Vanessa Stockard: About cats
I paint cats. I understand cats. I grew up in a small country town in New South Wales, Australia. My life was shared with a scratchy black beast, a Manx with a stealth matched by no other. She would kill you …if she could. However, as it turned out, I was not a popular kid, I had a weird vibe and she was my best friend.
If I was crying at home in the backyard, she would follow me, keep me company, give me mites or fleas. Perhaps not the best gift, but it was something, you know? She lived a grand life of 20 years, we were babies together and adults together too.
I have always loved painting. It was my first love along with cats, and why not marry the two. I do not currently own a cat but I have an imagination. So, I can have anything I like if I think about it. So ‘Kevin’ was born from my husbands’ old sock lying in the studio. I thought, “that looks like a kitten” it wasn’t, but the details aren’t important. Kevin was born wearing a Ruff in 2017.
His Father, Satan, was the first cat to bring me online fame.
Until recently, the most common google search for me was ‘when did Vanessa Stockard die?’
People were convinced I was a painter from medieval times, which makes me feel particularly old, which is now true. “To this day she is still alive at 48.” *Bunny 2024
I like to make paintings for myself, like presents at the end of the day. Incorporating art history, strange stories or conversations in my life.
I make personal stories using my fictional cat family. Like a kid, I am like a sponge, absorbing the days good and bad. I make the day in to a picture.
It isn’t all about cats, but they make it better for me. With my artwork I like to project my love of colour, technique, personality and art history into a unique aesthetic that I hope many can enjoy.
Greg Ferry: Statement from the Abbey of the Good Boy
Greg Ferry’s ‘Harvey’ artworks are cued from the confused fog of history. Harvey, the enormous Huntaway dog, is a time traveller. His burger’s being an allegory of dog capital, explores the soup of art fashion within the context of fallen empires once controlled by religious orders.
In Harvey’s Abbey of the Good Boy, those seeking enlightenment through worship are welcomed with open paws and slobber within the caveat of his rules-based order.
Capital controls, social order and subservience are the undercurrent in all its forms, mark the historic pillars of society. The stuff that all Empires rise and fall upon.
This fabricated history is similar to the dust remaining from the erased blackboard of real History. The inference is there, yet jumbled, speculated and re-contextualised by future Empires to keep the populace confused.
There is always something admirable left behind failed Empires. The cultural ephemera and relics left behind leave us feeling a sense of wonder and reverence.
Jordan Richardson: Capturing the Soul of Nature
Jordan Richardson’s paintings take breath from an observation of art conservation. The material quality of old paint, its tackiness and elasticity are a daily obsession that drives his painting practice and informs a strategy for paint application.
His current work investigates the processes of the figure, with a depth of pentimenti, excavations of paint layers and the build-up of translucent glazes and gestural marks. Another strand of his work has been the exploration of miniatures in the form of 18th Century animal paintings. These pictures embark on the observation of detail rather than the gestural looseness often associated with his work.
Richardson has been a multiple time finalist in the Archibald Prize, most recently in 2022 with his portrait of Benjamin Law. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Hons) from the National Art School, Sydney.
Garth Nichol: Crafting Beauty from Chaos
The world is messy. The world is dirty. The world is beautiful.
Garth Nichol has been captivating audiences with his mesmerizing works of art that blur the lines between chaos and beauty. Colour, texture, and form, all combine to evoke a sense of controlled spontaneity.
Drawing inspiration from the chaotic nature of the world around us, his art reflects the intricate balance between order and disorder. Through a combination of abstract expressionism and contemporary techniques, he constructs compelling visual narratives that resonate on a deeply emotional level.
As a visionary artist pushing the boundaries of traditional art forms, Garth Nichol continues to shape the contemporary art landscape with his evocative and thought-provoking creations, challenging us to find beauty and meaning amid chaos.
Samuel Massey: A World of Florals
Massey is an award-winning artist who completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the National Art School, Sydney in 2015. In the following years he produced two major bodies of work. The first was selected for exhibition at the Gosford Regional Gallery as part of Emerging 2017. The subsequent series formed his first solo exhibition in 2018.
In 2019 Massey made his long-awaited pilgrimage to Europe. It was here that he encountered first-hand the work of the old masters, most notably Velazquez, whose influence has led to several career highlights. That same year he won the Traditional Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and painted his evocative portrait of Archibald winner Guy Maestri. This would be hung in the 2020 Salon des Refuses to critical acclaim. 2020 also saw Massey awarded the Mayoral Commendation for his painting The Gates, the first of his dark floral works that have become an ongoing strand of his practice. This strand most recently bore fruit in 2023 with A Lullaby for Suffering, Massey’s first solo exhibition at BOOM Gallery.
Between these highlights Massey has participated in several group exhibitions and had dozens of other pieces selected in prizes across the country. Whilst his work is most heavily collected in Sydney and Australia more broadly, he has recently entered international collections.
Louisa de Haas: The Imagination of Landscapes
Artist Louisa de Haas lives and works in The Southern Highlands of NSW.
“While I don’t see all of these works as ‘landscapes’, in truth they all do feature elements of my childhood farm at Joadja. The rolling hillsides, particularly the curve where two hills meet; lone trees; mapping trig point signs that look like lollipops; those enormous skies of sunsets and endless stars. These are the landmarks of my memory. They are ingrained in my subconscious and they never fail to come out and talk to me through my paint.”