Artisan Collective Port Stephens
Engage | Create | Inspire
Share the Joy is back for 2022! Our SHOY Exhibition premiered in 2021, and we have brought it back for 2022. On display for the month of November is this amazing shared exhibition, where each of our Artisan Collective Members invite a guest artist to join them in sharing the joy of exhibiting in our amazing Nelson Bay gallery.
The artworks are stunning! We will be ‘sharing the joy’ even more with an exhibition opening at 2pm on Sunday the 13th November. We would love to see you there!
Prue is a Port Stephens-based artist working in a range of traditional drawing and painting media. She has exhibited regularly over the past 15 years in commercial and public galleries, both locally and interstate. Her works are held in private collections within Australia and overseas and have been published in Australian Geographic.
Prue Sailer
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While Prue has a lifelong interest in creating art, her formal artistic career began with the completion of a Fine Art Degree, followed by Honours and a PhD in Natural History Illustration (NHI) at The University of Newcastle, where she currently holds the role of Lecturer in NHI. Her doctoral research explored the visual world of animals. Drawing on scientific research into animal vision, she presented an interpretation of the way selected animal and bird species might see their own habitats, according to what is currently known about their visual systems.
Prue’s formative years were spent in and around Canberra, where her appreciation for wildlife and natural environments began. The natural world continues to provide the inspiration and motivation for her practice and underpins her teaching in NHI. Recurring themes in her work centre on aspects of nature that are often overlooked, the conservation of Australian native species and habitats, and concerns about humanity’s impact on the natural environment.
“I am truly fortunate to be able to combine teaching with my studio practice, where I continue to create new works for exhibitions and commissions. While the Newcastle, Port Stephens and Hunter regions provide a wealth of inspiration, I am also looking forward to travelling throughout our extraordinary country more often, to collect resources for future work.
My paintings are exhibited locally and interstate, and are found in private collections in Australia and overseas.”
Prue Sailer
Bev McKinnon-Mathews was born and educated in Melbourne, spending time travelling and teaching in Victoria, NSW and London. Bev settled in NSW where she farmed in the North West for 40 years. Since retiring from farming, she has lived in the Hunter Region and now calls Port Stephens home.
Bev McKinnon-Mathews
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After 35 years of ceramic artistry, Bev’s curiosity into printmaking led her to explore etching on aluminium and zinc in copper sulphate, as well as other printing techniques including drypoint , mono printing, relief printing with lino, and collograph. Printing from nature lead to Gyotaku, which are popular sellers in the gallery!
Bev first saw fish prints in Japan and was fascinated by what seemed like a seemingly simplistic process. After researching, she learned it is quite a time-consuming art form but she dived in anyway (pun intended).
The fine art of fish prints was originally used by fishermen to record their catches and has now become an art all of its own. Prints are made with prepped fish (sourced, cleaned, dried, prepped and supported) before being inked onto special paper.
Bev uses her etched plates of seaweed to create the background and is always on the lookout for interesting fish. Stinker (@stinkerfishing ) is a wonderful resource for interesting finds, as are friends who have had unlucky fish in their tanks.
See that gorgeous little seahorse above? Well he was gifted to Bev from a friend after he died in her fish tank, lucky little guy got to be immortalised in her artwork!
Ileana Clarke is an artist, painter, illustrator and teacher who enjoys many art disciplines. Primarily creating in painting and drawing, Ileana sometimes mixes different mediums such as watercolour and ink, or charcoal and wax.
Ileana Clarke
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Ileana believes that watercolour, which is the most challenging medium to work with, is an ideal form for capturing translucent light in sky land or water, which is ubiquitous in the beautiful surroundings of Nelson Bay.
Ileana has an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art from Newcastle Art School and a Degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University.
“I have exhibited in solo and mixed shows over the last 30 years. My art education was in Advanced Diploma in Fine Art from Newcastle Art School and a Degree in Fine Art from Newcastle University. A number of art prizes have been won over the years and I am published in ‘International Contemporary Artists Vol IX and X’. At present I tutor at Tomaree Community College and Maitland Regional Art Gallery.”
Ileana Clarke
Anna is a mixed media artist who enjoys exploring how colours interact – how they work or don’t work with each other to create mood and atmosphere. She is also enjoying exploring the graphic element of art – how an art work comes together as a whole to be pleasing to the eye and mind using line, form and composition.
Anna Webster, Pathways Exhibition
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Anna’s art includes abstracts, landscape and portraiture.
Anna’s art attempts to capture the essentials of the natural world and express to the viewer an interpretation of how she feels. Anna says that when she paints she enters into a place where day-to-day life recedes and creative instinct takes over.
“Sometimes you have to start big and lay down the composition – large arcs of line and form, colour splashed on with streaks of charcoal leading the eye from one edge to the other.
Extract from Anna Webster artist bio for Pathways Exhibition, June 2021
I am always looking at the overall picture and keeping an eye on what works in terms of form, line, colour and composition.
There are magical moments of letting the art that you are creating ‘speak’ to you and tell you what to do next.”
Sally discovered she could be an artist in the 1990’s, which opened the door to a creativity within her that keeps on growing.
Sally initially started as a painter, then began to explore the world of coloured glass around 2005, harking back to her memories of being a child in church wondering why there were lines through the stained-glass images. This fascination continues today and is evident in the way that sally explores the translucency, line and form in glass.
Sally Walker
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Sally’s dream is to be able to support herself to create full time without losing the pleasure of creation. She endeavours to make from instinct or intuition which is why Sally calls her art occupation 5d Glass Art.
“Fused glass can be a fickle form of creation. So much can go wrong from a technical aspect and fabulous things can happen in the transformation processes.”
Sally Walker
