Small Pleasures looks at ceramic objects as intimate art objects that can be held in the hand.

Small works are necessarily intimate, however they can be expansive in theme and concept and resonate from within to capture a wider audience. The nature of small things and the meaning they hold is potent, like a talisman or treasure. When an object is small, we tend to view it more closely, seeking out detail and understanding. The tactile quality of a handmade ceramic object carries within it the idea of having been touched by the maker’s hand, as well as its quality of tangibility.

In an age of mass-production there is a new appreciation of the value and intimacy of the handmade object with its sense of manual labour. This exhibition of tangible treasures is an ode to the small ceramic object that can be held in the hand and taken to the heart.

Featuring established and emerging artists from Australia and New Zealand: Aaron Scythe, Alex Standen, Ben King, Bronwyn Kemp, Casey Chen, Cath Fogarty, Charlotte Le Brocque, Christine Thacker, Daniel Pace, David Ray, Ebony Russell, Georgia Harvey, Hermannsburg Potters, Holly Phillipson, Isabella Edwards, Jenny Orchard, Kat Shapiro Wood, Mackenzie Rowe, Marianna Ebersoll, Minhi Park, Nani Puspasari, Patsy Hely, Rachel Farang, Ruth Howard, Sandy Lockwood, Simon Rosentool, Stephen Bird, Steve Sheridan, Toni Warburton, Vicki Grima

Small Pleasures is to be opened by Sharon Veale, CEO GML Heritage on Friday 2 August 2024, 6-8pm at Gallery Lowe & Lee.

For information on accessibility please contact Gallery Lowe and Lee on 02 9550 4433 or via email at [email protected]

As part of Arts Project Australia’s (APA) annual creative program, prominent curators are invited to create an exhibition that places APA artists alongside their peers; leading national and international contemporary artists.  

This initiative seeks to make broader connections with curators, artists, galleries, and museums, making visible the calibre of the work produced by APA artists, and exemplifying their place within the contemporary art landscape. Since its inception, the initiative has resulted in a long list of remarkable exhibitions that have served to generate new partnerships and develop and strengthen relationships. 

Bendable Realities pays tribute to this initiative in APA’s 50th year. Past curators have been invited to select artworks by both APA artists and external artists, creating a dialogue between them. This exhibition celebrates the power of collaboration and meaningful connections, highlighting the gradual reimagining of the art world as a more open, adaptive, and inclusive space for diverse perspectives, experiences, and identities. 

Featuring Tiger Yaltangki, Terry Williams, Roger Walker, Julian Martin, Jan Lucas, Rebecca Scibilia, Clare Milledge, Adrian Lazzaro, Katherine Botten and Bronwyn Hack.

Bendable Realities is co-curated by Jo Salt in collaboration with Vince Alessi, Alex Baker, Geoff Newton, Charlotte Day and Patrice Sharkey.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

Visit the exhibition from home

Strange Planet invites you to move towards the creatures from whom you usually recoil; to examine their glittering intricacies, behold their hairy thoraxes, to bat your eyelids at their slithery scales and razor-sharp fangs.

Find solace in the uncanny beauty of these inhabitants for within their otherworldly forms a symphony of colours, textures, and shapes awaits.

Meet us beneath the thicket in the depths of this Strange Planet.

This exhibition features Anna Dehm, Anne Lynch, Bronwyn Hack, Chris Mason, Dorothy Berry, Dionne Canzano, Eden Menta, Julian Martin, Katherine Foster, Lygin Ang, Matthew Gove, Miles Howard-Wilks, Michael Camakaris, Michael Trasancos, Nhan Nguyen, Patrick Francis, Ruth Howard, Samraing Chea, Shoshanna Brott, Terry Williams and Valerio Ciccone.

Strange Planet is curated by Miles Howard-Wilks, Sandy Fernée and Sarah Lamanna.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Soft Landings celebrates the collaborative partnership between the Australian Tapestry Workshop and Arts Project Australia.

Textiles surround us, comfort us, allow us expression of identity. As Kassia St Clair states in her book The Golden Thread “We live surrounded by cloth. We are swaddled in it at birth and shrouds are drawn over our faces in death. We sleep enclosed by layer upon layer of it…and, when we wake, we clothe ourselves in yet more of it to face the world and let it know who we shall be that day.”

Often delegated to the realm of ‘craft’, textiles can be an underappreciated and overlooked artform. The artists of Soft Landings, however, evident the extensive capacity of textiles – using the medium as a raw expression and interpretation of the world, confirming textiles’ place in contemporary art. Subjects such as body, home, identity, desire, and more are explored through embroidery, 2D mixed media textiles, and soft sculpture.

Featuring the works of Fulli Andrinopoulos, Matthew Gove, Bronwyn Hack, Paul Hodges, Adrian Lazzaro, Anne Lynch, Joanne Nethercote, Chris O’Brien, Rosie O’Brien, Lisa Reid, Mark Smith, and Terry Williams.

Curated by Betty Musgrove.

For more information on accessibility at Australian Tapestry Workshop please phone 03 9699 7885

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name introduces the next generation of Arts Project Australia artists.

Celebrating the relationship between Arts Project Australia (APA) and ACU’s Bachelor of Visual Arts & Design program, Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name is a collaboration that marks APA’s 50th anniversary milestone.

Titled after a Rolling Stones song lyric, the exhibition captures the thrill of presenting oneself or one’s art to new audiences.

Featuring Alessandra DiMattina, Anna Dehm, Christian Semertzidis, David Mendelsohn, Heidi Beard, Iain Gordon, Maddie Pavlovic and Oscar Donati, this group exhibition showcases APAs next generation of emerging talent, inviting viewers to connect with their art and follow their promising careers over the next 50 years.

Art et al: Exchange/Engage is an exhibition and accessible digital document highlighting a series of collaborations and partnerships funded by Creative Australia.

In line with Art et al.’s ethos of championing a more inclusive contemporary art world, Exchange/Engage exhibits neurodivergent and learning disabled artists alongside their non-disabled peers.

The focus of the exhibition is work produced during four Peer/Peer Collaborations – digital residencies pairing international artists with and without disabilities. Also featured is Art et al.’s Curating Collections initiative, which partners an artist working from a supported studio with an established collector/collection to curate a digital project from their collection.

Included are animations, drawings, ceramics, textiles and paintings from Paul Hodges, Mutia Bunga, Winda Karunadhita, Mawarini, Clemens Wild, Harriet Body, Hena Alexandra Lane Dupreez, Gabi Deutsch, Philomena Heinel and works from the collection of Dr. Michael Schwarz including work by Arts Project Australia artist Michael Camakaris – who participated in Art et al.’s very first Curating Collections.

For Exchange/Engage Art et al. has put together an interactive document to help those who cannot visit the exhibition experience the ​creativity of these collaborations, and provide extra information on the show.

Entry to Res Artis Project Space is through Gertrude Glasshouse during gallery hours, or by private appointment at other times.

Gertrude Glasshouse is fully wheelchair accessible, however Glasshouse Road is an uneven bluestone street. Glasshouse Road can be accessed by car from Wellington Street and passengers can be dropped off at the door.

Ambulant toilet and baby change facilities available.

For more information please email [email protected]

Benalla Art Gallery and Arts Project Australia proudly present Self in the Spotlight — a Spring Gallery Shop exhibition by Danny Lyons.

Danny Lyons is an emerging artist working in photography, video, and drawing, often incorporating personal experiences in his work. Since 2018, he has made a series of photographic works involving placing himself dressed as different celebrities in the centre of photoshopped scenes.

Lyons recently started working in video and has completed five different works titled: Cats in the Cradle, Black or White, Achy Breaky Heart, Shut Up and Dance and Mambo Number 5, based on the original film clips for these songs. Lyons has been working at Arts Project Australia since 2017 and has exhibited in group exhibitions Australia-wide.

Danny Lyons: Self in the Spotlight coincides with Benalla Art Gallery’s staging of Beyond the Boundary, an exhibition by the AFL’s Chief Photographer, Michael Willson.

Benalla Art Gallery has full wheelchair access via a ramp entrance at the front of the building.  The café deck and floor can also be accessed via a ramp.

Disabled toilets and infant facilities are also available within the building.

Benalla Art Gallery and Arts Project Australia proudly present The Enchanted Garden — a Winter Gallery Shop exhibition by APA artist Brigid Hanrahan.

Brigid Hanrahan is a mid-career artist who works in painting, drawing and ceramics.

With a focus on creating fictional narratives, she is interested in domestic settings, including gardens and animals. Dancers are also a common theme, particularly those from the Australian Ballet. Her figurative works are delicate and expressive, evoking a lyrical sense of movement and storytelling.

Hanrahan has worked at Arts Project since 1999. She has participated in numerous group and national touring exhibitions. Her work is held in the National Gallery of Australia and Tallis Foundation collections, as well as corporate and private collections throughout Australia.

Benalla Art Gallery has full wheelchair access via a ramp entrance at the front of the building.  The café deck and floor can also be accessed via a ramp.

Disabled toilets and infant facilities are also available within the building.

Alan Constable’s enduring fascination with the camera began when he was 8 years old. Modelled as a child from cardboard, cut paper and glue, he has developed his aesthetic into working with clay.

Legally blind, these works are created with his hands and his heart. The poetic renaissance of a timeless tradition, they are an intimate and intuitive response to a world he knows but cannot see.

Engaged in an act of mimetic representation, Constable delights in the immediacy of process. With extraordinary curiosity, he examines, traces and commits to memory the structure of the referent camera, accentuating its scale and form. Pinched, pushed, pummelled and smoothed, these cameras bear the markings of history and imprint of Constable’s touch, impressing upon us the sense experience of clay.

The act of photography renders possible a command of the absent – a moment captured and frozen in time. Constable’s palpable vision reaches out beyond the recording function of the camera to expose beauty in the truth of material and form. With expressive power, he pursues a new grammar of seeing. His cameras disclose to us an inflection on how to look, and what is worth looking at. Their arresting presence demands our exalted attention as we are invited to enter his enigmatic and revelatory world.

For accessibility information please contact Darren Knight gallery on (02) 9699 5353

Benalla Art Gallery and Arts Project Australia proudly present Emerging from the Mist — an Autumn Gallery Shop exhibition by James McSporran.

James MacSporran is an emerging artist working primarily in painting and drawing on paper and canvas. MacSporran has worked at Arts Project Australia’s studio since 2016. He staged solo exhibitions in 2020 and 2021, has completed public art commissions, and been featured in group exhibitions in Australia, the USA, and Hong Kong.

Inspired by trains and cityscapes, stylistically his art practice embodies a blend of abstraction and graffiti, resulting in fluoro-coloured and densely layered artworks that he creates from his imagination. Often synthesising text with abstraction, his work conjures references to mazes, street art and old-style arcade games.

Benalla Art Gallery has full wheelchair access via a ramp entrance at the front of the building.  The café deck and floor can also be accessed via a ramp.

Disabled toilets and infant facilities are also available within the building.

Colour is Enough presents recent bodies of work by Arts Project Australia artists Wendy Dawson, Ruth Howard and Julian Martin within a broader context of Australian monochrome painting and sculpture.

In monochrome works of art there is no single focal point. Unlike the process of reading words on a page, there is no direction for where to start or finish. Viewers are not called to progress from one section to another, but rather to engage with the totality of a single colour. More specifically, understanding and experience is based on ‘consuming’ the whole work of art at once.

In monochromes, colour is its own entity that is distinct and independent. Related to (but not beholden to) form, colour is enough. Nothing else is needed for it to challenge, move, evoke and energise.

This exhibition will feature Eleanor Louise Butt, Nancy Constandelia, Renee Cosgrave, Rox De Luca, A.D.S Donaldson, Mikala Dwyer, Louise Gresswell, Aaron Martin, Jackson McLaren, John Nixon, Ron Robertson-Swann, David Serisier, Madeline Simm, Lachlan Stonehouse, David Thomas, Sam George & Lisa Radford, Barbara Puruntatameri, Hayden Stuart and Hootan Heydari alongside APA artists Julian Martin, Wendy Dawson and Ruth Howard.

Opening event: 3 – 5PM, Saturday 6 April, Arts Project Australia gallery, Collingwood Yards. 

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Premiering as part of PHOTO24

In The little things we fight for, Eden Menta addresses the Photo 2024 thematic strand of Social Futures, exploring the intersections of queerness and neurodiversity through ideas around a sense of self and place in the contemporary landscape.

Drawing from deeply personal experiences, Menta unpacks the past and contemplates the present, teasing out what it means to belong – or not – as the case may be. By addressing these realities, Menta fights for a future that recognises the intersectionality of different identities and fosters safe, inclusive spaces to feel valued and supported.

Presented as a solo exhibition at the Arts Project Australia gallery in Collingwood Yards, The little things we fight for addresses universal tensions and ideas through Menta’s intimate lens.

Opening event: 4 – 6pm, Saturday 2 March 2024, Arts Project Australia gallery, Collingwood Yards. Exhibition opened by Richard Lewer.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Benalla Art Gallery and Arts Project Australia proudly present Oh, The Places I’ve Seen! — a Summer Gallery Shop exhibition by Chris O’Brien.

Chris O’Brien is a multi- disciplinary artist who works in painting, printmaking, sculpture, video and artist zines. He is interested in representing domestic dwellings that feature him, his friends and the TV personalities living there. Works are imbued with narratives, whether drawn from memory, or invented stories involving thieves, ghosts and animals.

Beyond his personal memories, works are visually informed by materials such as real estate brochures, photos, Google Earth maps, and architectural plans.

Chris will also feature as part of Benalla Art Gallery’s First Mondays series with an in coversation style talk at 10am on Monday 5 February 2024. To rsvp your attendance at this event please contact [email protected]

Benalla Art Gallery has full wheelchair access via a ramp entrance at the front of the building.  The café deck and floor can also be accessed via a ramp.

Disabled toilets and infant facilities are also available within the building.

Arts Project Australia’s Annual Gala Exhibition is an end of year celebration of the achievement of the studio and satellite artists and acknowledges their unique contribution to contemporary art.

Over 200 artworks spanning painting, photography, drawing, printmaking, ceramics and textiles will be on display and available to purchase. Also available will be calendars, cards and merchandise.

Held at APA’s Collingwood Yards gallery, artwork sales will commence at 3pm, 9 December 2023 in conjunction with an end of year celebration.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Arts Project Australia is excited to announce that Terry Williams will be included in Craft Victoria’s end-of-year exhibition Everyone’s heard of a dragon.

Guest curated by artists James Lemon and Bobby Corica, Everyone’s Heard of a Dragon explores the profound impact of fantasy and material practice as tools for navigating one’s experiences. This charged realm, situated between the truths of our immediate reality and the expansive realm of possibilities, shapes our surroundings, offering solace and imbuing the world with meaning.

Materiality plays a pivotal role in shaping both fantasy and truth. It demands meticulous attention and immersion, serving as a bridge that connects things that were, things that are, and some things that have not yet come to pass. What joys can we toil, passing threads between our fingers or simply bringing a vessel to the lip to sip? Everyone’s Heard of a Dragon invites artists, designers, and craftspeople to consider our shared obsessions with materials and how they can affirm and expand our unique stories.

To paraphrase Ursula K. Le Guin: If imagination is the instrument of ethics, what forms shall our melodies take?

Everyone’s heard of a dragon will open at Craft on Thursday 16 November, 6-8pm.

Sign up here to receive a preview of the exhibition ahead of the opening.

Craft is wheelchair accessible, with a wheelchair-accessible bathroom. For those with limited mobility, Craft’s premises have a lift which takes you to our opening space.

Please note that the laneway to Craft has a sloped surface.

Craft also welcome guide and assistance animals in the gallery.

Tones of Home draws together artists from APA, Melbourne, regional Victoria, and north Queensland to present works inspired by domestic and urban spaces.

The exhibition extends beyond these settings to consider ‘what makes a place, a home?’, touching on notions of family, community, belonging, connection, love, comfort, safety, and personal histories. 

Featuring APA artsits Steven Ajzenberg, Miles Howard-Wilks, Chris Mason, Chris O’Brien, Lisa Reid, Anthony Romagnano, Georgia Szmerling and Amani Tia alongside Atong Atem, Susie Buykx, Cooper+Spowart, Erub Arts Torres Strait and Ghost Net Collective, Aishah Kenton and Ron McBurnie.

Tones of Home is curated by Eric Nash, Director Benalla Art Gallery.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground.

Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

Visit the exhibition from home

Paul Quick is an emerging artist whose work reflects the trivialities, joys, and interactions of day-to-day life.

Adult Human Being is an exhibition of self-portraiture showcasing Quick’s vivid colour palette, expressive and incidental mark making, and discerning use of text, all employed to articulate astute observations of self and place.

Adult Human Being will open on Thursday 12 October at Res Artis. This exhibition will continue until Saturday 11 November.

Res Artis is open on Thursdays and Fridays (12-5pm) during the exhibition period.

Entry to Res Artis Project Space is through Gertrude Glasshouse during gallery hours, or by private appointment at other times.

Gertrude Glasshouse is fully wheelchair accessible, however Glasshouse Road is an uneven bluestone street. Glasshouse Road can be accessed by car from Wellington Street and passengers can be dropped off at the door.

Ambulant toilet and baby change facilities available.

For more information please email [email protected]

Within My Skin explores the bodily connection and presence of the female figure within a contemporary landscape.

Arts Project Australia artists Emily Dober, Bronwyn Hack, Sammi-Jo Matta and Lisa Reid in collaboration with Ema Shin, explore themes of sexuality, fragility and identity through an alluring and interactive symposium of textiles, installation, collage, photography and the drawn line.

Within My Skin is curated by APA staff artists Jodie Kipps and Alysia Rees.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground. Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Sensitive Antennae is a group exhibition exploring the magnetism of works where the artist appears to tap into inexplicable energy.

Emotive, abstracted and minimal, they are released from the structures of fixed, coherent form, speaking to the transcendent beauty and elegance found in nature and avoiding unnecessary noise.

The exhibition will include ceramics, painting, drawing and textiles and examines pivotal periods of pure abstraction in the practice of the exhibiting artists.

Sensitive Antennae features works by Bronwyn Hack, Ruth Howard, Julian Martin, Fulli Andrinopoulos, Ian Gold, Kaye McDonald, Salome Felsinger, and Wendy Dawson, curated by APA gallery manager and curator Jo Salt.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground. Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

From Here To Space explores the soft sculpture practice of established Arts Project Australia artist Terry Williams.

Terry Williams has been making art for over three decades, with a focus on soft sculpture. Easily recognisable, his works are multi-faceted and defined by their truth to materials and punk aesthetic.

Curated by Vince Alessi, From Here To Space brings together a series of diverse figures and space helmets, celebrating Williams’ interest in the human form and all things space.

Defined by his deft and obsessive interpretation of figures and objects, Terry Williams’ sculptural work is both real and imagined.

Williams’ practice bypasses common traditions, the artist instead adopting an immersive and idiosyncratic process where adept crafting results in the emergence of multi-faceted creations.

The tactile, pillow-like works constructed with found materials feature exaggerated, conspicuous stitching and are intensely physical and bulging in their form.

This exhibition continues until Saturday 9 September, 2023 at Conners Conners Gallery, Fitzroy.

Arts Project Australia and Leonard Joel Auction House are thrilled to announce APA artist Michael Camakaris’ solo exhibition It’s Very Nearly All Greek To Me…

It’s Very Nearly All Greek To Me… will take place at Leonard Joel Auction House from Friday 23 June – Wednesday 28 June.

Michael Camakaris is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice encompasses drawing, painting, collage, printmaking and ceramics.

Characterised by subtle detailing and layered graphical mark-making Michael’s bold compositions often draw from art history, referencing surrealism, dada and abstraction.

Commenting on industrialisation and the environment through the depiction of apocalyptic scenes and sensitive renderings of the natural world, conceptual rigour drives Michael’s work.

In 2019-20 Leonard Joel Auction House welcomed Michael as part of a new Traineeship Program.

Michael joined the Leonard Joel team for two days a week developing arts industry auction experience. He worked across all departments, developing a range of skills to support the business, including client and colleague-facing skills, handling, presentation, auction and despatch skills across various departments.

A celebration of the time spent, It’s Very Nearly All Greek To Me… showcases Michael’s distinct style and talent.

2 x 2 presents solo exhibitions by Ross O’Meara and Jacob Cartelli, each artist exploring the parameters of colour and form through contrasting lenses.

Ross O’Meara’s translucent brushwork appears to float on the surface of the paper, the elegant, whimsical compositions possessing a soft energy that speaks to slow, meditative movement.

Jacob Cartelli’s works are characterised by formations of dense juxtaposed colour, the formal elements fusing together in dynamic fashion to create thick, rich, saturated surfaces. For these artists, colour is an essential expressive tool, capable of evoking a range of responses.

The Arts Project Australia gallery has accessible toilets in the Perry Street Building. They are located in the northern end of the building. On the upper ground level they are located off the northern side of the service corridor. On L1 and L2 they are located behind blue manual double doors.

Entry 30A Perry Street is wheelchair accessible and offers direct access to the Courtyard, Perry Street Building upper ground and Johnston Street Building upper ground. Lift access is available to visit other buildings and levels.

View the exhibition from home

Catherine Bell and Cathy Staughton, aka The Two Cathies, have worked together on projects since The Portrait Exchange (2009), their first collaborative venture for Arts Project Australia.

The creative partnership’s current project involves working exclusively with the infamous Boston Dynamics Robot ‘Spot’ during a six-month residency at RMIT Health Transformation Lab.

In the collaboration each artist performs as a muse for the other and their individual practices are strengthened. Broader contexts of intersectional feminism and social activism inform this method. Staughton paints portraits of Bell, and Bell produces video portraits to document their collaborative interaction. From this process, The Two Cathies produce separate artworks. For this collaboration, Staughton’s paintings and Bell’s videos are exhibited alongside each other and shown as one body of work.

The methodology challenges stereotypes about disability and works within a framework of feminist principles to demonstrate how lived experiences influence and align with identity politics in contemporary art. Bell’s silent films acknowledge that Staughton is hearing impaired and, for a brief time in history, the genre provided an inclusive experience for the deaf community to fully participate in the popular cultural form.

Dog Robot Space Star fuses art, film and technology. Bell’s Dadaist-inspired film explores the impact of COVID lockdowns on the creative psyche and the effect of prolonged, enforced, social isolation on marginalised and vulnerable communities. Staughton’s series of two-dimensional artworks investigate the artist’s passion for technology, and empathic relationship with ‘Spot’ the Boston Dynamics Robot. Situated together, the exhibition raises ethical questions about our duty of care to the technology that companions and serves us. Do we owe a debt of gratitude to the technological devices we bond with over extended periods of time? How should we respond when the technology we rely on malfunctions, becomes old and outdated, ceases and desists?

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Dog Robot Space Star has been made in partnership with RMIT’s Health Transformation Lab, the host venue for The Two Cathies artist residency.

Gertrude Glasshouse is fully wheelchair accessible, however Glasshouse Road is an uneven bluestone street. Glasshouse Road can be accessed by car from Wellington Street and passengers can be dropped off at the door.

Ambulant toilet and baby change facilities available.

Arts Project Australia is excited to announce that APA artists Alan Constable, Cathy Staughton, Eden Menta and Mark Smith will feature in the National Portrait Gallery’s PORTRAIT23: Identity exhibition opening Friday 10 March.

The National Portrait Gallery’s Portrait23: Identity is a major exhibition of new work from multi-award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives working across every state and territory.

Each APA artist worked in collaboration with an external artist to produce a portrait exploring the concept of identity. The portraits produced by these artists will feature in this exhibition alongside the APA artists’ own works.

Alan Constable will feature work alongside Andrew Curtis, Cathy Staughton will feature work alongside Clare Rae, Eden Menta will feature work alongside Janelle Low and Mark Smith will feature work alongside Ross Coulter.

PORTRAIT23: Identity is an exhibition of portraiture, but not as you know it.

In PORTRAIT23: Identity, award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives push the boundaries of traditional format.

This diverse collection features street art, textiles, performance, photography, ceramics, painting, drawing, soft sculpture, and bronze creations, all of which challenge the conventional limits of portraiture.

Many of these innovative works seamlessly blend into installations, videos, and animations, inviting you to step inside the portrait itself.

With the contributions of twenty-three remarkable artists and collectives, this exhibition explores the profound journey of self-representation, community, history, and modern society. These artists delve into deeply personal reflections on themes that resonate universally, including cultural knowledge, feminism, visibility and invisibility, activism, and the narratives of migration.

Portrait23 is an artistic celebration of the diversity and complexity of the self.

Visitors are asked to assume nothing, question everything and expect no answers.

Arts Project Australia is excited to announce that APA artists Lisa Reid and Mark Smith will feature in the second iteration of The National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now.

Opening Friday 24 March, Melbourne Now is a major exhibition which celebrates the latest art, architecture, design and cultural practices from local creatives shaping Melbourne.

Melbourne Now will be displayed throughout all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, including permanent collection galleries, showcasing new works and commissions by emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners as well as local creatives.

Find new and commissioned works by Lisa Reid and Mark Smith on Level 2 of the gallery.

For Melbourne Now, Arts Project Australia will also be presenting a day of artist talks, live demonstrations and screenings in Community Hall.

Showcasing the artwork and creative ideas of Melbourne Now artists Mark Smith and Lisa Reid along with leading APA artists Bronwyn Hack, Alan Constable and Christian Hansen.

Visitors are invited to drop by and be a part of this day of joyful creative expression, exploration and discussion.

Melbourne Now is taking place at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia until Sunday 20 August.

For those with limited mobility, it is recommended that you access The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia via the entrance on the Russell Street Extension or via the Fed Square atrium off Flinders Street, as the outdoor path through the main Fed Square area has a sloped and uneven surface.