Elsie Gabori
Matthew Stanton
Matthew Stanton (b. 1975) is an Australian Artist, Educator and Photographer living and working between Melbourne and Cairns. His work primarily utilises the mediums of still photography, 16mm film and video; investigating the interrelationships between ecological, spatial and biogeographical histories within landscapes whilst tracing their lingering psychological associations.
His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. His most recent solo suite of works from the series ‘Deep North’ was exhibited at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne (2019). Other solo exhibitions include ‘Conversation Piece’ at MARS Gallery, Melbourne in 2016 and ‘Deep North’ at Wallflower Photomedia Gallery in Mildura in 2015. His work was included in ‘37° Sur a 19° Norte’ at the City Museum in Cuernavaca, Mexico and he was a participating artist in the inaugural Bristol Biennial (UK) in 2012.
He was a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize (2007) and selected by curatorial Judges Petrina Hicks and Monica Allende as a finalist in the Perth Centre for Photography’s ‘Iris’ and ‘Clip’ awards in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
His works are held in the collections of the Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca (Mexico) and the Geelong Gallery.
From 2004-2018 he worked extensively as an educator in Fine Art photography at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), Monash and Deakin Universities.
Matthew Stantons solo exhibition Deep North will be showing at NorthSite Contemporary Arts in February 2022.
Lenore Howard
Born in Cairns in 1955. Howard commenced an artistic career with studies at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane in 1976. She worked as a photographic correspondent and editorial artist at The Cairns Post in the 1980s and worked as an art lecturer at Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE in the 1990s. Howard has curated, coordinated, and exhibited in 40 plus key exhibitions.
Lenore Howard is a founding member of the Kick Arts Collective Inc. 1993 and was part of the inaugural Kick Arts exhibition The Fish John West Regrets curated by Chris Downie. She then coordinated the seminal feminist show produced by Kick Arts Collective at the nascent Cairns Regional Gallery in 1995. Titled No Piece of Cake, and curated by former Lynne Seear, the exhibition included the work of Howard and fifteen female contemporaries. That same year Howard exhibited at Queensland Art Gallery in the show, Regions and Rituals, with her work resultingly entering the State gallery’s permanent collection. Since then Howard has exhibited work in London, New York, Paris, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Canberra, Brisbane and Cairns.
Intimate narratives and personal journeys thread through Howard’s work, a practice that can be seen to have transgressed from surrealist symbologies to abstract tendencies over the course of 40 years. Social and political references are embodied within the thought behind forms though not always overt in Howard’s final works.
Robert Tommy Pau
Tommy is a descendant of the Eastern Torres Strait Islands, Australian Aboriginal, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islander and Asia. He speaks Torres Strait Creole and Australian English. He was taught about the need to keep culture strong through cultural practice by his father. He has a strong commitment to keeping old traditions alive and believes that culture must remain true to the past and move with time to exist in the future. Tommy has considerable experience in the arts and his art forms of choice include printmaking, painting and sculpture.
He has completed a Bachelor of Education and currently completing a BA in New Media at James Cook University, Cairns. He was a semi-finalist in the Telstra Art Award in 2017 and was the winner of the Works on Paper section of the 2016 Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. His works are in major public and private collections in Australia. He is passionate in representing Indigenous arts and artists in general and the protection and true representation of Torres Strait Islander arts and culture.
Francoise Lane
Francoise Lane is a artist and textile designer that helps lovers of standout textiles and pattern by creating unique textiles inspired by stories of connection to country. Her goal is that her textiles will bring joy to your home and put a delightful spring in your step when you wear them.
Francoise Lane is a Torres Strait Islander woman whose maternal family are from Kerriri. She identifies as both Meriam and Kaurareg. She is married to Andrew Lane and together they are Indij Design; a 100% indigenous owned, award winning architectural and design practice based in Cairns and operating since 2011. In 2013 Francoise developed artworks inspired by her connection to the Torres Strait Islands and exploration of visually storytelling.
Her artworks have been adapted into repeat patterns and specified for upholstery and applied art to architectural designed structural screens. She has also designed fashion accessories integrating design elements of the textile art.
“I’m instinctively drawn to subjects whereby patterns can create their own ‘energy’ on a canvas. As an example ‘Sardines under the Wharf’ on a large canvas creates a visual play of movement, like the stylised fish are swimming.” Originally developed as artworks they have been converted into design repeats suitable for textile applications and applied art to the built environment.
Kate Robertson
Through experimental analogue and digital photographic techniques, Kate explores unseen yet felt phenomena relating to healing and connectedness within community contexts.
Recent exhibitions include From All Points of the Southern Sky: Photography From Australia and Oceania, Southeast Museum of Photography (2020); Bakehouse Billboard Takeover for Centre for Contemporary Photography (2019), Recording the Medicinal Plants of Siwai, Bougainville, Jarvis Dooney Galerie (2018) for European Month of Photography; New Matter, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2016); The Alchemists, Australian Centre for Photography (2015); Garnkiny to Ganyu: Artists who capture the night, GYRACC, Katherine (2015). She has exhibited in Australia, Papua New Guinea, America, United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, China and New Zealand.
In 2018, Kate’s work was published in a book titled Kuna Siwai Pokong, which has been accessioned into the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery (PNG), Australian Museum (AUS) and Field Museum (USA). Her work is held in numerous collections, including The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AUS), Southeast Museum of Photography (USA) and Center for Creative Photography (USA).
Zane Saunders
A descendent of the Gunggari, Jarrowia and Butchulla people of Southern Queensland, Zane Saunders lives in Kuranda. His spirituality – Aboriginal people and the culture – are the basis of his work. He grew up in Kuranda, home of the Djabuganydji people (Bama) of the rainforest area, connecting too with other indigenous family groups within the Cape York Peninsula Region. Zane is an interdisciplinary artist who has participated in solo and group shows. His visual arts output in painting and printmaking is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Northern Territory University Collection, Holmes a Court Collection, Flinders University Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, University of Queensland, Anthropology Museum, among other permanent collections. Zane’s body of performance work has been presented in Australia and abroad, and courageously embraces installation, sculpture, and media to create challenging contemporary performance.
Yandell Walton
Yandell Walton’s practice addresses human relationships with the physical systems of the planet by interrogating shifting environments caused by climate change. By using digital technology in the production and presentation of works, she aims to highlight the current technological climate and raise questions around its e ect on our rapidly changing world. Through creating immersive works that connect to the viewer, her installations aim to engage and inspire action from individuals towards a collective consciousness within an ever- changing and increasingly damaged planet.
Yandell is an accomplished contemporary artist exhibiting regularly in non- traditional and public spaces both in Australia and Internationally. Recent public art commissions include; ‘Digital Agora’ Nillimbik Shire Council (2018- 2019), ‘Departed’ in regional New South Wales (2016), ’Absent Presence’ in Townsville (2014) ‘Transition’ in Melbourne (2014). Her work has been part of ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE Festival 2017 (Melbourne), Light City Baltimore (2016), Digital Gra ti Florida (2015), Experimenta Speak to Me (Melbourne & Brisbane 2012-14), PUBLIC Festival Perth (2014), Melbourne Festival (2012), VIVID Festival Sydney (2013), ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art 2013) and White Night Festival Melbourne (2013/15).
Awards include judges choice The Gertrude Street Projection Festival (2017), the National Gallery of Victoria Women’s Association Award (2014), Best of Show Award Digital Gra ti (2015), The Windsor Prize (2014), Highly commended Sunshine Coast New Media Art Award (2015), Special Recognition Digital Gra ti (2016), Best Video Work, Centre for Contemporary Photography Salon (2014) and the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award. In 2018 she was awarded the Phasmid Studio Residency in Berlin through Victorian College of the Arts.
Donna Davis
Donna Davis is a multi-discipline artist intrigued with the idea of connection; her work explores intersections between art and science with a particular focus on natural and social ecosystems. Often collaborating with ecologists, botanists and mycologists, Donna explores new ways to creatively interpret ecological data; working across sculpture, assemblage, installation and digital media to create works that consider imagined futures and provide sites of environmental observation. By providing new ways of ‘seeing’, Donna aims to challenge ecological discourse and empower stewardship of our fragile ecosystems.
Donna has undertaken a number of residencies with organisations such as the Australian Tropical Herbarium, Queensland State Archives, Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Queensland Herbarium and the Department of Environment and Science (DES). Currently Donna is artist- in-resident on an international project based in Cairns, working with scientists from George Washington University, USA and the Natural History Museum London, UK. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (ART) from Curtin University and has works held in both public and private collections. She has exhibited widely in both solo and selected group exhibitions; and had her work feature in state and national touring exhibitions.