A RARE LOOK INTO ARTIST studios
The curtain is being lifted at Fremantle Arts Centre this September.
Meander through our heritage hallways and see where the magic happens with some of our incredible Artists in Residence ready to show you around their studios.
See the work and meet the minds behind it all!
If you cannot complete the form, please email your RSVP to [email protected]
THE ARTISTS
Sally Clarke, Cypraea non-conformis, 2024, sketch, graphite on cartridge, 21 x 29.7cm. Photo: Sally Clarke
NSW artist Sally Clarke is using her time at Fremantle Arts Centre to further develop the Repatriation Project: Rituals For Letting Go. Her work responds to a seashell collection from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands that has remained packed for over 40 years. Her ultimate goal is to return the shells to their origin or a culturally appropriate place.
Ideas revolve around materiality, place, memory, beauty, value, desire, symbolism, colonialism, and the ethics of collecting from nature. Fremantle is as close as Clarke can be to the Cocos Islands right now but the residency is also giving her the opportunity to consult mollusc experts at the Museum of Western Australia and to reconnect with and consult Cocos Islanders who settled on the mainland after the islands became fully integrated with Australia in the early 80s.
Gera Woltjer, GR#D Installation, Grid Roll #1-5, Perth Centre for Photography, 2022-23. Photo by Gera Woltjer
Gera Woltjer is a meticulous collector: her studio overflows with found and carefully researched materials; her sketchbooks are dense with notes, plans and drawings; her camera and computer are full of images of the often-overlooked patterns, colours and forms of the world around us.
Woltjer began her practice in drawing, textile art, and in developing her strong intuition for working with colour. Working across photography, video, textiles and drawing, Woltjer began to nurture the interest in the patterns of the built environment, that would become a life-long fascination. The particular shapes that pique her notice are regular: grids, fences, tiles, pool lanes. Woltjer reflects on the patterns inherent in these materials and how people use them to organise their belongings, their surroundings, even their thoughts.
Justine McKnight & Helen Britton
Australian artists, Helen Britton and Justine McKnight have maintained a friendship and creative dialogue between their respective homes in Munich and Perth, developing a collaborative practice that spans many years and several projects. Fuelled by shared interest in experience of place and accumulation of matter they have fostered a relationship where the distinction between their making has become increasingly blurred.
Kathy Allam
Kathy is most well known for her work creating large cloud like forms and installations from recycled plastic drink bottles. The residency at Fremantle Arts Centre has given her the opportunity to explore a change of direction. She has been reveling in an intensive period of experimentation with various clay bodies, techniques, pigments, glazes with hundreds of glaze tests, all attempting to distill the essence of Western Australia’s extraordinary coloured salt lakes. This resulted in recently exhibiting, Salt Lake Journey, in the GLIMPSE exhibition of contemporary ceramic installations with an environmental narrative at Gallery Central. Although the exhibition could be seen to mark an end she finds herself at the beginning of new related work.
