ART CATEGORY

SARA AZIZ ALI
HADEEL

Sara Aziz Ali, Hadeel, 2024. Photographic series, (4) 500 x 700mm. Image courtesy of the artist.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Hadeel is a 4-part photography series capturing the duality of tradition and modernity in 1960s Iran. Through the lens of a 35mm film camera, the work portrays a young bride in simple, traditional attire, challenging Western perceptions of the hijab while exploring themes of cultural identity, oppression, and political tension.

BIO

Coming from a Kurdish Muslim background, Sara Aziz Ali's authenticity is deeply rooted in the cultural, political, and religious contexts that have shaped her identity. Through her work in film and photography, she creates stories that explore the relationship between mind and culture, serving as an ode to the generations that came before her.

ALYSSA BRADNEY
THROUGH MATERIAL AND TIME

ARTIST STATEMENT

This series displays the factors in my life that have moulded me to be the person I am today, painted to look like instant film snapshots and personal items. Deep grief in the centre is surrounded by past and present joy leading to my personal development and autonomy, my future.

BIO

Alyssa Fleur Bradney is a young Luxembourgish/Australian artist in her first year studying Visual Arts at the University of Sydney. Her practice previously focused on paintings, but she has now ventured into experimental installations. These investigate her life experiences and related global events.

CHLOE BURTON
MERGE

CONNOR CHEN
chair video archive (reupload)

Connor Chen, chair video archive (reupload), 2024. Single channel video, found object chairs, a nondescript room, palpable tension, 3.30 mins.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Absurdist porn made by a fictional chair enthusiast. This work is a part of an ongoing project investigating eroticism in the contemporary age of deviantart mspaint fetish niches and internet degeneracy. Creating an artificial microcosm of the hyper-online, observing the phenomena of digital patterns such as the "lolcow", the genuine and earnest artistry of fetish art and the disintegration of the visceral real through the performance of existing online.raction.

BIO

Connor Chen is a second year SCA student yelling at the universe. Navigating the cross sections of technology, the infinite world and the minute self. Chen is interested in the stupid machines that sing and the incorrigible human-ness that infects chunks of concrete. Connor Chen works across digital, video and sculptural mediums and he likes to paint as well.

ANASTASIA DALE
UNTITLED (OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB)

Anastasia Dale, Untitled (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), 2024. Single channel video, plinth, letter stickers, wreath, 400 x 1300mm.

ARTIST STATEMENT

A ghostly version of Kylie Minogue's biggest hit accompanies traditional housewives performing their activities for your viewing pleasure. Voice over from literature, theory, documentaries, government press releases seeps in. This work questions what is centred and represented in mainstream culture, and whom that benefits. It is a memorial to all that we allowed while we were distracted. 

Texts cited:

Bush, George W. May 1, 2003. Remarks by the President from the USS Abraham Lincoln. Colloquially known as the “Mission Accomplished Speech”.
Harman, Sabrina. Oct 20, 2003. Email from Abu Ghraib Prison.
Interviews with female former IDF soldiers in the 2007 documentary “To See If I’m Smiling”.
Foster Wallace, David. 1996. Infinite Jest. pp. 67-68.
Said, Edward. July 20, 2003. “Blind Imperial Arrogance” in the New York Times.

BIO

Anastasia is an artist, writer, and student. Much of their work focuses on the blurring between the real and unreal.

SOPHIE DOHNT
ADORNING SOVEREIGNTY OF OURSELVES

ARTIST STATEMENT

Adorning Sovereignty of Ourselves explores beauty and disruption, connecting self and personal sovereignty. It uses discarded hair to challenge beauty norms by integrating hair with metal to create wearable jewellery. This transformation highlights the intimate link between identity and traditional jewellery, inviting viewers to embrace the power and authenticity of their beauty.

BIO

Living and working on Gadigal land, Sophie Dohnt explores personal and social value systems through jewellery and performance. Challenging beauty norms, she fosters resistance conversations via feminist wearable art, examining self-appraisal through objects. 

KEZIAH DUGUID
EVERY NIGHT’S ANOTHER REASON WHY I LEFT IT ALL

ARTIST STATEMENT

The artwork pays homage to the dance floor and queer spaces through abstracted glass forms playing with movement and light. Evoking the gay club, from the physical; gestures of limbs dancing, and a trio of disco balls; to the emotional, cultural environment the space creates; one that allows self expression and growth, and generates community outside of heteronormative exceptions and gaze.

BIO

Keziah Duguid is an emerging artist based on Gadigal land. Working primarily in glass and textiles, with a current focus on blown glass, her practice explores emotions through materiality, personal narratives, community, gesture, and queer experiences. Keziah has previously exhibited in Sydney, Hobart and Tokyo.

BETTY GUO
REVERSE

Betty Guo, Reverse, 2024. Single channel video, 1.08 mins.

SHIRLEY HUANG
HEY ORCHID, HEY GRANDMA!

Shirley Huang, Hey Orchid, Hey Grandma!, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 1800 x 800mm.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Influenced by Looking at the World Through a Window, this painting evokes personal reflections on memory, family, and the passage of time. The orchids, originally cultivated by my late grandmother, symbolise continuity and legacy. Drawing on Morandi’s minimalism and Victor Man’s tonal range, it explores themes of connection, mortality, and the preservation of cultural memory.

BIO

As a Chinese-born artist based in Sydney, Australia, I fuse existentialism and memento mori in my exploration of still life. Embracing minimalism, I distil ordinary objects to provoke introspection about life's complexities and our place in the universe. Through serene compositions, I invite viewers to contemplate existence and hidden symbolism within the mundane.

RAYMOND HUYNH
FROM FRONDS TO MINERALS (BEACHED KELP)

ARTIST STATEMENT

Beached Kelp addresses notions of environmental sustainability, with alternate glaze technologies synthesised from kelp ash. Exploring concepts surrounding material transformation/material agency through the interplay of art and science. Conveying these themes through uncanny representations of kelp, to conceptually meld representation with surface treatment. Shedding light towards these organisms through the medium of ceramics and its scientific processes.

BIO

Raymond Huynh is an emerging Sydney based artist who is currently studying at Sydney College of the Arts for a Bachelor of Visual Arts. He keeps a broad practice, encompassing ceramics, sculpture, installation, glass, and photo media. Drawing influences from ‘the elemental’, the natural world, the human condition, and informed by theories of craft or the handmade. He hopes to be able to continue working as an artist, ceramicist and craftsperson following his studies at the University of Sydney.

ABIGAIL JARVIS
FRUITFUL

LILE KHAJAVI
GUSTAVA LUGOSI

ARTIST STATEMENT

Gustava Lugosi is a manifesto. It is play on shadows. It is an endless chase. It is one persona manifested in two. It is an ontological metaphor that paints the artist as a goose by drowning her in its feathers. It is a balloon ready to be popped. Gustava Lugosi is a 1185 by 800 millimetres photograph.

BIO

Lile Khajavi is a Film & Visual Arts student at the Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney. Her practice involves experimenting with the ideas of actuality and potentiality within the frameworks of absurdism and existentialism. She enjoys reframing the mode of her artistic delivery through experimenting with different disciplines and ways of creating meaning.

MIKAYLA KITTO
RETURN ME TO MY MOTHER

ARTIST STATEMENT

Return Me To My Mother is a mixed media work comprising of textile and ceramics, encompassing an overarching theme of desire, specifically the desire for comfort. The work represents the lack of maternal comfort Kitto received and the subsequent constant need for that parental connection, utilising womb symbolism to emphasise it. The form promotes feelings of discomfort and longing through using the fetal position and knitted ceramic, whilst also simultaneously imbuing maternal motifs. As a whole, the work captures the constant desire for comfort and the subsequent discomfort experienced in an attempt to grasp it.

BIO

Emerging artist Mikayla Kitto resides and practices in Dharug country. She currently studies at the Sydney College Of The Arts and is a second year student specialising in sculpture. Informed by her personal experiences, she predominantly works with ideas of parental relationships, domesticity, and ideas of comfort. She namely uses textiles and ceramics within her practice, hoping to analyse and explore her own relationship with femininity.

LINNEA JIAWEN LONG
BACK TO 500 MILLION YEARS AGO, DEEP SEA

Linnea Jiawen Long, Back to 500 Millions Years Ago, Deep Sea, 2024. Film photography on glisten paper, 840 x 594mm.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Humans evolved from the deep sea, centuries ago. Until today, humans still share many similar characteristics with marine life and maintain an inseparable connection with the ocean. In moments of anxiety, the sight of the ocean and its creatures might evoke imagery of these beings invading and parasitising the body, influencing each action and every decision.

Emerge from the deep sea and return to familiar ground. This imagery heightens the awareness of the profound connection with the ocean and the indescribable sense of resonance. When confronted with the vastness of nature/society, humans/women appear small and vulnerable. This series visualises self-reflection and anxiety by portraying the struggles of individual existence, demonstrating how women’s imagination transforms everyday experiences into supernatural phenomena, and explores the pursuit of origins and innate psychological roots.

It is necessary to reassess the connection between the environment and the individual, and to focus on the externalisation of women’s experiences and emotions, as well as the complex relationship between parasitism and symbiosis. The focus on finding balance and empathy in a symbiotic state helps to understand the unique situation of women in society.

BIO

Linnea Jiawen Long, (b.2004) studying for a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the University of Sydney (SCA) currently, specialising in image, moving image and installation art. Motivated by Proteanism and the philosophy of Aesthetic Resonance, her work often focuses on gender experiences, memory, and the human/society symptoms,while also delving into the concept of opposites yet identical dualities. Dedicated to combining technology and sound, she creates multimedia interactive experiments that originate from individual experiences and evoke collective resonance. She strives to establish deep emotional connections and bodily experiences in her work, thereby revealing the inner nature of humanity, nature, and society.

JINGRU (MOIRA) MAI
BOAT

ARTIST STATEMENT

The work derives from the shapes of the eye and the vulva, two shapes that confuse each other when simplified, breaking the current of time and sailing forward like a boat.

BIO

Jingru Mai (Moira) is a young Chinese female artist currently studying for her Honours Degree in Visual Arts at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her main mediums are glass and ceramics, but she does not exclude others, preferring to create colourful and poetic works.

SASCHA NOBLE
3 VENUSES

RYAN OUYANG
TO WHOM I HOLD DEAR

ARTIST STATEMENT

Urns are capsules of memory, holding the physical and spiritual remains of what once was. With each vessel containing the ashes of a letter addressed to a member of the artist’s family, he lays to rest the things said and unsaid, done and undone, held onto for years.

BIO

Ryan Ouyang is an artist working on unceded Wallumattagal and Gadigal land. Exploring the deeply personal aspects of the everyday, he interrogates the self and investigates turmoil as a foundation for personal identity. Invested in staying silly and succeeding at the be-human challenge.

ANUSHKA SACHAN
EMBERS OF TRANQUILITY: A HIDDEN SANCTUARY

LUCY SPISIAK
FUGUE

ARTIST STATEMENT

Fugue explores the permeability of one's identity through the articulation of traditional Slovakian musical motifs. The beguiling complexities of the ceramic forms express the multifaceted lifestyles immigrants endure as they interact with multiple cultures simultaneously. The connection and dislocation of self is emulated by the semi-translucent perspex, displayed at differing heights and locations.

BIO

Engaging in art has always been a way for me to explore and express my experiences with the world over time. I aim to empower others to immerse themselves within my works, as well as imbue the passion for all to create and enjoy the wonders of art!

MANA (MARO) SUGIMOTO
MOVE FORWARD! DREAMER.

ARTIST STATEMENT

「いつか、いつか、やってやる。」
“Someday, someday,” – “I’ll do it.”

When it’s hard to move forward, I can’t hear the voices in my heart who are screaming to live. Dream for the distant days. Do it for now. Helping hands will definitely return, but in this minute, you’ve got to reach yours around.

BIO

Employing their creative practice as a means of defining, documenting, understanding, and consoling herself, the artist's prismatic pursuits constantly brew in, and are transmitted directly from their childhood room concealed in the land of the Wallumedegal. With a growing passion for ceramics, especially those sculptural, the core intent of Maro's oeuvre is to echo hope through a small, fragile strength.

ELLA THOMPSON
CREATURES ON HILLS FROM PLACES IN THE TUNNELS UP THERE

ARTIST STATEMENT

This work utilises sculpture to carve out a physical representation of the creatures that inhabit the mind of the artist. Serving to guard the rooms that exist within the inner landscapes of the artist’s brain-tunnels, these beings represent the often nonsensical nature of the functioning of the human brain, celebrating the complexities of the mind.

BIO

Ella Thompson is currently studying at SCA and is majoring in sculpture. Her practice is mainly focused on exploring the unknown aspects of the internal landscape. Searching through the rooms that occupy this space, Ella aims to unveil these spaces through physical manifestations, documenting these reflections in multidisciplinary fashion.

LILY TSURUKO TUCKER
ABSTRACT (PSYCHOPOMP)

ARTIST STATEMENT

“I remember the view
Streetlights in the dark blue
The moment I knew
I'd no choice but to love you
The speed that you moved
The screech of the cars
The creature still moving
That slowed in your arms
The fear in its eyes
Gone out in an instant
Your tear caught the light
The Earth from a distance”
– Hozier

BIO

Lily Tsuruko Tucker is an artist living and working on Gadigal land. As a second-year student at SCA, their practice is currently focused upon experimenting with textiles, light, and sound. Tucker’s overall interest in temporal impressions and emotional intimacy is reflected in the quietly vulnerable nature of their works, attempting to deconstruct the barrier between artist and audience; speaker and listener; friend and stranger.

RUNA VASILE
UNTITLED. (DOUGHNUTLAND)

SHELLEY WATTERS
TRANSFORMING MATTER VI

ARTIST STATEMENT

My compost (ing) is an embodied artistic practice and methodology inspired by sympoiesis, or “making with” coined by Donna Haraway. My passion for compost stems from its power to transform, to generate fertiliser and capture carbon. The print on the right is unfixed, so it is decomposing throughout the exhibition.

BIO

Shelley Watters (she/her) explores modes of repair to further social and environmental justice through her practice spanning installation, sculpture, photo media, textiles, performance, sound, and video. This year she has been a Finalist in the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize and Shortlisted for the Incinerator Art Award: Art for Social Change.

ESTELLE YOON
ABEOJI (아버지)

Estelle Yoon, Abeoji (아버지), 2024. 120mm photographs printed on Ilford Gallery Print, (3) A1.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Abeoji (아버지) delves into the delicate interplay between sadness and happiness, embodying the Korean concept of 애환 (ae-hwan); the coexistence of sorrow and joy. The series encapsulates my father, a single parent, who bears the dual responsibilities of both paternal and maternal roles, devotedly working to finish the threads left incomplete by my late mother.

BIO

Estelle Yoon is a Korean-Australian visual artist currently based on Gadigal land. Yoon’s artistic practice explores how time can be arrested, created and sculpted through the analogue photographic language and poetry. In pursuit of the philosophy of wabi-sabi, Yoon’s gaze captures the perfection in imperfection, and expresses a diasporic sensibility.