Cristina Metelli

DEEP CONNECTIONS

March 23 - April 28, 2024

Gallery 1

Exhibition Launch Saturday April 13 at 3-5pm

IN CONVERSATION - WITH CRISTINA METELLI & SERA WATERS APRIL 4 AT 6.30-7.30PM

Deep Connections is a new body of work by Cristina Metelli, featuring paintings inspired by the natural landscape.

Cristina is exploring subjects relating to the perception of spirit of place and a sense of belonging, generated through an emotional and sensorial response to nature and the way in which people can be affected by it.

The exhibition features 3 large, fully-abstract paintings, expressing Cristina's subconscious connection to place, and multiple smaller, more representational works, which capture her fascination with plants, such as banksias, gumtrees and ferns, that she encounters while walking.

This work has been made in response to Cristina's walks in the Adelaide Hills, reminding her of happy childhood memories in the hills of northern Italy, and triggering feelings relating to family, belonging and emotional security. It is also about the healing powers of nature - the energy of trees, green fields, fresh air, and sunlight, which can clear our minds and lift our hearts.

BIO

Cristina Metelli is a contemporary artist based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Born in Milan, Italy, Cristina studied at art school as a teenager, before immigrating to Adelaide, where she continued her artistic education, earning a Bachelor Degree in Visual Art (First Class Honours) from Adelaide Central School of Art.

Her art practice, which was originally based on painting and sculpture, has in recent years shifted its focus to abstract paintings inspired by the natural landscape, finding inspiration in the beauty and diversity of nature. Her art delves into the profound connection between human lives and the natural landscape, exploring themes of belonging, spirit of place, and Nature's vulnerability. By merging her passion for natural sciences and psychology, she investigates how people can be positively affected by their interactions with nature.

Walking and spending time in nature, feeling connected to the land and everything in it, gives Cristina her source of inspiration, which she channels into expressive paintings back in her studio. Through an intuitive process and gestural paint applications, she depicts the feelings experienced in the natural landscape, using the material qualities of paint.

Since 2003 she has been regularly exhibiting in art galleries in South Australia and interstate. Amongst other achievements, Cristina's light-projection work 'Within The Landscape' was featured in the 2022 Illuminate Adelaide Festival; she was winner of the AGES Art Prize 2021/22, QLD; she has also been a three-time finalist in the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, South Australian Museum, and three-times finalist in the Heysen Art Prize, Hahndorf Academy, SA.

Claire Ishino

Now and Then: An exhibition of past paintings and present ponderings

March 23 - April 28, 2024

Gallery 2

Exhibition Launch Saturday April 13 at 3-5pm

This exhibition is a selection of works from 2019 – 2024 of Australian native flora. Over a 5-year period Claire captures the trees and plants on daily walks. She takes snapshots of native flora and takes them to the studio and plans methodically with thumbnails and colour roughs using colour pencil to sketch, giving the sense of freedom in the layering and texture and then develops them into compositions to paint. Using mostly gouache as a medium, the matte colour offers the ability to keep the palettes alive from one painting to the next – adding paint and changing hues but never completely starting over; in this way the paintings are all related to one another.

Other mediums in these works include pencil, acrylic, pen, paper collage and Clay Bord. Claire loves the simplicity of working in black and white, the monotone allows her to concentrate on the forms and linework however, colour is her greatest joy and she is always searching to find new and surprising colour combinations.

Claire says “I use Australian native flora in my work to highlight the beauty of our natural environment and this creates a sense of connection to the land and to each other. The repetitive forms of the native leaves and flowers bring calm to our minds, which seeks patterns to help us make sense of the chaos in our busy lives.

The trees that surround me on my walks are much older than I am, and no doubt be here long after I am gone. While I am here, I will keep looking at the colour and light in this world and continue to paint joyful artworks to add to the colour and happiness in your home”.

 CLAIRE ISHINO

 BIO

Claire Ishino studied Jewellery Design and a further year of Graphics at the University of South Australia. After graduating, she worked as a designer and sales consultant in the jewellery industry in Adelaide before travelling to Japan to live. An intended ‘one year in Japan teaching English’, soon extended to eight years and, during that time, she created a range of colourful washi paper and silver jewellery that was exhibited and sold across Japan from Osaka to Tokyo. After becoming a mum, her focus shifted away from jewellery towards 2-dimensional art works and she has continued on this pathway ever since as she loves the ability to introduce so many colours into her designs.

Claire works from her home-studio in Adelaide producing original gouache or acrylic paintings and black and white ink drawings as well as Limited Edition archival reproductions of the original artworks. Her pieces are inspired by Australian natives and other botanic forms, thoughts, emotions and her love of colour, repetition and pattern; she often uses flowers and leaves as visual metaphors to express thoughts and words or to convey messages. Her style is mostly clean and graphic with crisp edges between colours and small details reflective of her background in jewellery. She draws and paints almost every day and strives to create joyful pieces of work that lift your spirits and fill your home and heart with happiness. 

Claire exhibits and sells her work through local shops and galleries and enjoys popping up at design events such as Bowerbird. Her work is licensed to Earth Greetings for application on stationery and greeting cards and her illustrations appear on the 23rd Street Distillery Signature Gin and Jim Barry's Annabelle's Rose labels. Claire's work has also been featured on packaging and products for Dusk Australia, Jacob’s Creek and Jurlique International. She enjoys collaborating with local creatives, Kitty Came Home, to see her work come to life on functional and decorative products.

We’re back for the new term! Learn new pottery skills with Guy Ringwood.  This 8 week course with 2 hour classes is suitable for everyone, whether you’re just starting or want to extend your skills.

Beginners can learn the fundamentals of throwing on the pottery wheel, whilst those with experience will have the opportunity to practice and refine their skills with encouragement and guidance. 

Lotte will share her approach to throwing forms for tableware or sculpture, with the focus on altering thrown forms and adding hand built features to your pots. 

Small class size with maximum of 7 participants

All materials and firing for the course are included

Wear clothes that can get a bit dirty!

Join as a member and get 10% discount on workshops

Image courtesy of the artist

Contemporary ceramics with Guy Ringwood

Wednesday evenings 5.30pm - 7.30pm

Feb 21 - April 10, 2024

2 hour classes over 8 weeks

We’re back for the new term! Learn new pottery skills with Guy Ringwood.  This 8 week course with 2 hour classes is suitable for everyone, whether you’re just starting or want to extend your skills.

Beginners can learn the fundamentals of throwing on the pottery wheel, whilst those with experience will have the opportunity to practice and refine their skills with encouragement and guidance. 

Guy will share his approach to throwing forms for tableware or sculpture, with the focus on altering thrown forms and adding hand built features to your pots. 

Small class size with maximum of 7 participants

All materials and firing for the course are included

Wear clothes that can get a bit dirty!

Join as a member and get 10% discount on workshops

Image courtesy of the artist

Wen Dixon-Whiley - Inner Worlds + Hidden Things

ADELAIDE FRINGE 2024

February 3, 2024 - March 17, 2024

GALLERY 1 & 2

Exhibition launch February 3 at 4-6pm

Guest Opening Speaker Sarah Feijen - CEO Guildhouse

Artist Talk and see Wen paint in the gallery

Wednesday February 21 at 6-8pm

Open Studio:

Visit Wen in her upstairs studio at Hahndorf Academy

Saturday February 10 at 12-3pm

Friday February 16 at 12-3pm

FREE EVENTS NO BOOKINGS REQUIRED

Scarcely anything more strikes the mind with wonder than suddenly to remove the eye from the instrument, and taking the cell from the stage, look at it with the naked eye. Is this what we have been looking at? This quarter inch of specks, is this the field full of busy life? Are here the scores of active creatures feeding, watching, preying, escaping, swimming, creeping, dancing, revolving, breeding? Are they here? Where? Here is nothing, absolutely nothing, but two or three of the minutest dots which the straining sight but just catches now and then in one particular light’

Phillip H Gosse, 1817

Through ‘Inner Worlds & Hidden Things’, my aim is to promote in the viewer a sense of wonder and curiosity about our relationship with (and impact on) the natural world through creating a fantastical, imagined world of the microscopic.

The microscope is a ‘sixth sense faculty that immediately enriches the user’s understanding of the surrounding world’[1]. Even the least advanced, inexpensive microscope can act as a ‘portal in to the unknown and mysterious world of miniature life’[2]. The act of observing organisms under a microscope creates a sense of wonder at a world which exists right under our noses, a world which seems very remote and removed from us but is so very impacted by our actions and decisions. It has the potential to change the way one looks at the world around them, as you wonder at the scale of life in something as benign and overlooked as a drop of pond water. 

This exploration of the natural world acted as my point of focus in making these works. Traditional approaches and objective representation could not convey the strange, other-worldliness of what I observed. I found myself putting just about anything I could find on to a slide and under the lens, a spider’s leg, a mote of dust, a drop of water from my coffee machine’s drip tray…. When I could see something moving - some single or multi-celled creature swimming around tantalisingly just out of focus I let my imagination fill in the gaps.

Used banner canvas, destined for landfill, has been cleaned, re-primed and ‘up-cycled’ in the place of new, unused canvas to create these imagined mini-worlds. The off cuts created when making the work is not wasted and are instead turned in to accessories; bags, wallets, jewellery - nothing is thrown away.

Repurposed, recycled and hand-made, in its (admittedly miniscule) way this exhibition exerts smaller footprint on a ‘use once and throw away’ world where mass produced, cheaply made, high profit-margin, high shareholder return rules. In painting, stitching together, and reassembling pre-used materials I wanted to suggest a time in the not so distant past where we ‘made do’ with what we had rather than endlessly consuming.

References / Further reading

Baedke. J & Schotter. T, Visual Metaphors in the Sciences: The Case of Epigenetic Landscape Images, Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Vov 48, No. 2, June 2017, pp 173 – 194

Daston. L, Fear and Loathing of the Imagination in Science, Daedalus, Winter, 1998, Vol. 127, No. 1 Science in Culture, pp 73-95

Gosse, P. H. The Romance of Natural History, 6th edition, London; Nisbet, 1863

Forsberg. L, Nature’s Invisibilia: The Victorian Microscope and the Miniature Fairy, Victorian Studies, Voc. 57, No. 4, 2015, pp 638-666

Tyndall. J, Scientific use of the imagination, Scientific American, Vol 23. No 20, 1870 pp 304-305

[1] Forsberg. L, Nature’s Invisibilia: The Victorian Microscope and the Miniature Fairy, Victorian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 4, 2015, pp 638

[2] Ibid. P 639

OAKEY: Deep Rest

February 3, 2024 - March 17, 2024

ADELAIDE FRINGE 2024

Gallery 3 & 4

Exhibition launch February 3 at 4-6pm

Guest Opening Speaker Sarah Feijen - CEO Guildhouse

In Conversation: Oakey & Catherine Truman: Sunday Feb 18 at 11:30am - 12:30pm

Performance: Sunday March 3 at 10 - 2pm

a 4 hour walking meditation within the gallery space.

This exhibition is a response to an epic adventure Oakey made in October 2023. In search of deep rest, the Kaurna-based artist climbed on her motorbike and rode 1,500km to Yaegl Country, Northern NSW to take part in a solo bush wilderness retreat.

This was a four-day/four-night experience that involved sleeping on the forest floor inside a circle four metres wide: alone, no food, only water for sustenance and a mosquito net and tarp for protection. 

The experience was deeply transformative and regenerative. Many of the featured works in this exhibition were realised during these days of introspection and release.

BIO

Oakey is an emerging contemporary artist based in Tarntanya/Adelaide whose practice traverses sculpture, site-specific installations and sound. Working out of Central Studios, she uses a range of materials, creating nuanced responses to both urban and natural environments.

Oakey uses her experiences of being fully immersed in diverse natural environments from the Amazon Rainforest to Timbuktu as inspiration for her work . She has a deep fascination in the interconnectedness of the living world and our relationship to it. Her creative process delves into the realms of unseen forces, networks, and spaces, operating on both a cellular and cosmic level. Her work particularly focuses on the exploration of consciousness, hidden energies, and the healing power of plants and nature.

Since completing her Bachelor of Creative Arts degree with first class honours in 2019 Oakey has been awarded studio residencies at ACE and George St Studios. She has received a Guildhouse Catapult mentorship with Catherine Truman and a glass blowing mentorship at the JamFactory.

Oakey's ephemeral artwork Reverence was awarded first prize at the 2022 Heysen Sculpture Biennial. Beyond her arts practice, Oakey also serves as the lead installer at ACE and works on the installation team at the Jam Factory and other galleries.

In Conversation: Oakey & Catherine Truman: Sunday Feb 18 at 11:30am - 12:30pm

Oakey will be joined by artist and mentor, Catherine Truman to discuss the adventure that inspired this exhibition and explore the process behind the artworks. There will be time for questions following the conversation.

Performance: Sunday March 3 at 10am -2pm

a 4 hour walking meditation within the gallery space.

Oakey will be tuning in to her solo experience in the bush - recreating the silent walking meditation she did within the circle she lived in for the four days and nights.

The audience are free to come and go as they please for the duration of the performance.

THE DOG EXHIBITION

December 17, 2023 - January 28, 2024

Hahndorf Academy’s inaugural dog exhibition is perfect for dog lovers and art lovers and includes South Australian artists who’s art works range from paintings, ceramics, dog jewellery and animation. We expect up to 20,000 visitors to view the artworks in the galleries.

Closing Finissage: January 28th, 3 - 5pm with guest speaker Sally Hardy - Arts Officer for MBDC. We’ll also have activities including a Doggy Fashion Parade and Walk the Dog competition. everyone is welcome, bring your dog dressed up!

Dog Drawing workshop with Ellie Noir DOG DRAWING WORKSHOP WITH ELEANOR NOIR — Hahndorf Academy

Dog Collar workshop with Olivia Kathigitis. MAKE YOUR OWN DOG COLLAR WORKSHOP WITH OLIVIA KATHIGITIS — Hahndorf Academy

As part of The Dog Exhibition we ran a dog photo competition to find the “Hahndorf Hound” and we are pleased to announce that Tashi won this prize. Tashi’s portrait will be painted by Nicola Semmens and will be shown in the exhibition. Thank you to all the dogs who entered this competition, we received wonderful photographs which we will display during this exhibition period.

In GALLERY 1 – ADELAIDE arts

Group exhibition of Adelaide artists in gallery 1 include Wendy Dixon–Whiley, Zoe Freney, Harriet Geater-Johnson, Olivia Kathigitis, Ellie Noire, Rosina Possingham, Thomas Readett, Nicola Semmens, Deb Twining, John Bannerman, Claire Wildish and the Cucumber Project.

In GALLERY 2 – TWINING arts                                 

Young artists from the kid’s art classes with Twining Arts will be exhibiting their artworks in gallery 2. These amazing young creatives are guided and taught by artist/arts educator Deb Twining, so we expect some dog crazy imagination and fun with their collaborative works.

In GALLERY 3 – Arts Community

We sent a call out to the community for South Australian artists to enter and exhibit their dog artwork and we received a great response, we will provide a list of all the artists soon.

Make a Collection of Ceramic works with Marie Littlewood.

This 6 week course will focus on making a collection of works that relate to each other using both wheel thrown and hand building techniques.  e.g., a cup, bowl and plate set, a small production run of mugs or a set of platters.  Previous experience is required. 

Tuesday October 31 – Tuesday November 28

10am – 1pm
$360pp

Small class size with maximum of 6 participants

All materials and firing for the course are included

Wear clothes that can get a bit dirty!

Join as a member and get 10% discount on workshops

We’re back for the new term! Learn new pottery skills with Lotte Schwerdtfeger.  This 8 week course with 2 hour classes is suitable for everyone, whether you’re just starting or want to extend your skills.

Beginners can learn the fundamentals of throwing on the pottery wheel, whilst those with experience will have the opportunity to practise and refine their skills with encouragement and guidance. 

Lotte will share her approach to throwing forms for tableware or sculpture, with the focus on altering thrown forms and adding hand built features to your pots. 

Small class size with maximum of 7 participants

All materials and firing for the course are included

Wear clothes that can get a bit dirty!

Join as a member and get 10% discount on workshops

Image courtesy of the artist

Learn contemporary ceramics practice with Sam Gold. Develop your wheel throwing and hand building expertise in this 8 week course with 2 hour classes suitable for all skills levels. Embrace making in a supportive and experimental atmosphere using traditional and contemporary techniques.

Small class size with maximum of 7 participants

All materials and firing for the course are included

Wear clothes that can get a bit dirty!

Join as a member and get 10% discount on workshops

In Stillness and Movement

Christina Gollan, Sophie Horvat, Tom Keukenmeester, Lauren Murphy, Xanthe Murphy, Holly Phillipson, Bridget Saville, Lotte Schwerdtfeger, Tom Summers.

Curated by Debbie Pryor for Australian Ceramics and JamFactory

October 14 – December 10

EXHIBITION LAUNCH - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21ST AT 5PM

ARTIST TALK - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 AT 2pm

An exploration into the duality of connectivity. The art of making is to communicate, to connect the inner and outer worlds. 

In stillness and movement investigates the action of creating artwork as a way of connecting with others and with oneself. Connectivity may lie in the design of an object, from the form and function of a cup in the hand, to the exploration of materiality, or the human relationship with the natural world.

 Duality also lies in the materials we use, the transformation.

Cedric Varcoe: Nganawi Ngarrindjeri ruwi

Feeling like a bird

Flying over Country

October 14 – December 10

Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander art 2023

Exhibition Launch Saturday October 21st at 5pm

Cedric Varcoe is a Narangga-Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri artist.

Nganawi Ngarrindjeri ruwi translates to feeling like a bird, flying over country.

“Through art I want people to look through our eyes when they visit these places, I want them to feel connected to their miwi. The miwi is like our spirit that makes us and shapes us as we are as a person and connects us to our totems and life that belongs to country.

I’ve made it my purpose to share stories and keep them alive, my responsibility as a custodian is to share that knowledge with younger people about belonging and caring for country, and some significant sites of our lands and waters.” Cedric Varcoe 2023

BIO

Cedric Varcoe was born in Adelaide in 1984 and is Narangga/Ramindjeri of the Ngarrindjeri language group. He has lived in Adelaide, Meningie, Raukkan and Point Pierce, his Fathers community, and as an adult in Port Pirie and Port Elliot.

As a child Cedric’s mum would take him to the beach to collect river rocks and shells and paint on them and he would listen to Ngarrindjeri stories from his aunties, uncles, and mum’s cousins. He started painting at 8 years old, mostly snakes and country and as an adult he was known for painting little men and corroborees.

He lived in Port Pirie when he became a dad and studied literacy and art at TAFE and he set up an art group. In 2015 he received an ArtSA grant to research his practice and colour theory and during this time, he visited the Adelaide Museum where he looked at a photograph of a corroboree and turned it over to see his family names Peter Campbell his Great Great Grandfather and Leonard Campbell his Great Grandfather and this is when he realised that for years he had been painting these men and the corroboree without ever seeing this photograph or knowing about it.

Furthering his career Cedric teamed up with Betterworld Arts who support his arts practice by selling his work nationally and internationally. He exhibits his work regularly and is also an experienced mural artist and Cultural Leader on his Country.

No booking necessary

Come along and play with our dress-up costumes and props this school holidays (6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 15th of October from 10:30 - 1:30pm) in a fun and friendly environment, led by artist Zinia King!

What will you come up with?