Exhibition Documentation by Lucy Foster

Matt Siddall is a writer, emerging curator and arts worker based in Naarm (Melbourne). He curated ‘i burnt a pocket to fix myself’ at M16 Artspace in Canberra/Ngunnawal Country in March/April 2022. Matt has published essays for Caliper Journal, Moana Project Space, un Projects, the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne and more.

Matt completed an MA in Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne in 2020, also curating ‘silences between a tick of a clock’ at the University of Melbourne in 2020 with Karl Halliday.

Sam Nugent

My work concerns my autobiography, which I articulate in multimedia installations, sculpture and expanded painting practices. I often recontextualise and reposition my childhood trauma and queer identity through casting baby blankets into uncanny forms, creating gangly foal legs out of wax and tracing erotic cartoon foxes to simulate abject bodies. My work often involves quick fixes such as tacking, pressing, stapling, stretching and hand-stitching to metaphorically represent the transitional development of the body. In creating a dialogue between past and present, my work acts to reconcile parts of my identity in order to initiate reflection and positive change.

Alice Ramsden is a contemporary artist working in Melbourne/Naarm. Her practice seeks to explore ideas of transition and temporality, harnessing the potentialities of oil paint. Intuitive and emotionally driven, a back and forth process between paint application and erasure ensues. The final painted object acts as a palimpsest, a record of fleeting ideas, indecisiveness, mistakes and restoration.

Spencer Lai is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Melbourne. They graduated from VCA (BFA with Honours) in 2014. 

Working across multiple forms and formats, including sculpture, installation, curation, writing, drawing, Spencer's practice produces associative meaning from a range of accumulated materials that are worked into assemblages, installations and exhibitions. These materials often include text, found objects, design elements or images from consumer cultures, lifted from thrift stores, replicated, or traced or by chance encounters. The resulting outcomes of their practice are rarely singular or stand-alone objects - rather, their identities are intentionally constructed from multiple references, works, as well as contributions from other artists, sometimes resulting in the form of curatorial group exhibitions.

Spencer is included in upcoming exhibitions: a solo exhibition at Theta, NYC and a two-person show with Jürgen Baumann at Holden Garage, Berlin. 

Reuben Daamen is a multi-disciplinary artist and composer based out of Naarm (Melbourne). He has recently collaborated on the exhibition ‘Exhale’ at MPavilion, and composed the soundtrack for Melbourne Fringe’s film ’Seagulls… flying through times of plague’. His sound works comprise of ethereal soundscapes that often echo a sense of, what can be better described as in the language of German, ‘Sehnsucht’.

Chris Madden is an artist from Melbourne. Chris studied at the VCA. Since graduating in 2019, he has had two solo shows; one in 2020 (Industry Plants at TCB), and one in 2021 (Fact Republic at Savage Garden). Currently, Chris is completing a new series of works that he hopes to find a way to show people before the end of 2022. 

Matilda Davis’s works are personal constructions imbued with peculiar characters, lush darkness and latent narrative. Extending from the magical realism genre, complex psychological landscapes composed of particular lexicons come together with forms of molten fluidity.

Drawing her inspiration from a variety of sources, Davis inspired by female artists associated with surrealism – such as Leonora Carrington, Florine Stettheimer and Frida Kahlo – who share her penchant for creating personal worlds, while her colour palette at times nods to the vibrancy of Matisse and Gauguin. She has become increasingly interested in unpacking symbols, religion and spirituality and using imagery as a way of mapping out and understanding how they have shaped her world. Her works are performative, and she draws elements of this medium at different stages: a script, a draft, a rehearsal and the final act. With their fine details and personal symbology Davis’ paintings are rife for close viewing and contemplation.

Lou Hubbard makes assemblage sculptures, site specific installations, videos, drawings, and performances in various forms. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Australia and internationally since 2000. Hubbard has been awarded Australia council residencies in Paris at the Cité Internationale des Artes (2003) and in Barcelona (2010), and at Artists’ International Residency (AIR), Antwerp (2013). Hubbard lives and works in Melbourne and teaches in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the VCA. She is represented by Sarah Scout Presents (Melbourne).

Tamara Marrington is an artist based in Melbourne, working predominantly with painting. Her work is an exploration of memory and subjective experience, where the painting-process is viewed as an energetic space through which the personal may be expressed and understood.

Tamara completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drawing and Printmaking) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2018. During her time there she was awarded the Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship and was shortlisted for the Majlis Travelling Scholarship in her final year. In 2021 she undertook an artist residency at Fremantle Arts Centre (WA), concluding with a solo exhibition. Tamara has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.