Arts Artist Honour Page - L to Z

MARIA LURIGHI

Maria Lurighi studied opera with Peter Rorke at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education and in Hobart with Russell Smith.

She has performed with artists such as Brachi Tilles, David Kramm, Natalia Afeyan, Hartmut Lindemann and Ben Martin in venues including the VCA Opera Studio and Melba Hall.

After travelling to Europe for a few years, she made a return to Tasmania. Maria sings opera, jazz, soul and blues, teaches at the Conservatorium of UTAS and coaches the Southern Gospel Choir.
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ANNE MACDONALD

Anne MacDonald studied Fine Art at the Tasmanian School of Art, UTAS, where she completed a Masters in 1983. The following year she began lecturing at the Tasmanian School of Art, where she currently coordinates the Honours Program.

Anne MacDonald explores the relationship between still life, transience and mortality in series of photographic installations focusing on the potential for decorative consumer objects to act as metaphors for thoughts and emotional states in still life photographs.
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LAURA MCCUSKER

Laura McCusker is an international award winning furniture designer and maker based in Hobart, Tasmania.

Recently named one of the Faces of Design 2010, she has exhibited regularly over her career including at The Sydney Powerhouse Museum as a finalist in the Sydney Morning Herald's Young Designer of the Year Award (2002), the winner of belle magazine's inaugural New Functional Design Award (2003) and at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery as part of the City of Hobart Art Prize (2004)
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MICHAEL MCWILLIAMS

Michael McWilliams' exquisitely painted works have the aura of precious collectors' items. This is not only because he decorates antique pieces that are in themselves collectables - cupboards, chests, tables - anything from clocks to cellos really - but because of his meticulous craftsmanship and the distinctive quality of his creative imagination.

Born and educated in Tasmania, McWilliams' distinctive and unique work has been featured in several national exhibitions and has been included in numerous art awards, including the Wynne Prize for Landscape in 2010 and 2008; winner of the inaugural John Glover Award in 2004, as well as being a finalist in 2006 (honourable mention), 2008 and 2010
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MISH MEIJERS

Mish Meijers is an inter-disciplinary artist based in Hobart, Tasmania. Her solo practice experiments in surface tensions: how one material conforms or abrades against the matter of another. Whether in actuality, or within conceptual content, she distorts the inherent worth and significance of her objects with regard to popular culture, gender determination and functionality, in an alchemic and at times discordant sensibility to construct her sculptural tableaux. Meijers was a 2009 CAST studio resident and in 2008 she was awarded the McCulloch studio residency in Paris.
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JOHN SMITH

A designer/maker for the past 40 years, John Smith currently works from his studio producing one-off furniture pieces. He established the Design in Wood/ Furniture Design programme in the early 80s, the first of its kind in Australia. He taught for many years as the Head of the Centre for Furniture Design at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania, and is now an Honorary Research Associate.

His work is represented in national and international, public and private collections and through numerous public art commissions. He has curated a number of major national and international travelling exhibitions, and has received several awards, grants and overseas residencies.
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PENNY SMITH

Penny Smith has been a practising designer/maker in ceramics for about 40 years. Currently running her own studio, she produces limited editions, one-off exhibition works and public commissions. She was Head of the Ceramics Studio and the Ceramic Research Unit at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania, where she currently holds an Honorary Research Associate position.

She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics, is represented in numerous national, international, private and public collections. She has held several solo exhibitions, in Australia and overseas. Her work has been published widely in catalogues, books and magazines.
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JENNY TOPFER

Jenny is an oil painter working from her studio 'Cloudstone' outside Hobart. Her gentle, contemplative work is made in response to the textures of the places we inhabit, focusing on the process of making using surface and line. The history of the paintings is evident in the build of of marks and layers. They track the passage of time and the process of coming into their own being, creating a connection between the artist and the viewer.
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TRICKY WALSH

Tricky Walsh builds circuits.
Her installation practice is either;
A composition of interconnecting components that construct conceptual and interdependent environment/relationships.
Or
Assemblages of (made) deconstructive machines that illustrate a system of social and architectural orthopaedics.
Sometimes both.

She also paints, makes comics and films
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STEWART WELLS

Stewart Wells is a Tasmanian environmental artist and designer, using photography as his medium. Raised in Hobart and trained at the Tasmanian School of Art his work is informed and inspired by pattern, texture and the impact he sees around the Tasmanian natural environment.
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PETER WHYTE

Fresh from photographing the entire MONA art collection over the past 4 years, along side his busy photography practice, and just having been selected in the Graphis 100 Best in Photography 2011 in New York, Peter Whyte has recently exhibited at Handmark Gallery in collaboration with jewellery designer Linda van Niekerk.
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BELINDA WINKLER

Belinda Winkler is a ceramist, sculptor and object designer. Within her multidisciplinary practice, she works across a diverse range of media and scales, from porcelain through to fibreglass, steel, bronze, Lycra and concrete and from intimate scale through to architectural.

The integration of sculptural form into design and architecture underpins much of Belinda's work. Her practice crosses the boundaries between art and design to produce sculptures, vessel forms, architectural installations and large-scale public art commissions. Her work is held in public and private collections nationally.
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SARA WRIGHT

Born in 1979 in the Shenandoah Valley, Sara Wright received her Bachelor of Arts (Ceramics) and minor in Industrial Design at Virginia Tech State University. In 2003 Sara migrated to Australia for love and struck up an intimate relationship with Southern Ice Porcelain. She is represented by Handmark Gallery and is the recipient of several Arts Tasmania grants and the Cast Youth Craft Mentorship. She has won the People's Choice Award in the 2007 Design Island exhibition, been 1 of 14 selected nationally to exhibit in the Hobart Art Prize in 2010 and received the MONA Scholarship in 2010.
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PAUL ZIKA

Paul Zika's studio-based research is concerned with a radical fusion of surface and form, in stark contrast to Modernist notions of decoration as embellishment.

Over the last twenty years, series of artworks have emerged in direct response to field trips and residencies overseas. The Post Italy series (1990-94) followed a residency in Tuscany and Rome; the Monstrance series (1995-98) developed in response to time spent in Prague; the Cornucopia series (1998-2003) post Barcelona; the Niscemi series (2003-6) post Sicily; the Tarabuco/Jalq'a series (2007-9) post Bolivia and Peru; and most recently the Terme series post Rome and Naples (2010-)
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