Andrew Nicholls is an Australian/British artist, writer, and curator based in Boorloo/Perth, whose practice engages with the sentimental, camp, and other historically-marginalised aesthetics, and traces the historical recurrence of particular aesthetic motifs. He is especially concerned with periods of cultural transition during which Western civilisation’s stoic aspirations were undone by base desires, fears or compulsions, and with 18th century and Regency Britain’s fascination with, and paranoia of, other cultures. While primarily drawing-based, his practice also incorporates ceramics, photography, and expansive site-based curatorial projects. He particularly draws inspiration from heritage sites and museum collections, and has coordinated group and solo residencies at iconic locations including the Spode China Factory, the Freud Museum, London, and the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Nicholls has exhibited and undertaken residencies across Australia, Southeast Asia, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, including a solo exhibition at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2018. He has recieved two Creative Development Fellowships from the Western Australian Government, and commissioned by several organisations in Australia and the United States, including his $250,000 ceiling mural for the City of Perth Library. Nicholls’ work is represented in collections including Artbank, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, City of Perth, Janet Holmes à Court, and the Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings.
Angelina was born in Kalumburu and has lived in Kalumburu all her life. Her mum is famous artist Lily Karadada and her father is Jack Karadada, who was a medicine man and would make artifacts like didgeredoo and spears for hunting.
“My mum used to paint on bark, bush baskets and Numarrga (bush cradle). I learnt two languages from my parents, plus other languages in my life.”
In Karadada’s recent series “Wandjina Emerging”, the artist explores traditional painting mediums of white ochre, both saltwater and freshwater, which she collects herself and natural resin which she collects from the white gum tree. Laborious and strenuous activities, the artist considers the process important in connecting to her ancestors while creating extraordinary Wandjina paintings of luminous pale pink and chalky white with earthy texture.
Not only an excellent painter, Angelina is employed as a Senior Arts Worker at Kira Kiro Artists. She graduated from the ANKA Arts Worker Foundation Training Program and the National Gallery of Australia Wesfarmers Indigenous Leadership Fellowship in 2019. “I want to challenge myself to achieve my best. I think it is important for my whole community to have someone committed to the arts. I love doing art and running the art centre.”
Amy Perejuan-Capone works between Fremantle, the Perth hills, the Western Australian wheatbelt, and international residencies. With a background in art, design, and aviation, Perejuan-Capone continually returns to objects and the networks of agency held within them and, increasingly, the roles the environment, anxiety, personal history, and optimism play in this system.
Amy graduated with a BA(Fine Art) from Curtin University in 2009 and an Advanced Diploma of Industrial Design from North Metropolitan TAFE in 2014. Her major residencies include the prestigious Shigaraki Ceramic Culture Park, 2019, the Asialink Fremantle – Taipei Artist Village exchange in 2020, and the Upernavik Museum residency, Greenland, in 2017.
Amy’s practice increasingly produces large-scale mix media installations. Her most ambitious include One Word For Snow, a series of ephemeral ‘blizzards’ in Perth CBD in 2017, and Don’t Stare at the Sun/For Too Long wherein she built a full size replica of her dads ultralight plane, exhibited at PS Art Space in 2019. Her latest solo exhibition SKY CAVE took over the atrium of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2021 with a flock of heritage hang gliders, homemade aircraft, fine textiles, and lined the entire gallery in gold mylar foil.
lona McGuire is a Noongar and Kungarakan interdisciplinary artist working primarily in printmaking, drawing and installation.
Through use of cultural and western techniques, Ilona creates sacred sanctuaries within western institutional spaces. Her interests and explorations of race relations within the country we call “Australia” often manifests through material juxtaposition that examine the nature of everyday tension through to systemic turmoil.
After her 2021 drone light show, MOOMBAKI with the Fremantle Biennale, Ilona was awarded the Schenberg Art Fellowship for Hatched: National Graduate Show 2022 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). Followed by her residency at PICA, she exhibited at Stala Contemporary, the Fremantle Arts Centre and Goolugatup Heathcote with her work now featuring in collections such as Janet Holmes à Court and John Curtin Gallery.
The prestigious John Stringer Prize, created in 2015 in honour of the late John Stringer (1937–2007), commissions six contemporary Western Australian artists to create new work from which a winning artist, selected by the Collectors Club will receive $12,500.
Entry to the John Stringer Prize is by invitation only and in 2023 finalists are Angelina Boona Karadada, Ilona McGuire, Andrew Nicholls, Amy Perejuan-Capone, Stuart Scambler and Corban Clause Williams.
Please contact us if you would to attend this event where you will have the opportunity to meet the artists and curators..
Katie West is an artist and Yindjibarndi woman based in Noongar Ballardong country, working in installation, textiles and social practice. The process and notion of naturally dyeing fabric underpin her practice –the rhythm of walking, gathering, bundling, boiling up water and infusing materials with plant matter. Using found and naturally dyed textiles, video, and sound, Katie creates installations, textile pieces, and happenings that invite attention to the ways we weave our stories, places, histories, and futures.
Katie studied visual art at Edith Cowan University (2009) and Sociology at Murdoch University (2013). In 2017 Katie completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, graduating as the recipient of the Dominik Mersch Gallery Award and the Falls Creek Resort Indigenous Award. Katie has presented solo exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), Tarra Warra Museum of Art, Healesville and West Space, Melbourne for Next Wave Festival 2016, and participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne and Shimmer, Rotterdam.
Booth is a disabled artist living in Fremantle, WA. His recent work uses participation and large sculptural forms to create experiential works that challenge the able bodied to navigate a world that is uncomfortable by design. His constructed experiences poke fun at the assumptions many people have surrounding disability and yet they also leave lasting impressions that engender a deeper response from the audience.
He was a resident at Fremantle Arts Centre (2019), Testing Grounds, Melbourne (VIC) (2019), PICA (2017) and North Metropolitan TAFE (2017).
He’s exhibited at the Joondalup Prize (WA) 2019, Firstdraft (NSW) 2019, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (NSW) 2020 and PICA (WA) 2020, The Joondalup Invitation art Prize (WA) 2021, Art Gallery of Western Australia (WA) 2021 and the Fremantle Biennale (WA) 2021.
He was selected for NextWave 2020 (NextWave X artist), PICA Salon 2020, FinePrint Journal (SA) 2020 and Proximity Festival (NAT) 2020 Booth is working on shows for PICA (WA) 2022, Goolugatup/Heathcoate (WA) 2022, Seventh Galleries (VIC) 2022, and The University of Tasmania (TAS) 2023
Holly Yoshida (b.1992) is a painter based in Boorloo/ Perth.
Her practice is informed by historical painting and the conventions of Still Life, choosing to work in dry brushed oil on panel, employing a grisaille technique and subdued palette as she documents and quietly elevates present day mundanity.
The empty room is a recurring motif in Yoshida’s work, the absences and neutrality invite a speculative and voyeuristic gaze, in which we might construct or impose narrative. Through an engagement with the process of painting, she aims to depict the private and invisible by de-familiarising the everyday.
Amanda Bell is an emerging Badimia and Yued artist living and working on Noongar Boodja in Busselton. She began making about 5 years ago as a result of being a stay-at-home carer for her elderly mother. This time in her life was quite isolating and art was an avenue for her to experience and explore the world around her as well as her culture and finding a voice through creativity. Her artistic practice has since developed and she has had some success with the intention of honouring her people, and communicating how she feels about many contemporary issues affecting Aboriginal people today. She has explored many different processes of artistic practice but has been especially drawn towards sculpture, installation art and more recently portrait painting.
Guy Louden is an Australian artist and curator living in Walyalup Fremantle and born in Toronto. He has founded and managed experimental galleries and curated major (and minor) exhibitions. His artwork has been exhibited in Australian cities, regions, and online.
Louden was educated at University of Sydney, University of Manchester, and University of Western Australia. He has postgraduate qualifications in History of Art and in Art Curating.
Louden joined Perth artist-run gallery Moana in 2014, in 2016 co-founded experimental gallery Success, and in 2020 co-founded Private Island gallery. During this time he curated independent exhibitions, including for the Perth Festival.
He began by making art in 2017 and has since exhibited widely including at Firstdraft, Bus Projects, Sawtooth, and Fremantle Arts Centre. In 2020 he was exhibited at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane as part of the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize.
Louden has worked as an art install technician, notably at Carriageworks, Sydney and at Fremantle Arts Centre. He has also worked in remote Aboriginal-owned art centres. He is now assistant curator at Goolugatup Heathcote.
