immediacy of a medium I haven't engaged with properly for a while.
Art has always been my passion; I'm an aspiring artist currently looming to expand my knowledge and skill. In the pursuit of this I am making my way through a visual arts course. I've been experimenting and practicing art for several years, i attribute my inital love of art to my parents who encouraged me and worked in the industry themselves. While I have tried a wide range of techniques and styles nothing calls to me more than acrylic painting. I use my own mental health as fuel for my works, bringing emotion and fluidity to life. I am well verse in traditional mediums and have began to expand my horizons by dipping my toes into the pool that is digital media. I have also experimented with 3D modelling as well as Photoshop and clip studio paint.
While these new forms are exciting and liberating, my love will always be traditional styles such as watercolour, alcohol markers and inks, pencil and of course acrylics.
I wanted to capture the essence of my emotions and thoughts while COVID-19 was in the height of its reign. During the first few weeks of lockdown I was suffering intense anxiety about my state of work, finances, and home life. I was isolated away from my immediate family and close friends. It was a hard time – as I'm sure a lot of people had experienced. The work features intense brushstrokes and colours, leaving blotches of paint, bright red blaring through the work. The works title, Perception, allows the viewer to have their own thoughts of their piece. Art is a subject about interpretation. And I hope my work will allow those who have felt the same pain as I to resonate with the work.
@natalieferlanteart
My name is Sionainne Costello but I work under the business Trapped Photography.
I’m a Melbourne based freelance photographer and videographer. I try to be as versatile as possible in my work so I wouldn’t say I specialise in one thing but rather try to be able to do everything and learn from it.
I have been doing photography as a hobby my whole life, professionally for 9 years. Graduated with a Bachelor of Film Production in 2016 and so I also work as a 1st Assistant Camera on film projects.
Isolation Self-Portrait (March 2020)
I typically photograph nudes but have never indulged in being on the other side of the lens myself as generally I don’t feel comfortable regardless of the situation. I’m not ashamed of my body, quite the opposite, however I find it hard to project how I feel without also worrying about judgement from colleagues. I’m concerned less with the general public and friends. It’s something I’m learning not to consider. This experience in shooting with Me, Myself and I allowed me complete control and I expect in the future to let more of that go.
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“I’ve got eggs to trade.” (March 2020)
The only subject legally within my reach is my partner and muse, always providing inspiration and collaboration throughout the years. One of his many joys in life is his chickens, Princess Leia and Henrietta. During isolation I found myself more grateful for these birds than before.
@fetchingcreature
While I have accumulated a 30-year dance career my visual arts practice is still in its formative stages. After picking up a pencil in late 2016 and as an aging artist reimagining my relationship to contemporary dance I have immersed myself in multiple visual art mediums including drawing, painting, photography, and video.
I endeavor to create psychological spaces within my works that are poetic, embody movement, and pose questions I have about the world.
I live and work out of my studio on the land of the Darug people, traditional owners of greater Western Sydney.
Days became really slippery. The notion of marking time according to activity became kind of null and void. There were lots of days that were so similar to each other that it was difficult to discern where I was in time and space. Just got me thinking about how I had used activity to determine so much about my world and who I was in it.
Something about self identity. Something about paring back. Something about a blank slate.
@kay_arm_strong
Ros is a versatile photographer from Melbourne, shooting a broad range of subjects from people to landscapes. She enjoys shooting on both film and digital mediums. She has a Diploma in Photography as well as a Bachelor of Arts Degree.
Away from the mainstream, she likes to experiment and explore interesting, unique and various ways of developing her photographic processes and practices. Collaborating with other artists as well as solo work, she has exhibited work at various galleries and venues around Melbourne.
COVID isolation walks became a regular occurrence in Ros' life. To make it more interesting, challenging and fun, she used her analogue camera to capture the world around her. Life was slow and unhurried so the idea of taking her time, choosing her shots, was very appealing. People’s front gardens became a fascinating subject.
@rosypeaphotography
Over the past ten years Lynden has shown her work in four solo, four duet and nine group exhibitions. These have been in venues across Victoria from Melbourne, to Ballarat, Warrnambool and Swifts Creek. Her work is currently exhibited as part of the Seeding Treaty project displayed at Mawson Station Antarctica.
Lynden has participated in three of Ballarat’s International Foto Biennales and in 2019 she curated a multi-media exhibition for the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
She has also published a photographic book “Work, Play, Trade. A Tripod of Country Life.” Her work appears in several publications including Criss Canning’s “The Pursuit of Beauty”.
Natural Absorption is a collaboration between photographers Ros Pach and Lynden Nicholls. Ros, from Thornbury, and Lynden, from Ballarat East, were two strangers randomly matched in a COVID ‘Random Co-Lab’ Facebook project started by Ballarat musician, artist and writer Mick Trembath. They had one week to combine forces and Natural Absorption is a unique study of their home towns.
They combined Lynden’s architectural images from Ballarat with Ros’ images of nature around Darebin Creek. Buildings from the country and the natural world from the city. They liked this juxtaposition and Ros created double exposures by putting images together. The result is photographs that make it appear that natural vegetation is taking over a people made environment.
Katie Theodorus works in acrylics, watercolour, soft sculpture and mixed media. Her practice explores the edges: between art and craft, nature and the constructed, waking life and dreams, truth and post-truth.
She lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
The loss of control is one of the most difficult things many people have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting period of social isolation forced us into unfamiliar, more circumspective habits centring around physical proximity and touch. The #metoo movement had addressed non-consensual touch, but there's little conversation around moments when people want to touch, but can't. Being unable to be physically close to and touch other people affected me to an extent I didn't anticipate. I thought a great deal about the changing perceptions of touch in this brave new world, with humans not just socially but physically distant, and our loss of control over who and when we can touch. These two works result from that contemplation.
@katie_theodorus
My practice explores ideas of displacement and gathering and comments on the values imposed on our surroundings – what makes and object desirable/precious.
This work is an exploration of our new reality under the covid-19 restrictions and alterations to everyday life. My current practice has adapted into creating and experimenting with a variety of mixed media materials in pursuit of our new reality.
@iriannastudioplay
@iriannak