Artists

Stuart is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in art comics, street art and grave decorating (monumental masonry). Raised in the urban sprawl of Melbourne, Stuart takes inspiration from the ignorant, hyperbole-filled suburban consumer culture he was surrounded with as a child. His work focuses on the horrors of modern suburban life, politics and counter culture. He is profoundly interested in people and cultures that are ignored, maligned or that have a limited, unusual or unconventional voice (e.g. prison inmates, drug addicts, subcultures, countercultures etc.).

Kerryn is a Mildura based artist working across multiple disciplines. Her recent work investigates a personal history of creating and making. Objects from her past have been archived as if lying in wait, patiently asking to be transformed and given new life. She is constantly amazed at the way objects can speak to you, lying dormant one day and the next coming alive to a world of endless possibilities. Kerryn works across the arts and currently lectures at La Trobe University.

Rohan initially studied as a Graphic Artist with a love of aesthetics and computer-aided design. He is currently a Master of Visual Arts by Research candidate at La Trobe University, Mildura. Rohan’s practice explores perceived and identified identities through place and time. Working across performance, photography and video, Rohan depicts and explores his identity within various locations, landscapes and scenarios. Rohan participated in Mildura Palimpsest Biennale #9 where he began experimenting with performance and questioning gender stereotyping of domestic roles. Rohan is Co-Curator of Wallflower Photomedia Gallery Mildura and works as the Development Coordinator at Arts Mildura.

Rachel Kendrigan is an emerging artist born in Mildura and now based in Hobart, Tasmania. Her practice and passion is centred around drawing, and using the notions of drawing as a starting point for exploring the body in space, the body as a drawing tool, and the creation of line through movement in space.

Since the birth of her second child, Danielle’s artistic practice has shifted from all-day photographic shoots and darkroom time to smaller works on paper and sculptural projects on the lounge room floor. Hobbs recently completed a Masters by Research in the School of Art at RMIT, Melbourne where she interpreted her experience of Postnatal Depression and the various incarnations of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother. Her work indirectly reflects the rural environment in which she grew up and currently resides. Danielle exhibits nationally and has work in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Danielle swears excessively (under her breath).

Dr. Kristian Häggblom is an artist, curator and academic whose interests include expanded documentary practices, experimental image capture methodologies, relationships between photography and text and manipulation of archival image depositories. He has delivered conference papers internationally on suicide landscapes, expanded documentary and new forms of tourism. His research and own practice is largely driven by journeying and he is presently working on a project that connects the search for both aliens and gold. In 2010 he was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Australia Council for Arts Finland Studio. Häggblom completed his PhD at Monash University in 2014 and he is the founder and co-curator at Wallflower Photomedia Gallery. Häggblom has exhibited work in Australia, Japan, American, Finland, Malaysia and Switzerland.

Laura is an emerging artist based in Mildura. Her primary discipline is photography; however she extends her practice into performance video and the production of intimate, small-scale sculptures. Freitag attained a Diploma of Visual Arts at Sunraysia Institute of TAFE and then a Bachelor of Visual Arts, with an additional first-class Honours year, at La Trobe University Mildura. Freitag’s first postgraduate exhibition was with London-based artist Alicja Dobrucka at Wallflower Photomedia Gallery Mildura in 2013. Laura was subsequently invited to join the Wallflower gallery team in 2015 and assists with the curation and installation of monthly shows.

Coming from a Graphic Design background, Dan explored non-commercial packaging design as art for his Honours project. Through this work he attempted to break out from what he perceived was a creative prison, and while his escape was successful, it left him with a hunger for more experimentation. Dan’s Honours work also revealed a prevalent duality and the realisation that, through art, this duality became a valuable tool-set – often asking unexpected questions and striking an interesting balance between opposing factors: form and function, science and spirituality, interior and exterior, chaos and order.

Kate Cotching un-masters traditional craft techniques, and much of her work exists because it has holes in it. She creates intricate pieces that bring to mind the part that time, and human labour has in contemporary life. Her use of imagery often has historical references, and aims to highlight our disconnection from the way things are created and consumed and how this disconnection has shaped the world we live in today.

Rosina is a Mildura-based artist of Italian heritage who works across the disciplines of photography, video and installation. In 2013, Byrne graduated as a Bachelor of Visual Arts at La Trobe University, concurrently receiving The Colin Barrie Acquisitive Award, the La Trobe Executive Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence and the Golden Key from Golden Key International Honour Society for Excellence. Rosina then graduated with First Class Honours in Visual Art, receiving the Julie Miller Markoff Award, in 2014. Byrne has exhibited in solo and group shows, including Palimpsest #9 and Wallflower Photomedia Gallery (Mildura), and CCP and BSG Gallery (Melbourne).

Geoff is a Mildura-based installation artist who is passionate about art, politics and the environment. His multidisciplinary practice utilises a diverse range of technologies, appropriation and remixed forms – to create immersive often live-art settings that seek to confront human excess with excess – in short, to use excess as form. As a full-time creative arts PhD candidate at La Trobe University, Geoff has moved towards a more collective and collaborative arts practice and is exploring ways of more effectively engaging the public. He has lectured in sculpture and is currently a visual arts technician at La Trobe University.