Adrienne Williams Mt Perry, Queensland, Australia
Adrienne is a landscape painter. For over 20 years she has made extended sketching trips into the bush, carrying easel and paints to remote sites for weeks at a time. Back in the studio her sketches, photographs and rock rubbings are worked into drawings, prints and oil canvasses. In 2009 she moved from the big city to a tiny town with the Australian bush right at her door. At the heart of her work is her passion for wild places and an intrigue for our connections to landscape and the ways it’s beauty and vulnerability moves us. In recent years her work explores the confluence of that vulnerability and beauty with rural land use, and she is currently painting and dodging cowpats on a hillside of Australian grass trees. http://www.visualartist.info/adriennewilliams
Alexander Eulert Lamy, New Mexico, USA
Born and raised in southern California, Alex spent 5 years in the UK undertaking formal studies in Graphics, Illustration, Silversmithing and Metalwork before returning to his desert roots. Alex developed strong connections with the desert, and the life-giving force of water in such places, very early in life; the desert topography of boulder outcroppings, multi-layered cliffs and rugged hilltops all exert their influence on his aesthetic sense. He also draws inspiration from a lifelong fascination with man’s manipulation of nature, and the subsequent reclaiming of human creations with the passage of time. The wildfires of 2007 intensified and made this relationship with nature very personal, when his home and studio were destroyed by fire and he was faced with the task of rebuilding. A move to New Mexico in 2012 saw him unearth a passion for painting, which combined with his background in sculpture and metalwork to produce unique artworks laden with textures and forms. Alex has exhibited his work in California, New Mexico, New York, Singapore and Argentina.
Ariella Anderson Bargara, Queensland, Australia
Born in Algeria-North Africa, Ariella has lived in Israel, France and various locations in Australia before settling in Bundaberg. For Ariella, the changing landscapes in which she finds herself form an integral part of her life, and allow for an ongoing mapping-process to take place. Reconfiguration of her placement-coordinates is a constant, continuous practice being processed and echoed throughout her Ceramic work. Ariella was Artist in Residence at Shalom Catholic College in 2014. Her work has been featured in The Journal of Australian Ceramics, Craft Arts International and Art-To-Art Palette magazine, as well as 500 Raku by Lark publication NY. www.AriellaArt.weebly.com
Christine Turner Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia
Christine has been creating her haunting artworks for over 20 years, using mixed media and found objects to create paintings, assemblages and installations. Her work explores social concepts of identity, memory and childhood, reflecting the role of women, particularly the idea of ‘mother’ in our society, and examines ideas relating to the body, nature, culture, power and the sacred. Over the years Christine has used everything from traditional Christian Icons to banal, commonplace objects as the basis for her work. She has recently begun investigating digital manipulation of images and outdoor projections. From humble discards, Christine aims to create works that evoke the sublime. http://www.christineturner.com.au/
Jacklyn St. Aubyn Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Jacklyn is a Professor Emeritus from New Mexico State University where she has taught painting and drawing for 24 years. Her book, Drawing Basics, provides a proven method for learning to draw from observation. Now in its 2nd edition, the book has been used in classrooms nationally and internationally for 16 years. Jacklyn’s paintings of subjects in nature have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in both private and public institutions for the past 35 years. Her work is in public and private collections throughout the United States. www.jacklynstaubyn.net
Jean Reece Wilkey Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Jean was born in 1953 in Fort Worth, Texas. After earning a BFA in art and a Masters degree in education, she traveled extensively, living successively in Honduras, Costa Rica and Israel before moving to New Mexico where she received a Master of Fine arts degree in painting and drawing. Jean is a founding member of the artist group, the Praxis Collective and member of the American Women Painters and Border Artists. She teaches drawing and painting in her studio and periodically as an adjunct professor at New Mexico State University. Jean has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships and her work is held in collections in more than a dozen countries. Jean is fascinated with the moral and aesthetic possibilities of combining nature with “man-made” surrogates for nature. Her work is filled with ideas about life and death; it alludes to Western culture’s alignment with commodity over nature, and explores how our individual perceptions shape our own version of ‘reality’. http://jeanreecewilkey.fineartstudioonline.com
Jo Rango Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Originally from Washington DC, Jo is a professional artist with over 30 years’ experience. For the past 15 years she has made Las Cruces her home and has settled right into the desert environment. Jo finds the desert landscape, wildlife, light and colour a continual source of inspiration and delights in developing a narrative in her work from these offerings. The images, marks and symbols in her acrylic and mixed media work are loosely based on the marks and images in the ancient petroglyphs and/or the desert environment. Jo’s award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and nationally in solo and juried shows and she has work included in private and corporate collections in the USA. Jo is also a member of the Border Artists group in Las Cruces and exhibits regularly with the group throughout the region.
Marlies Oakley Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia
Marlies was born in West Berlin in 1964, moving to London in 1997 and then on to Sydney in 2001. It was only when she hit the shores of Australia that she started to follow her creative instincts and enrolled at the National Art School in Sydney. After graduating with honours in painting, she and her husband decided they wanted a new challenge and lifestyle and moved to the relative peace and quiet of Bundaberg, to take up the reins of the thriving local Art business, where Marlies spends much of her time running classes for artists ranging from 8 to 80. The move to Bundaberg has allowed Marlies to immerse herself full time in her art practice, and pursue her main passions of mixed media and collage work. Her subject matter tends to focus on either kitsch objects or iconic figures, and where possible a combination of the two and often explores the boundaries between the concept of good and bad taste.
Nolan Winkler Hillsborough, New Mexico, USA
During her long arts career Nolan has lived and worked in many places; the small town of Hillsborough, in south western New Mexico is her current home. Nolan’s creative pursuits have taken her to Italy, California, Arizona and New Mexico, where she won scholarships to work under master printmaker Garner Tullis and painter Nathan Oliveira at the Santa Fe Institute for Fine Arts. She has been awarded numerous artist in resident fellowships across the USA and in Mexico. Nolan’s beautiful mixed media artworks provide a unique blend of whimsical storytelling and atmospheric details of the landscape. http://www.nolanwinkler.com/index.html
Sue Hutton Cordalba, Queensland, Australia
Sue moved from the city to Cordalba many years ago in search of a life more in tune with nature, and has been quietly working away in her studio ever since. Her environment soon enticed her to experiment beyond her painting, and she began making paint from the red earth that is synonymous with Childers, applying it to paper and canvas, dyed fabrics and rubbing it into wooden boxes to house assemblages. Now moving between drawing, printing, small assemblages, photography, digital images and lately ceramics, Sue continues to return to painting. Sue also loves making artist books, allowing the possibility of combining various visual techniques with words telling stories.
Trevor Spohr Maryborough, Queensland, Australia
Trevor is passionate about all forms of artwork, although he is best known for his ceramics and finely crafted sculptures. Trevor’s work utilises a variety of different media including glass, metal and timber; sometimes taking unrelated objects and combining them to make something new. Trevor has designed and created many public artworks, and has also been responsible for initiating and managing a number of public art projects in the Wide Bay Region. His work investigates a wide range of different themes, depending on his current interests or specific project requirements. Trevor is a man of many talents, whose skills also include exhibition curator and theatre set design and construction.
Virginia Maria Romero Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Born in 1952, Virginia spent most of her adult life in New Mexico, and has lived in Las Cruces since the early 1990s. Her artwork is inspired by the culture of New Mexico and her Polish/Irish heritage, all filtered through Virginia’s own unique experiences. She first began to make devotional retablos in the late 1990s, using natural pigments on pine panels and based on traditional recipes for paints, gesso, and piñon varnish. Virginia is one of only a handful of non-Hispanic artists to master traditional New Mexican santero techniques and is recognised throughout the southwest as an accomplished santera. In addition to her retablos, Virginia also produces traditional New Mexican bultos, ceramic tiles, acrylic paintings and sculpture. Her works are held in public and museum permanent collections, as well as numerous private collections throughout the United States and Italy, including The Vatican. Virginia is also a published poet, and in 2013 was recognized as a distinguished Artist and Poet by the American Council for Polish Culture. www.virginiamariaromero.com
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS FROM 2013
Dave Sorensen Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Only recently arrived in Las Cruces from much further north (Hampton, Virginia) Dave has settled right into his new home and has been busy in his studio. Landscape is his preferred subject matter and his primary medium is watercolour, but he has also worked in oil and acrylic, sculpted and designed mobiles, and is an avid art collector. His self-taught approach to watercolour involves building up many layers on heavy, absorbent paper to achieve the richness and depth of his colours. Dave has developed a close personal association with Australia, born of a road trip undertaken in his youth, which has seen him return time and again. http://www.artsconnect.com.au/davidsorensen
J. Carey Crane Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
J. Carey Crane grew up around his artist-professor father’s studio, yards from Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg, Florida. Though surrounded by art and masks from around the world, his first loves were cartoons, comics and painting scale model airplane pilots and camouflage. In college, Crane discovered that an abstract approach to painting/collage seemed natural to him as he was reintroduced to free-flowing paint. After graduating from the University of Florida, Crane became an exhibits fabricator for museums and a zoo, creating models, dioramas, murals, and environments. Crane has lived, worked, and painted in Florida, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and now New Mexico. His studio is his own backyard, and Crane describes himself as primarily as a “non-figurative” artist who is strongly informed by my environment. For more examples of Crane’s art go to: www.cranepaints.com.
Peggy Brown Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA
Settling in ‘The Land of Enchantment’ (New Mexico) in the late 1990s, Peggy has previously lived in Missouri, Kansas, Texas and California, plus six years in tropical Australia as “an artist and swimming pool addict!” After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree Peggy worked variously at graphic, interior and jewellery design, and sign painting. It was during her time living ‘down under’ she discovered hand papermaking, silk painting and fabric dying, subsequently studying and exhibiting with two Townsville based artists; May Langeland and Rhelma Fraser. Handmade paper has come to play a large part in Peggy’s work, which is held in private collections in the USA and Australia.
Wide Bay - High Desert 