Louise Snook – Lead Artist

Louise is currently enrolled in the Visual arts Honours programs at Curtin University, where she also works as a technician in the textiles department. Previously Louise has studied Fashion and Textiles at Central TAFE, specializing in the felt making process. Her felt sculptural pieces have been exhibited in Perth and Geelong, Victoria. Louise is self-employed, teaching a variety of textile and fashion techniques at school, expo, festivals, community groups and even children’s parties. Louise is the President of the West Australian Fibre Textile Association and sits on the Department of Arts and Culture Designer Fashion Panel.

Michael Wise

Michael Wise has a Masters Degree in Art and works for Curtin University of Technology in Margaret River. He works with contemporary art processes of sculpture/installation, multi-media, aerosol stencil painting, and relational art.
His experimentation with relational art, engages the viewer to become actively involved in the outcome of the art process. His studio practice is experimenting with the heat transference of colour images from aluminium cans to create paintings (paintings without paint). Also, an interactive artwork that was recently on exhibition at the Bunbury Regional Galleries, South West Survey 2010 explores the notion of unseen environments through the lens of a surveillance camera.

Tamara Searle

Tamara Searle is a performer, theatre maker and educator with diverse experience and training in theatre, dance, film and television. She originally trained at The Australian Ballet School, subsequently with The National Theatre Drama School, Chunky Move, V.C.A Centre for Ideas, and with numerous independent practitioners. In 2003, she facilitated and directed music theatre piece Wanderlust with young women with mental illness at the Melbourne Fringe Festival which returned for a season at the CUB Malthouse in 2004. She has also worked extensively as a principal performer in a variety of productions across theatre (Perdita, The Winters Tale, 11th Hour Theatre) TV (Laura, Russell Coight Celebrity Challenge, Working Dog) and film (Stiff and The Book of Revelation) and she has received funding to develop her own work.

Tania Ferrier

Born 1958 and raised in Perth, Tania Ferrier’s art practiced has focused on painting, having majored in this area at Curtin University. Concurrent to her art practice she has worked in the film industry, as a set decorator, both locally and in New York, where she lived from 1988 to 1992. While overseas her “Angry Underwear” fashion project, painting on woman’s long line bras, garnered international press and her first solo exhibition in Perth in 1989.
Besides a feminist theme in her work, she has also made strong statements through her exhibitions, “The Bicentennial Series”, “Penal/Pleasure Island” and “Rottnest, light and dark”, which look at local, colonial history through researching texts and interpreting them through painting and drawing. These and other works are now in major local and regional collections and in the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Tania has also received numerous grants, awards and residencies and in 2010 she was the set decorator for the movie version of “Cloudstreet”.

Helen Seiver

Helen Seiver is a studio artist living in the South West of Western Australia. She works with found objects exploring their unique quality of suggesting time, place and era. Since graduating in 2000, BA Visual Arts (Hons), she has created numerous works for solo and group exhibitions, won awards and is represented in many collections. Her mixed media arts practice includes sculpture, installation and painting. ‘Homeground’ is an awesome chance to investigate what we all think about the ideas surrounding ‘home’.

Olga Cironis

Olga Cironis is an award-winning artist with a practice that spans over 20 years, exhibiting extensively throughout Australia. In 2007 Olga won the prestigious Bank West art prize with her piece Essence followed by a residency at Heathcote Museum and Gallery which consisted of sight responsive installations exploring the tentative history of the building as a residential psychiatric hospital. Recently she exhibited at Turner Art gallery with “Today I am what you want me to be” and is currently working towards an exhibition at Fremantle Art Centre. Olga lectures at Central Institute of Technology Perth WA and is represented by Turner Art Gallery Perth. Olga’s current work investigates the discrepancy between what we see and what conceptually exists behind it, through her process of covering and concealing, heightening our sense of the world.

Luke Shelley

Luke is a Sydney based visual artist. He commenced a Bachelor of Fine Art at the National Art School in 2003 and graduated with a BFA honours, in printmaking, in 2007. Luke’s works are developed to express various environments, from marine ecosystems of surrounding Sydney to desert habitats of Central Australia. He held his first solo exhibition in 2008 in Alice Springs after completing a two-week residency program supported by Watch This Space gallery, Araluen Arts Precinct, and Arts NT. From there he has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions through Sydney and Melbourne. Luke’s works are held in many private and corporate collections including Australian Works on Paper, Gosford Regional Gallery, and the Brian Tucker collection.

Joyce Tasma

Joyce Tasma is a local Craftist who combines the craft of Basket Making with a keen sense of colour, texture, and re cycled materials to create works of art and sculpture that move on from the definition of baskets….her works reflect the landscapes from where they were sourced and the feelings and emotions associated with living and loving the West Australian environment. Joyce has been making baskets and sculptures for over 12years and has studied with another local textile artist identity, Nalda Searles. She has had solo exhibitions at Fremantle Arts Centre and Mandurah Art Gallery, as well as participating in several other art exhibitions around Perth and conducted many workshops and community projects over the past few years. Many of her workshops have had a healing and belonging theme as participants work on group projects as well as individual works.

Nadia Fragnito

Nadia is a Creative Director and Mentor for all things Drama and is currently based in Melbourne where she has recently launched her own business, Red Eight Creations, running workshops and various theatre projects. She is enthusiastic about theatre arts and is passionate about the benefits of acting techniques for non-actors. Nadia studied at Flinders University, The Victorian College of the Arts, National Theatre Drama School, Deakin University and The University of South Australia. During this time, she performed in and coordinated a range of unique theatre projects, including The 24 Hour Fix, Music Clip Theatre, The Short Theatre Project and Adelaide Fringe Festival shows. She has also taught within secondary education, including rewarding positions at Murray Bridge High School (SA) and Ocean Forest Lutheran College (WA). Nadia is now committed to exploring Drama beyond the ‘curriculum’ in delivering unique and exciting theatre experiences for both adults and young people.

Poppy Van Oorde-Grainger

Poppy graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002 and has been working as a community-based artist in Australia and overseas. She is skilled across a range of media including site-specific installation, photography and printmaking and is particularly adept at working with groups of young people to utilize materials and experiences from their lives to create contemporary artworks. Poppy has been an AWESOME artist since 2002 and this year will see her completing her seventh Creative Challenge. She has also presented community-based projects at the Perth International Arts Festival, London International Festival of Theatre and Artrage Festival. In addition to festivals, Poppy has worked as an artist-in-residence for DADAAWA, CANWA, Emergency Exit Arts UK, Phakama UK and numerous schools, youth centres and communities. Currently she is Community Art Co-ordinator for YMCA HQ and has just finished working on an animation for Nickelodeon.

Minaxi May

Known for her multidisciplinary art practice, for over ten years established artist Minaxi May has exhibited throughout Australia. Tagged:Celebrity.Change.Commodity toured extensively with Art on the Move funding, additionally being included in the WA School Curriculum. In 2009 Kaleidoscope was exhibited and Morphology was specifically commissioned for Illume at Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW. She has been awarded residencies at Old Customs House and Fremantle Arts Centre, Gunnery in Sydney, and PICA, Perth. Minaxi explores digital and collage processes, sculpture and installation. Investigating themes of popular media culture and their impact on notions of beauty, consumerism, design and the everyday, her art is typically identified with a spectacular use of colour, repetition and play. At present she is working towards a collaborative exhibition Plasticity at Heathcote Museum and Art Gallery. Minaxi has had extensive experience in lecturing and community art with diverse organisations including AWESOME Arts since 2005. Currently she is a tutor and PhD candidate at Murdoch University.

Aimee Smith

Aimee strives to be an artist, dancer, choreographer, lover, helper, fast runner, world changer, big smiler, sharp thinker, deep feeler, and a good cook. Since graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2004 (First Class Honours), dancing has been taking up most of her time.

Aimee has been creating, performing and collaborating on contemporary dance works and installation environments, in both Australia and overseas. Her work is always driven by, or used in ways to address issues of our time, resulting in her gaining a reputation as a political artist. Her choreographic works include Breakings (2010), Accidental Monsters of Meaning (2009), Courageously Heroic Gallantry (2007), Refund Policy (2007), and Alpha.Beta. (2006). Alongside her choreographic practice Aimee works as a performer, regularly choreographs and lectures at WAAPA, received the 2007 WA Dance Award for Emerging Artist, and also works as a community arts practitioner throughout regional communities in Western Australia.