THE LAST LINE OF DEFENCE

Lilli Waters is a Melbourne based photographic artist. Both a fine art and commercial photographer, her work has largely focused on portraits, mostly of women, and still life. Figures and objects are placed within environments which take both the subject and the viewer out of their comfort zone, pushing and testing reactions to the natural worlds and gender roles. Waters’s photographs often portray a sense of mystery, where objects lurk in shadows and bodies contort, merging into the landscape.

Lilli has been the recipient of a number of awards including Art Aesthetica Art Award Finalist 2018, Contemporary Art Awards Finalist 2018, National Still Life Award Finalist 2017, Brunswick St Gallery Art Prize Finalist 2017, Head On Portrait Prize Semi-Finalist 2017 and 2015, Head On Portrait Prize Finalist 2013, and Highly Commended at the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize and twice Semi-Finalist 2012. 

Recently Waters' work has been published in magazines such as Elle, Yen, Art Aesthetica, Vogue Living and Real Living, and photographs featured in the film Fifty Shades Darker in 2017 and Fifty Shades Freed in 2018. Waters was also invited to show works as part of the Venice Biennale Festival in 2017 and invited to create a self-portrait for the documentary series ABC Art Bites: Mirror in 2018. 

'As her name suggests, artist Lilli Waters has an affinity with the ocean. Creating a series of otherworldly, surreal photographs for her body of work, titled Coral Lands, Waters has managed to artfully combine the fragility of the ocean with the colour and vibrancy of its inhabitants. Asking her audience to reassess their impact on coral, Waters’s work goes beyond the traditional and transcends into something wonderfully sublime and futuristic — all the while using natural, tactile pieces to craft her sets.' — Vogue

Brad Teodoruk draws inspiration everywhere: from pop culture, through current affairs and conversations with friends, to antique birdwatching guides and poetry. Like a prism in reverse, these influences confer through the artist and focus into a single artwork, with floating phrases and disjointed images merging into visual poetry.

Omission is a theme that is included throughout most of Teodoruk’s practice, the layering creating a hidden history within the work. The juxtaposition of flat and impasto surfaces tells as much of a story as the images scattered across the canvas. In his most recent works, Teodoruk has gotten looser with his brush, giving the canvas over to shape, composition and colour.

Brad Teodoruk is a Sydney based artist represented by The New Standard Gallery

French born, Australian based artist Stanislas Piechaczek’swork uniquely combines a preternatural vividness whilst also being wildly innocent and delightful. 

Sunny Floridian pinks, apple green, kindergarten yellow alongside strong hues but also dark and murky tones Piechaczek’s style is a strange brew of calm and hyperactivity.

Piechaczek’s imaginative freedom incorporates a broad range of sources, from flamingos to still lifes often existing side-by-side in a patchwork like quality, distorting ones sense of perspective yet resulting in a radiant and uplifting clarity.
 
Using layers of Acrylic with shocks of colour and calm, modern lines we find a wonderful artistic spirit ultimately capturing the fluidity between external and internal.

Marisa Purcell’s work asks both the viewer and audience to question their perception. What else lie out there that our perceptive faculties screen from view? 

Working in abstraction, language is silenced, resulting in divergent connections that lie beyond everyday reality.  The improvisatory process keeps the unknown in close contact, allowing the painting to be a conduit of forces that may not always be consciously understood

Melinda Schawel has always been drawn to the physicality of creative process, and allowed the non-rational act of making to guide the development of her atmospheric imagery. Previously this affinity for process has led her to explore printmaking, yet over recent years she has expanded her repertoire to incorporate numerous techniques executed on paper and wood. Through scraping, sanding, painting, perforating, drawing, cutting, drilling and tearing, Schawel crafts her artwork in a manually intensive process that belies the graceful abstracted visions that result.

Working with a pared back palette of neutral tones that are accented by bold reds and graphic yellows, Schawel’s works appear both primordial and feather-light. The artist strikes a balance between control and chaos as she manipulates her medium and the ever-present element of surprise to create shapes and forms of a largely variegated nature. These compositional entities are always disparate, and each bears its own distinct topography. At times they appear continental, like islands and landmasses seen from an aerial perspective floating in an ocean of glacial negative space. At other times they might seem like matter enlarged under a microscope, or leaves drifting past on a pavement. Part of the appeal of this work is its ability to slip so readily between the macro and the micro. 

Schawel’s forms hover on the surface, occasionally collide into one another, and act in dynamic tandem. There is a push and pull tension where some recede and others seem to come forward in the pictorial space, as she sets up a formal interplay between compositional elements. From aqueous stains to areas of hard-edged mineral density, the artist adapts her methods of application in search of a visual equilibrium within each image, and notes the importance of knowing when to hold back. This awareness translates in the successful and subtle evocation of atmospheric space.

Kara Rosenlund is a photographer and author, who regularly features in publications such as Conde Nast Traveler, Qantas and Gourmet Traveller. In addition, Kara has an online gallery of her limited edition photographic prints and exclusive lifestyle range which is inspired by old world travel and style.

Born and raised in Brisbane, Australia, Kara has always been drawn to the Australian landscapes and our sense of nostalgia it nurtures, something that she has always been passionate about preserving. 

Kara travelled around Australia for an entire year, in search of authentic Australian homes, with distinctive interiors. This yearlong love letter to the country was produced in to a book titled ‘ Shelter, How Austalians Live’, published by Lantern, an imprint of Penguin, which has gone on to sell thousands of copies around the globe.

Kara’s work is collected all around the world and has been acquired by many galleries and museums in their permanent collections. She regularly exhibits her work and a career highlight was having an exhibition at the Sydney Opera House.

At 36 years old, Kara is a freelanced travel photographer and stylist for a range of clients and continues to evolve her own love for interiors through her expanding lifestyle range.

Jessie Rigby is an Australian contemporary artist who resides in the Macedon Ranges, north of Melbourne, with her husband and two dogs, Bonnie and George. Amongst her love of art she enjoys spending time with her family, working in the veggie patch, making banana bread and appreciating the wonderful eateries and coffee culture the Macedon Ranges has to offer.

Studying both Visual Arts and Fashion in her earlier years, she spent 10 years working in the Rag Trade in design, whilst simultaneously cultivating her passion for abstract art. Working for a number of well-established fashion labels has enriched her creative experience and eye for design, construction and balance. Applying this background, Jessie has refined her skill for remaining ‘on the pulse’ of design aesthetics, silhouettes and colour palettes that people are drawn to, which can be observed in her works.

Inspired by Victoria’s countryside, Jessie translates her surroundings into dreamy and misty mountain-scapes, whimsical ‘Nebulas’ and is drawn to experimenting with mixed mediums including acrylics, oil pastels, gouache, and metallic pigments, developing texture and an additional depth to her works.

Following the success of her initial style series; ‘Nebula Haze’, ‘Silentus Montem’, ‘Roseous Nebula’ and ‘Floss Series’, Jessie has organically built an impressive and valued customer base, who appreciate her developed aesthetic and genuine, warm nature.

Off the back of this success her original works have been translated into a number of limited-edition print ranges, open-edition canvas reproductions and original client commissions. Original pieces can be sourced through her website and are also stocked in a number of artisan spaces, boutiques and lifestyle stores across Australia.

Welcome, thanks for stopping by...here's a little info about what I do and my process...

Based in the beautiful rural village of Upper Moutere (near Nelson, New Zealand) & surrounded by vineyards, hop farms, orchards and country gardens it will come as no surprise that my work is largely inspired by nature. 

I love nothing more than foraging for wild flowers or hanging out in my friends plant store ( @bushbotanica ) gathering botanical inspiration.

When working in my studio at The Old Post Office Store in the heart of the Village you'll find me surrounded by threads, linen, paint & plant books amoungst my other collected treasures & inspiration.

Stitched Paintings is the term I use to describe my style of work. The process flows like this...I paint blank pieces of linen in abstract washes then add botanical / illustrative details in with acrylic paint / gouache / ink , finally I add texture through stitch. Coming to stitch as a mixed media artist I have taught myself a variety of embroidery techniques which probably don't follow traditional embroidery guides but work for the kind of mark making I enjoy creating.

Stitch for me has become a bit of an obsession which marries my love of detail, colour, texture and allows hours of quiet reflection and Netflix binge watching.

Mandy Couzens is a Melbourne based photographer and stylist, living bayside with her two children, husband and dog Dusty.  

She has an obsession with nature’s beauty, capturing it in all forms from food, flowers to the great outdoors. Mandy has released two previous collections of prints titled ‘Wallflowers’ and ‘Orchards'. 

Samantha Iurada is an Australian born artist based in inner Melbourne.  

Samantha's unique seascapes using negative space with colour is drawn on her time working on the Great Barrier Reef, where she draws her inspiration from the marine environment. Working with acrylic, fluid and ink acrylics her style is fluid in nature and intuitive. 

Georgie Wilsons' studio is at home on the Mornington Peninsula. It’s a block from the beach and sits high in the treetops. She’s a full time artist who juggles freelance design, and a busy little family. Her gently layered works combine velvety forms and soothing palettes, with hints of foliage emerging in her new series.

Georgie has previously exhibited at Antipodes in Sorrento, Felix, Hut13, and White Nest. Her work has featured in Inside Out magazine, Adore, The Design Files, Onya Magazine and LikeMindsCreate. She has been commissioned by private collectors, and design and ad agencies both here in Australia and internationally. She is represented by Greenhouse interiors.

Jane Tanner completed an Associate Diploma of Fine Art in Printmaking and Painting and a Diploma of Education. She taught for several years in Victorian secondary schools before taking up full-time illustrating in 1984.

She is the acclaimed illustrator of the best-selling picture books There's a Sea in my Bedroom, Drac and the Gremlin, The Wolf, The Fisherman and the Theefyspray, Lucy's Cat and the Rainbow Birds and The Soldier's Gift. 

She is the author and illustrator of Playmates, Isabella's Secret, Ride with Me, Just Jack, Love from Grandma and Lilly and the Fairy House. 

She has won or been shortlisted for many prestigious awards, including the CBCA Book of the Year Awards in the categories of Picture Book of the Year, Younger Readers' and Early Childhood.

This much-loved author/illustrator is one of Australia's outstanding picture-book creators.

After working in the legal profession for 25 years Joan Blond has returned to her first love of painting.

Joan is an abstract expressionist and contemporary artist based in the Yarra Valley, Victoria.  

Mostly self taught, Joan’s creative side was nurtured by her Mother who constantly shared her love of drawing & painting. 

Joan loves painting generous blocks of colour and her style is vibrantly expressionistic, often incorporating energetic line work. 

Joan mostly paints using acrylics with substance which add texture to her work and at times works with oil paint.   She also loves experimenting with different mediums & washes. 

Joan works from her home studio in Yellingbo in Victoria’s lush Yarra Valley and is creatively motivated by the location and the relaxed atmosphere it offers.

Joan also takes many cues from contemporary design and her love of interior design.  She loves working with homeowners and designers looking for paintings with a custom colour scheme.

Joan has had 2 solo exhibitions and had works included in numerous group shows. 

Joan’s paintings are held by private collectors throughout Australia, New Zealand, USA, Germany and recently Hong Kong.

I am a painter, originally from New Zealand. I have lived in Sunshine Beach, Noosa Heads for the past 20 years and paint from a home studio.

Having grown up with a highly successful graduate art mother and sculptor stepfather there was always a creative force in my life that eventually led me to a career in the arts.

After travelling and working extensively in Europe, Russia and Scandinavia for five years in the 70s my husband and I returned to NZ and and undertook an apprenticeship with his uncle, Jim Nelson, a highly regarded South Island potter.  We eventually established our own business and enjoyed relative creative independence for many years.

With a Certificate in Visual Merchandising and Display I went on to operate a commercial window dressing display business whilst raising a young family.

Over the years I have attended many and varied visual art and creative workshops and began dabbling with paint and canvas, working at it part time and eventually becoming a full time artist 15 years ago.

Mostly I approach my work with an idea of a story at the edge of my mind but usually with little premeditation allowing whatever needs to occur during the process happen organically. Feeling confined to a certain technique or structure is not how I usually work - sometimes my works are soft and floaty, sometimes slightly more graphic, the mood changes with whichever way the painting takes me.

My work talks of certain places in landscape or time, in seasons and in moments. Each piece has a relevant meaning and importance to me. I enjoy playing with different textures, different detailing, different shapes.  Through the medium of paint and canvas there is always a story to tell of the landscape I love. 

In moving forward I aim to experiment with new ideas and techniques while leaning on some of the practices of the past, incorporating my love of the landscape, the seasons, the shapes and patterns in nature that so absorb me. Transitioning from a somewhat meaningful subject area to expressing myself through a playful, more open and abstract style exploring the idea of being of the landscape rather than about it.  

Katie enjoys creating paintings that people can connect to. She paints impressionist, highly textured landscapes and botanical pieces in oil paint. She uses brushes and palette knives to create paintings that are almost sculptural, inviting viewers to feel connected to the work. The paintings are energetic, honest pieces that viewers can enjoy hanging on their walls at home. To be hung in someone's home is a privilege, something she finds a lot of satisfaction in.

Katie's landscape works are pared back to show the outlines of forms with the sky and horizon levelling the design, to hold the eye. Thick swathes of oil paint define the features of the Australian landscapes, which are painted from memory and recollection.

The botanical pieces are created with lavish amounts of oil paint in warm or cool colour palettes. The transience of flowers is one of Katie's deep loves so she finds a lot of satisfaction in capturing that. She enjoys the challenge of capturing their form and beauty in a textural, impressionist style. Katie's graphic design background is also evident through her solid compositions and strong colour contrasts. 

The titles of her work reflect her inner romantic - the yearnings of a person who would love to wander, discover and travel more.

Katie has been painting professionally since 2007 and is represented in galleries in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and on Bluethumb online gallery. She has held many successful solo exhibitions and has received numerous awards for her work.

Recently signed by interiors guru Julia Green, Katie's work has been snapped up by clients via the Greenhouse Interiors online store as well as via their trade accounts.

I was born and grew up in Melbourne Australia.  My career began after completing a Bachelor of Education in Art & Craft with major studies in Textile design & Metal Work. With a strong interest in the fashion industry and a special interest in knitwear, I began working as a design writer for Coats Patons . Soon lured to the fashion world of New York, I relocated to the USA and developed a successful career as a knitwear designer.  I lived and worked as a specialist designer in New York for 7 years travelling regularly to the Orient and Europe. I worked for a number of companies in the USA including SSG by Catherine lover, Liz Claiborne accessories and later Jennifer Reed, where for many  years I had the opportunity to design private label sweaters for  many  major department stores including Macy's, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, & Lord and Taylor.  

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On my return to Australia I continued to design knitwear for the US market. I always had a passion for painting, and eventually worked  as a full time painter  upon my return from the USA. My art hangs in homes around the globe, but my love for fashion, colour and design inspired me to  open my own retail stores/ gallery. I then spent the next 10 years as a Fashion retailer creating Hues Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

In 2014 after a 10 year hiatus, I returned to my first love, painting. Influenced by the many years I worked as a colourist/designer, my current work reflects my past experiences as a fashion retailer, stylist and designer. Contemporary and varied in subject matter, my paintings celebrate my experiences and observations of everyday life, events and people. I am particularly drawn to water scenes and the joy of experiencing the great Australian beaches we are surrounded by. 

Lola Donoghue is an Irish artist living and working in Galway, in the West of Ireland.  She graduated at the top of her class with a first class honours degree in Fine Art (Painting) from Limerick School of Art and Design.

Imbued with a painterly, ethereal quality, her work is characterized by a predominantly white-on-white palette, layered with a mix of muted colors and splashes of bright neon. Her work is light and fresh and the compositions are a delicate balance of intricate linear forms and concentrated layers of colour.

“My paintings are personal reflections and interpretations, they are always an emerging process, I like when I discover things by accident and I usually let this dictate the direction of the painting.

They generally evolve through a subtractive process, beginning with lots of colour and bold vigorous brushstrokes and then working backwards so to speak. I add both thick and transparent layers allowing for the under painting to shine through.  A lot of the time I find myself working more in the negative space than the positive.”

Her work makes a statement on the social milieu, an interpretation and exploration of everyday contemporary culture and society, representing the unseen internal emotions without the distraction of meaningful images.  Hidden in the subtle, delicate washes are details, renderings that draw the eye and hint at the exploration of the unconscious, clashing narratives and the tension and balance that exist therein.

Her work is held in private collections all over the world.

Elisabetta Reicher, mixed-media artist and illustrator, born in Milan to an English father and Italian mother. She grew up in England and Greece and adapted to the different cultures with ease, her years there have broadened and continued to shape her outlook on life.

She graduated at the European Institute of Design in Milan and began to work as a freelance illustrator for publishers and advertising agencies.

The passion for painting and broad experience as an illustrator are Elisabetta’s core strength. Her paintings are a combination of colour and techniques. Colour, texture, pencil work and collage overlap creating a complex composition. Layers of colour drip and blend to give depth and perspective to her work.

The finer elements and subtleties in her paintings come together,  like the ingredients of a recipe, creating one unique result.  Every painting highlights the importance of detail, even the smallest detail of a collage is an essential part of the picture.

“It´s a matter of detail, sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it´s in music or in life, something as small as not sending a thank-you note, or failing to be polite to someone, you start to lose substance” Benny Goodman.

Victorian Melanie Macilwain, is a self-taught painter. Her expressionist artworks encompass gestures evoked from feelings and emotions about a particular landscape. Often lines created in her artworks are replicated maps or tracks which have been seen, enjoyed or read about. 

Melanie first studied a Bachelor of Environmental Management in Ballarat prior to working in Education. These studies have continued to drive her interest in the the richness of our flora and fauna. 

Ruth Crespo Hernandez is a local artist from Richmond.  Art has always been a part of life - her father being a Spanish artist who had the privilege to paint inside Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona.  Whilst working in a corporate job and studying law, painting provides a creative escape, an essential part of Ruth’s being. Passionate about all things design related, Ruth’s works are inspired by the colours (or lack of) and carefully thought of composition, rather than a story or emotion.  The end result being lovely little stories open to be discovered and interpreted according to each person’s creative limits and context.


“When I create, I build my confidence in other areas of my life, and expand my horizons and capabilities.  Creating empowers me. My favourite part, and the most daunting, is getting past the vulnerability of sharing my work, and putting it out there to complete someone’s happy space.”


Ruth has previously exhibited in ‘Magnus 600’ held at Off The Kerb gallery, ‘Colours of Melbourne’ held at Lorimer Gallery, ‘Art for Change’ by YGAP, Bridge 38 gallery and Kit & Ace Gallery in Collingwood.


Recognising the importance of maintaining our environment in tact to share with future generations, Ruth supports a non-for-profit that focuses on offsetting carbon emissions created by our consumer lifestyles by going back to basics, planting trees.  Ten percent of profits from art sold is donated to the Carbon Neutral Charitable Fund.


M O N O C H R O M E   S E R I E S

Acrylic and ink on canvas painted using a hairdryer.

Without the contrived movements of a paintbrush and being subject to the elements the works take a life of their own in the process forming the organic patterns you see, and mimicking nature.  


C A T A L Y S T   S E R I E S

Acrylic on canvas, painted free hand.

Inspired by interior design from mid century modern spaces in particular, I wanted to create a series of works to encompass the geometric design and rich opulent palettes that make up these spaces.  Opposite to the Monochrome series, these works are designed with the composition well thought of and calculated, and feature a hidden cactus because - why not!

Ash and Holly celebrate their passion for bold colour, dynamic shape and intricate pattern, creating one off intuitive works inspired by elements found in the natural world.

You can see their work and upcoming workshops at www.byprintsafari.com or on instagram @print.safari