Artist Studio Programs
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The Coal Loader Artist Studio is available free-of-charge to one artist per ten month period. Artists working with sustainable concepts or materials are given priority.
2019 Artist in Residence
HARUKA KOKUBU (108KB)
Haruka Kokubu is a local textile based visual artist and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of NSW (Painting and Drawing) and Master of Fine Arts, University of NSW Art and Design.
Haruka’s recent practice is focused on the development of ‘COSMOS OSMOSIS’ solar capsules, where naturally dyed objects constructed from locally sourced plants are constructed and installed in an environment where the process of dying is transformed by the natural elements. This unique time-based and interactive project builds on Haruka’s interest in and ability working with natural dyes and sustainable eco-living.
According to Haruka “my practice of employing natural dye techniques mirrors how I encounter this foreign nature. I experience the landscape by walking, gathering and sorting. I collect materials: leaves and barks from local bushwalks, used textiles and found objects. I also collect visual landscapes: memories from childhood, views from my window or in meditative walks through the forest. I work with these found objects and memories, transforming them in the process. The landscape is my collaborator and as I engage with it, it provides me with a sense of belonging. Through this process, I have developed a new sense of self”.
During the residency Haruka will offer 4 free community art workshops which explore methods of natural dyeing and mark making using recycled materials and other environmentally sustainable resources. The studio will also be open to the public one day per month offering an opportunity to meet and chat with the artist.
www.behance.net/harukakokubu
Council offers six well equipped shared studio spaces to artists at Primrose Park Arts Centre at a low cost rental for a one year period.
2018-19 Studio Artists
Simon Brown has a Dip Fine Arts from Meadowbank TAFE. Having relished art an early age, and throughout school, he is a self-taught painter experimenting in many forms and mediums. At TAFE he majored in Painting, with a focus on photorealism. Simon is concerned with the breakdown of luminous layers that photography often fails to capture and reveal, to challenge the notion that depth is lost in the transferral of photographic forms into a painted piece. Simon advises “continued exploration, discovery and learning is what drives me towards a future rich with artistic possibilities”.
Bernadette Facer (81KB) is a visual artist working in printmaking, classical photography and installation. Whilst studying at the Otago School of Fine Art in New Zealand, these mediums were developed by mentors such as, Diane Halstead and Marilyn Webb. Although now residing in Australia, her work often has a contextual connection to Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Bernadette's art is often influenced by the sombre and contemplative black protest paintings of Ralph Hotere. The works will often depict braided rivers as shadow water or ata wai. Black on black printing methods are used to serve as a dual representation for memory and of the depletion of resource, in the agricultural district from which she hails, Waitara (Canterbury).
Bernadette’s works can be viewed as unfinished fragments of memory which sit within an archetypal landscape through print and assemblage. “Current installations, incorporate delicate charcoal lines, abstract hybrid landscapes, mono-print and embroidery. Stitching the memory, or lifeline to the past. Threads snap and break. Fractured memories part of a once pristine landscape”.
www.paper-and-light.com
Terhi Hakola (534KB) is a Finland-born artist based in Sydney. She holds a MA from UNSW; and a degree in medicine from the University of Kuopio, Finland. She has practiced as a GP for 20 years in Finland and Australia. As a medical practitioner she has witnessed life at the ordinary and at the extremes. The human experience that captivated her as a doctor - the desire to unfold what defines and gives meaning to our day-to-day existence - also fuels and motivates her art. Recurring themes in her work consider the sense of identity, impermanence and mortality.
Using primal symbols, traditional story-telling and Scandinavian mythology, Hakola works with installation, video, animation and painting. She plays with the tensions between the mundane and the extraordinary, the known and the ineffable, the familiar and the terrifying. For her the creative process - going through the unknown and doubt - is an important rite of passage, which mirrors our journey through life with its potential for transformation. Her central quest is to develop work which reflects the shared human experience and offers a place for connection and possibility.
Anne Numont (65KB) - place, perception and memory are central to her art practice. Experimenting with method and scale in contemporary drawing, handmade paper and installation, Anne makes landscapes and informal geographies. Anne employs a syncretist approach and “references include my migrant experience, Filipino heritage, Australiana, cubism, typography, weather systems, astrology and science. I am fascinated by the potential of light, landscape and mapping to project aspects of space, self and society. Underpinning my work is a state of being in-between and the possibilities this space can manifest”. Anne Numont holds a BA Design from UNSW, and has studied at AFTRS, NIDA and NAVA.
Jane Theau (121KB) holds a Master of Art from UNSW, and is currently a PhD candidate at ANU researching the resurgence of textiles as a contemporary art form. Her current work has focussed on horsehair and large scale figurative lace pieces, both forms featuring as characters in videoed dance and theatrical performances. Jane’s practise began in two dimensions with printmaking, expanded into three dimensions with sculpture and installation, and is now exploring the fourth dimension through performance. The constant through these transitions has been her use of textiles, employing them in unexpected ways and combining them with other media to accentuate their tactile properties and metaphoric potential.
Ana Young (345KB) holds a BA Visual Arts (hons.) from the School of Arts, ANU, Canberra and a BA Fine Arts from the National Art School, Sydney. Ana describes her practice as inter-disciplinary: sculptural installations, drawing, paintings investigate the notion of landscape as a series of ongoing journeys. She will revisit particular localities, research their previous histories and geographies. Constructions evolve from found objects and materials that may hint at their original location. Ana continually explores the role of place and memory as a point of arrival and departure in her work. “I seek to interrogate how I see landscape, the distance between the studio and being there allows the restructuring of works whether in 2d forms or 3d forms. I find new possibilities pursuing the Australian bush, silence and close observation lead ultimately to works finding their own rhythm and poetry”.
www.anayoung.com.au