Kim Ah Sam
Born 1967 in Meanjin/Brisbane. Language groups Kuku Yalanji and Kalkadoon.
Lives and works in Tulmur/Ipswich, Queensland
Kim Ah Sam’s multidisciplinary practice spans weaving, printmaking and sculpture and is underpinned by a desire to strengthen her ties to the people and land of her grandmother’s Kuku Yalanji Country, and her father’s Kalkadoon Country, from which she was estranged in her early life. Her improvisational weaving technique is characterised by her experimental use of found and sourced materials to create forms that suggest topographical features of her Country. Overlaying these landscapes with references to her own body, Kim entwines herself into these new representations of country and kin.
Kim graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in 2018, having obtained a Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art in 2017. She undertook a residency at the Museum of Brisbane in 2022 and has been produced public commissions for Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane; Ipswich City Council Sculptures; and Queensland Rail Airport line mural, Brisbane. Recent exhibitions include Woven Identity “it’s not only me”, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2023; YARN, Craft Victoria, Melbourne 2023; Faceless, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, Cairns Art Gallery, 2022; Supercut x Kim Ah Sam, Outer Space, Brisbane; and Hatched, Perth Institute Contemporary Art, Perth, 2019.
Kim Ah Sam is represented by Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne.
Andy Butler
Born 1987 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne
Andy Butler’s practice employs moving image, performance, painting and text to consider strategies for maintaining hope and optimism at a time of political upheaval. With a focus on the political currents of the Indo-Pacific region, his work probes the machinations of power, imperialism, capital, and the cultural narratives, structures and institutions that maintain them.
Andy has undertaken several international residencies including with Asialink, Manila, Philippines; Jogjakarta, Indonesia; Powerhouse, Sydney; Artspace Aotearoa, New Zealand; and the Humboldt Forum, Berlin. Recent exhibitions include This is the house that jack built, Artspace Aotearoa, New Zealand2024 (forthcoming); Collective Unease, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2022–2023; Housewarming, Arts House, Melbourne, 2021; All-in-One Solution for Glowing Fairness, Bus Projects, Melbourne, 2019; Hyphenated, The Substation, Melbourne, 2018.
Andy’s art practice is complimented by his work as a writer and curator. His writing on art and politics has been published to wide acclaim, including in frieze, Art + Australia and more. He was previously curator and Artistic Director (Acting) at West Space, Melbourne, with recent independent curatorial projects at the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne and UTS Gallery, Sydney.
Teelah George
Born 1984 in Boorloo/Perth
Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne
Teelah George’s practice employs paint, textile, bronze and found objects, responding to glitches and slippages in the documentation and recounting of history and memory. Drawing on historical records and visual art, she has an ongoing interest in material culture, as well as collections and archives as a point of departure in her practice. Teelah unpacks historical understandings of material relationships and the stories that they tell. Engaging with specific ideas, objects or works, she aims to subvert material and contextual hierarchies in an effort to create new potentialities.
Teelah was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Curtin University of Technology, Perth in 2007. She has undertaken numerous residencies, including at Artspace, Sydney; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; and Fremantle Arts Centre. Recent exhibitions include Inner Sanctum: 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at Art Gallery of South Australia; Melbourne Now 2023, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Living Patterns, Contemporary Australian Abstraction, Queensland Art Gallery 2023; Nightshifts, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne 2022; and Pliable Planes: Expanded textiles and fibre practices, University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney 2022.
Teelah George is represented by Neon Parc, Melbourne.
Alexandra Peters
Born 1990 in Warrnambool, Victoria
Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne
Alexandra Peters is a painter and sculpture situated within the field of expanded painting through the interrogation of support structures and framing devices. Adopting the materials and methods of mass industry, Peters probes hierarchies of value and toys with notions of the artist’s unique subjectivity, so embedded in Western lineages of painting. Her stealth employment of the mechanical processors of reproduction hijack and obscure content across the pictorial plane, as she traces the purlieu of the suburban terrain.
Peters completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at Monash University, Melbourne in 2022, where she was the recipient of the Monash University Museum of Art Award and the Megalo Print Award. She has undertaken several residencies including Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, 2023, Megalo Print Studio, Canberra, 2023 and AqTushetii, Tusheti, Georgia, 2018.
Recent exhibitions include Blowback, Asbestos, Melbourne, 2024; Syrup_001, Syrup Contemporary, Sydney, 2024; Before a Thud, Conners Conners, Melbourne, 2024; Mildura Atrocity Exhibition, NAP Contemporary, Mildura, 2023; Hatched: National Graduate Show, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, 2023; CC: All, Cool Change Contemporary, Perth, 2023; Menagerie, Asbestos, Melbourne, 2023; A Strange World is Afoot Here Already, Propaganda Network, Tbilisi, 2019; Culture Vulture, Uznadze Studios, Tbilisi; and 100 Years of Pirosmani, Niko Pirosmani State Museum, Mirzaani, Georgia, 2018.
Nicholas Smith
Born 1990 in Djilang/Geelong, Victoria
Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne
Nicholas Smith investigates sexuality, queer identity and memory in his works, employing diverse media including ceramics and found materials. His materially rich assemblages weave references to his personal aesthetic and material inheritances, including the interiors and decor of regional suburban homes, symbolism and imagery associated with the Roman Catholic Church, crafts that have been passed down by maternal family members, along with 20th century décor and art lineages. These specific reference points can be read as deeply personal, but also speak to broader communal experiences. Nicholas’ charged tableaux aims to undermine culturally prescribed expectations of value and masculinity embedded in these traditions, while elevating that which is seductive, felt and libidinal within them.
Nicholas graduated with a Master of Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design, Los Angeles in 2022. In 2019, he was awarded the American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia AusArt Fellowship in support of his education in California. He and Jeremy Eaton collaborated on the Façade Commission at La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo in 2024.
Recent exhibitions include Idols, Hayden’s, Melbourne, 2023; The National 4: Australian Art Now, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2023; Queer: Stories from the NGV Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2022; Ribbons and Piss, ArtCenter MFA Thesis Exhibition, Los Angeles, 2022; Cooled pride, roused ardour, Bus Projects, Melbourne, 2018; I am crying, in collaboration with Jimmy Nuttall, Firstdraft, Sydney, 2017; Swaddle me, West Space, Melbourne, 2016; and Feint Understanding, TCB Art Inc., Melbourne, 2015.
Nicholas Smith is represented by Hayden’s, Melbourne.
Joel Sherwood Spring
Born 1992 on Gadigal Country/Sydney
Lives and works on Gadigal Country/Sydney
Joel Sherwood Spring is a Wiradjuri anti-disciplinary artist, who works collaboratively on projects that sit outside established notions of contemporary art and architecture, attempting to transfigure spatial dynamics of power through discourse, pedagogies, art, design and architectural practice. His discursive and spatial practice examines the contested narratives of Australia’s urban cultural and Indigenous history in the face of ongoing colonisation.
Joel received a Master of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney in 2018. He is a Co-Director of Future Method Studio, a collaborative and interdisciplinary practice working across architecture, installation and speculative projects. Joel was awarded the 2023 Church Emerging Art Prize for his work DIGGERMODE, 2022, which highlights the environmental impact of our digital world on Indigenous peoples. Recent exhibitions include Ten Thousand Suns: The 24th Biennale of Sydney, 2024; objects testify, UTS Gallery, Sydney, 2023; The Churchie Emerging Art Prize 2023, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2023; How I See It: Blak Art and Film, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, 2022-2023; 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2022; TERRA: Memory + Soil, in collaboration with Victoria Pham, West Space 2022; and Eavesdropping, Ian Potter Museum, University of Melbourne, 2018.
Salote Tawale
Born 1976 in Suva, Fiji
Lives and works on Gadigal Country/Sydney
Salote Tawale works across performance, moving image, painting and installation to probe ideas of self-representation. Humorously challenging stereotypes, she presents nuanced articulations of the complex negotiations around identity as a queer Fijian woman with settler-colonial heritage living in Australia. Salote’s recent works expand these concerns, acknowledging the growing significance of indigenous knowledge systems to individuals living in the diaspora in navigating this particular time and space.
Salote received a Master of Fine Art, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney in 2016 and aMaster of Fine Art, RMIT University in 2006, having completed a Bachelor of Media Arts, RMIT University in 2004. She undertook an Indigenous Visual and Digital residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta Canada and received the Inaugural 2017 Create NSW Visual Arts Midcareer/Established Fellowship. Salote recently undertook the Australia Council for the Arts six-month residency at ACME, London, focusing on colonial archives; Fijian Objects, imagery and written records.
Recent exhibition include Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 (upcoming); 8th Yokohama Triennale: Wild Grass: Our Lives, Yokohama Museum of Art, 2024; PHOTO2024: Exquisite Corpse, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne, 2024; I remember you, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2023; I don’t see colour, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, 2023; Love from here, Murray Art Museum, Albury, NSW, 2023; Made in Birningham/Made in Sydney, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, UK (collaboration with Museum of Contemporary Art Australia), 2022; Blue Assembly: Ocean Thinking, UQ Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 2022; and 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2021-2022.