Join us for the launch event at ANCA Gallery Saturday 23 November from 2pm

On Scale, is the annual ANCA Artist Group Show, co-curated this year by Bruce Reynolds and Ruth Waller. The curatorial brief asked the artists, all of whom have studios at either ANCA Dickson or ANCA Mitchell, to explore scale: from the miniature to the monumental. Doing so, each artist has focused on tensions and complementary or synergistic relationships between their own works, or between works by others exhibiting in the gallery space and how these works relate to each other.

Participating artists include: S.A. Adair, Katrina Barter, Emma Beer, Marley Dawson, Eve Fairhall, Kirsten Farrell, David Greenhalgh, David Helmers, Karen Lee, Dan Power, Alba Salsone, Lisa Sammut.

The curators: Bruce Reynolds is Brisbane-based artist who grew up in Canberra. He studied painting in Canberra and Melbourne and has lectured in painting, photography, sculpture and design. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Australia and has participated in group exhibitions in Australia and Germany. His work is held in public collections including National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Museum of Brisbane, Artbank, the High Court, Queensland and HOTA, Gold Coast. Ruth Waller is a highly regarded Canberra painter (and sometime ceramicist, cardboard sculptor and photographer) who taught Painting at the Australian National University School of Art for 27 years. She exhibits with Rogue Gallery in Sydney and her work is held in The National Gallery, Artbank, Canberra Museum and Gallery and various state, university and regional galleries. 

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 30 October at 5.30pm

Poetry of Place is a collection of photographic works which reveal a rare way of seeing, offering an intimate distillation of beauty in the built landscape.

Printed mostly in rich black and white, the images are unique studies of the built form which reveal a tenderness and sensuality not often seen in architectural imagery. By working slowly, in a focused way, the artist observes and represents the temporally changing and ephemeral plays of light and shadow. This focus enables Julia to develop intimate knowledge of the spaces which, with her patience and curiosity, reveal themselves rather than being simply ‘captured’.

Through the work the viewer is invited to pause and ‘see’ differently. The images are at once representations of space and form, as much as they are art objects in and of themselves.  

‘Julia Charles has an unerring artistic eye. She convincingly translates sculptural weight and power within a two dimensional medium. Julia’s pictures are somehow unafraid, deftly stepping toward feeling, shadow and beauty”. Camilla Block, Durbach Block Jaggers architects

‘I seek to make images which find a poetic quality, a different way of seeing. I work slowly and alone. Across days and seasons, light changes. I delight in dappled, filtered, reflected and diffused light creating moments of joy. Patience brings reward.’ Julia Charles

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 9 October at 5.30pm

Join us for an ‘artist in conversation’ event with David Greenhalgh, Curator, International painting and sculpture, National Gallery of Australia on the last day of the exhibition at 2pm Sunday 27 October.

All welcome. No bookings required.

Candle. Collapsar is a series of new works made in the studio and on analogue film by Adelaide born artist, Ioulia Panoutsopoulos. Negatives were scanned and displayed on a monitor, with the final work constructed by shooting the computer monitor with an analogue camera. Embracing screen flare, hotspots and the subtle banded pattern overlaying the screen—grain and the random optical texture of photographic film, now overwritten, is transmuted with its digital counterpart.

The resulting works resemble an open expanded pictorial nervous system, capturing a digital transformation, processed and captured through an analogue medium. In these works, Ioulia seeks ambiguous movement between digital and analogue states, embracing photography as a malleable and evolving medium to find an original language that pushes at the edges of photographic possibility.

Sydney-based Ioulia Panoutsopoulos holds a Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from UNSW and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, First Class Honours from the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. A recipient of the John and Margaret Baker Memorial Fellowship, she has been selected as a finalist for the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, the National Photography Prize, MAMA and Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award. Ioulia’s work is held in the collection of Murray Art Museum Albury, O’Sullivan Legal, Sydney and in private collections in Australia and Greece.

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery on Saturday 31 August at 2.00pm

This is Not a Solo Show (v2) by Peter Sharp and Michelle Cawthorn runs from Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 15 September 2024.

How do couples engage, collaborate, and even ignore each other’s art practices?

Peter Sharp and Michelle Cawthorn are both artists with recognised individual art practices, and happen to be partners. Being involved in the same creative enterprise can lead to tensions and surprises. As the title of the exhibition implies, creative friction can lead to unexpected outcomes. The work in the exhibition will include singular and collaborative works.

This exhibition is the second iteration of an exhibition first shown at Verge Gallery, Sydney University in 2016.

As both artists have an active drawing practice this will be the primary focus of the show, with a single collaborative sculpture being a bridge or barrier, from or between, each artist’s work.

Michelle Cawthorn is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney
Peter Sharp is represented by Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney.

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 7 August at 5.30pm

Lineaments by Stephanie Scroope and Jay Kochel runs from Wednesday 7 August to Sunday 25 August 2024.

Meeting somewhere between abstract geometry and representational portraiture, artists Stephanie Scroope and Jay Kochel work independently but relationally to produce the exhibition, Lineaments. Both artists were encouraged to venture into new work in dialogue with the other’s ‘foreign’ practice. It is through the consideration of each other’s work that the two artists have developed the exhibition.

While dissimilar in materials and methodology, both artists have a fundamental interest in the human body. Objects that represent the body or can be used by the body in a haptic sense. From this starting point, preparation for the exhibition has been a catalyst for the artists to create new bodies of work—challenged by their different modes of practice and expression.

Stephanie’s paintings use familiar subjects from her personal life—using the painting process to explore the tensions between intimacy and privacy.

Jay’s work diffuses the intimacy of portraiture by using the artists themselves as the subjects of his work. Technical processes of casting and automated fabrication render the intimacy of the artist’s hand absent.

The exhibition is open Wednesday to Sunday 12–5pm.

Stephanie Scroope is a Canberra-based artist who completed a Fine Arts Honours degree, majoring in painting, at the Australian National University in 2004. Best known for her large scale figuration and portraiture, Stephanie has recently been influenced by her study of textiles.

Jay Kochel has a background in sculpture and digital media. Jay completed a PhD in 2013, focusing on fetish, magic and the power of contemporary art and was an Asialink Resident at the Kyoto Art Center, Japan in 2014.

Jay Kochel is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery on Wednesday 17 July at 5.30pm

Emotional Landscapes I by Jenny Adams, Julie Delves, Eva van Gorsel and Delene White runs from Wednesday 17 July to Sunday 4 August 2024.

Emotional Landscapes I explores the philosophical idea of humanity’s place within the natural world. It questions the dichotomy of being apart from nature versus being an integral part of it. Through thought-provoking artworks, the exhibition examines the consequences of perceiving ourselves as separate from nature, leading to exploitation and abuse, versus recognising our interconnectedness and the reciprocal relationship between humanity and the environment.

The overarching idea behind the exhibition is to examine how individuals experience landscapes emotionally and the subsequent impact these experiences can have on their perceptions, attitudes, and actions towards nature. By showcasing a range of artistic expressions, Emotional Landscapes I aims to create a space where viewers can explore and reflect upon their own emotional responses to the natural world—be it feelings of awe, serenity, fear or detachment.

Ultimately, Emotional Landscapes I seeks to facilitate a meaningful and thought-provoking dialogue about our emotional connections to the natural world, the impact of human actions on the environment, and the potential for a harmonious and sustainable coexistence.

Through audience engagement, the group create an immersive experience that goes beyond the visual aspect of the artworks, fostering dialogue, connection, and a deeper emotional and intellectual resonance with the exhibition's themes.

The exhibition runs from Wednesday 17 July to Sunday 4 August and is open during Gallery hours Wednesday to Sunday 12–5pm.

Free Artist Talk, Sunday 4 August 2–3pm

Join us for an engaging artist talk at the exhibition Emotional Landscapes I, featuring the four artists who all share a deep connection to Canberra and surrounds. The artists will share their thoughts and insights into their creative practices, offering a glimpse into their unique perspectives, inspirations and diverse artistic approaches. Their works delve into the complex and complicated relationship of people landscapes, inviting you to explore your emotional connections to the environment. Please come and be part of a meaningful dialogue about the arts, human actions and people landscapes.

Free Artist Workshop, Sunday 4 August 3–4pm

Join in an inspiring workshop to turn your ideas into meaningful artwork! Led by an experienced artist, this workshop will provide insights into the process of refining concepts, gathering materials, and crafting a visual expression of your emotions. Whether you bring your own materials or choose from our selection, you will have the opportunity to experiment and play with different ways of expressing emotion through image making. We will share insights into our own creative process. Take advantage of this chance to explore the intersection of art and emotion in an engaging environment and enjoy an opportunity to create your own ‘emotional landscape.’

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery on Wednesday 5 June at 5.30pm

Relinquishing control by Jacklyn Peters and Tamsin McLure runs from Wednesday 5 June to Sunday 23 June 2024.

This exhibition explores the relinquishing of control in the creative process through paintings and drawings that build on the Process Art movement of the 1960s and 70s. The works are introspective and speculative, concerned with the artist’s willingness to create work without knowing what the end will be and to take each decision as it comes.

The tally mark is used by Peters as a key motif to represent time in her work. To read these works, the viewer is asked to imagine each mark as a footstep the artist has taken, a step that captures a specific moment in time, whether slow or fast, calm or agitated. In nature, the effects of wind and rain remove matter to create new forms. Peters’ process is a kind of reverse erosion. The application of marks and brushstrokes is built to create forms that capture emotions felt and thoughts imagined, embedding them firmly and permanently in line, shape, colour and light.

At no point in the process is it known where the artwork will end since the marks first applied determine the placement of the following marks. Process based art is about both the process and the product. It requires a level of trust in one’s own experience, though one must also relinquish control to acknowledge that in the end what will happen will happen.

McLure is concerned with our sources of identity and security, and the necessity for relinquishing control to play—without fear of failure. The work is begun without a clear end in mind; the creative process is a journey of experimentation and exploration. McLure makes a deliberate choice to work with what is already there, often recycling or redeeming discarded materials. Faces are a repeated motif, speaking to the act of identity creation through our choices, moment by moment.

While fear of failure can be stagnating and paralysing, the artists in this exhibition embrace the security of trusting the process they follow, finding the freedom to create uninhibited works.

Join the artists in a workshop, Saturday 8 June 2–4pm

Playing without fear of failure—A workshop in oil pastels

A fun and relaxed art workshop, open to the community, in which participants will have the opportunity to make an abstract drawing with oil pastels on an already painted surface.

We will begin with a general discussion about what fears inhibit us from playing with new ideas or processes when creating work, and what we consider success or completion to look like. Next, we will put some of our discussion into practise as we use oil pastels, often considered a childish medium, to play with colour and pattern, over an existing surface. We will be able to reflect on how we make decisions in the art making process and in the rest of our lives, in a welcoming and informal environment.

Join the artists in a second workshop, Saturday 15 June 2–4pm

A warm and relaxed art workshop open to the community, in which participants will have the opportunity to learn to create portraits from a single line drawing, and to turn these into wearable art.

We will begin with a general discussion about how we see our identity and how we can represent or encapsulate aspects of our identity through Visual Art. Next, we will put some of our discussion into practise as we learn to simplify a portrait into a single line drawing. We will do this over the top of existing watercolours to add mood and vibrancy to our artworks. Finally, we will turn our drawings into pins that we can wear, using recycled materials.

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery on Saturday 18 May at 2.00pm

Surface Tension by Sally Clarke and Brenda Factor runs from Wednesday 15 May to Sunday 2 June 2024.

A seashell collection that has remained packed for over 40 years provided a starting point for artists, Sally Clarke and Brenda Factor, to connect ideas around materiality, memory, place, beauty, value, desire, abstraction, symbolism and the ethics of collecting from nature.

Focusing on creating meaning through making, using a combination of found materials and objects as well as traditional art-making materials, the artists have produced paintings, moving images, sculptures, noisy shells and jewellery.

For both artists, who share a life and studio in Mittagong, the work is process-based—allowing one idea to be the catalyst for the next.

For Clarke, this exhibition marks the beginning of an ongoing project where methods or even rituals of processing, interpreting and reinventing become steps toward returning the shells to their various ecological or cultural origins. Mining representations of shells in art history with references to female art icons, such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, Clarke draws on her long-held understandings of the life & structure of molluscs to create abstracted forms.

Brenda Factor’s wearable enamels resemble the shiny desirous surface of cowrie shells imbued with notes of abstraction, as well as the beach-worn, weathered surfaces of broken shells that are part of the marine shore ecology. In the process, Factor thinks about the ways in which shells have been valued throughout history.

Join us for the Opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 24 April at 6.00pm

Il faut cultiver notre jardin by Michele England at ANCA Gallery from Wednesday 24 April to Sunday 12 May 2024

‘Il faut cultiver notre jardin’ or ‘We must tend our garden’ artistically explores the lessons learned from a suburban garden about nature’s systems, resilience and destruction.

Michele England has made paintings and mixed media using sustainable materials and traditional techniques to depict circular patterns and realistic imagery— meditating on the garden as muse. Conceptually and materially, the exhibition looks at the need for societal and industrial change necessary if we are to transition to a low carbon future. The works produced are the culmination of Michele England’s year-long research into sustainable and circular studio materials and processes.

Join Michele England in a workshop, artist talk or event as follows.

Stitch up a Journal with Reclaimed Materials, Saturday 27 April 2–4pm
Participants will use reclaimed materials and thread to create a small journal. Join artist Michele England for an afternoon drop-in session of making and conversing. Drop-in or book a spot via https://events.humanitix.com/stitch-up-a-journal-with-reclaimed-papers

Artist talk, Sunday 5 May 2pm

Join artist, Michele England, and hear her discuss her exhibition concept, arts practice and deliver a ‘show and tell’ of sustainable techniques and materials, followed by afternoon tea.

Drop-in or bookings via https://events.humanitix.com/artist-talk-with-michele-england-at-anca

Mandala patterns – how to make your own, Saturday 11 May 2–4pm

Participants will be instructed in making a mandala pattern. Technical materials, paper and coloured pencils will be supplied to participants for creating and finishing their mandala.

Drop-in or bookings via https://events.humanitix.com/mandala-patterns-make-and-colour-in

Join us for the opening event from 5.30pm on Wednesday 10 April to celebrate with the students, staff, friends and Canberra arts community. A Dickson Jazz band will be in attendance. All welcome!

Beginnings brings together works created by Dickson College art students, both current and 2023 alumni. The exhibition demonstrates, and showcases, the diversity of disciplines and approaches taken within Dickson College arts classes to reveal the strengths that exist in our young artists. Disciplines including painting, printmaking, illustration, sculpture, ceramics, photography (film & digital) and textiles are all represented. 

The exhibition, titled Beginnings, runs from Wednesday 3 to Sunday 21 April 2024.

Open Wednesday to Sunday 12–5pm.

Join us for the opening of Body, Space and Place at 5.30pm Wednesday 13 March

Body, Space and Place is a group exhibition by the 2023 winners of the ANCA Emerging Artist Support Scheme (EASS) Exhibition Award—Jack Black, Conor Dunne, Ha-jung Kwon and Alicja Śpiewok-Deegan.

The EASS scheme was conceived by the then director of the School of Art & Design, Professor David Williams, in 1988 to assist talented graduates of the ANU School of Art & Design pursue creative careers. ANCA is a Patron of the scheme and each year provides selected students the chance to hold an exhibition at ANCA Gallery.

Working across a variety of mediums including photography, printmaking and oil painting each artist presents their individual reflections under the broad thematic of Body, Space and Place exploring concepts of presence/absence, location and context, memory and identity.

Join us for the Opening event Wednesday 21 February at 6pm!

Loose Ends
A group show by S.A. Adair, Zev Aviv, Katrina Barter, Lucy Chetcuti, Tilly Davey, Kirsten Farrell, Karen Lee, Steve Roper and Kate Stevens

At ANCA Gallery from 21 February to 10 March 2024

Loose Ends invites you to take a look into the dark corners of nine ANCA artist’s studios as they face unfinished projects, or make new works from the disparate materials each artist has stashed away because… “I’ll use that for something one day”. It doesn’t count as hoarding if you’re an artist, right?

Encompassing a diverse mix of practitioners from sculptors, ceramicists, designers, potters, painters and printmakers to textile and performance artists, Loose Ends offers unique insights into creative practice.

Join us for the Opening event Wednesday 31 January at 6pm

Florisma by Caroline Reid, ANCA Gallery from 31 January to 18 February 2024

Florisma is an uplifting and delightful exhibition of large acrylic paintings and ceramics. Painted en plein air in her Canberra garden in Spring 2023, Reid’s abstract paintings convey all the energy, joy and hopefulness of the flowers that emerged with each passing week. 

According to Reid: “Florisma is not an accurate replication of my garden; it is an artistic endeavour to capture the essence and vitality that permeates the air during this seasonal metamorphosis.”

Reid has received numerous awards for her work and recently completed artist residencies at Venezia Contemporaine, Italy (2022) and Chateau d’Orquevaux, France (2023).