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Lily Cummins is an artist from the  Southern Highlands.  We had a great chat about studying and residencies.  Her practise examines both the self and the emotive bonds and attachments

Lily feels that she attaining a Masters has given her practise a great deal of rigger,
It really helped her grow as an artist and a person to keep studying and gain a masters.

Lily studied at NAS and graduated from her masters in 2018
you can find Lily on her website
http://www.lilycummins.com

Lily is inspired and likes a huge spectrum of artists - Folk and Outsider art  James Castle, Miro, Matisee, Rachel Whiteread, William Kentridge. 

Lily also works at the new art space in the southern highlands - The fantastic space called Ngununggula in Bowral.

https://www.ngununggula.com

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Thanks to Utopia Gallery and Helen Eager for showing us your work and talking to us at your amazing studio. 

'Helen Eager has sustained a solo exhibition program for over three decades with her drawings, paintings and prints. Over the years, the shift from domestic interiors to pure abstraction has been a consistent evolution, her love of colour and light a constant thread.

Helen Eager studied at the South Australian School of Art in the 1970s. A Masters degree at COFA in the late eighties focused on large-scale works on paper, which took her drawing to a new level. A residency at the Greene St Studio in New York in 1988 was pivotal as Eager's work evolved towards pure abstraction.'

Helens work can be found on the Utopia website https://www.utopiaartsydney.com.au/artworks.php?artistID=7-Helen-Eager

  Helen is a part of Vivid this year - her work will be on the 

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Marina Debris is a great pseudonym for this American, Australian-based artist and activist. She uses trash washed up on the beach to create 'trashion', such as in 2020, a dress made out of hundreds of discarded face masks. Marina has also created installation work, such as, 'The Inconvenience Store', for Sculpture by the Sea, which was a mock-up shop, created with re-used materials displaying trash for sale. She is a passionate advocate for recycling, reuse, and buying less. She has used art as a medium to talk about, teach and create discussion around environmental issues and animal rights.

We had a great chat about all things 'rubbish!',  thanks, Marina.

Marina has a Wikipedia page with all her publications and information so check it out here. 

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We spoke to Malcolm Greenwood at his studio in Mosman. What a lovely man. He showed us around his amazing studio full of pots, bowls, and plates, some of 400 makes a week for Australia's top restaurants and hotels such as Bennelong and the Baillie Lodges Group. He started out in business management and then a realisation that his health was suffering from the stress he started his journey in ceramics. We talked to him about the perception of ceramics in Australia, how he makes his ceramics, mentorship, and much more. it was a great chat and we were so happy to meet Malcolm and learn about his successful career and how he gives back by teaching master classes.

'Malcolm Greenwood began working with clay while studying for a degree in Business Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in 1976. After moving to Boston, he began studying various Japanese pottery techniques with visiting Japanese potter, Makoto Yabe, including throwing, ‘neriage’, glaze formulation, and firing techniques.

While living in Nigeria (1978 to 1979) Malcolm built a wood-fired kiln, producing pots using local materials. In addition he traveled throughout much of West Africa, studying the traditional pottery techniques and various collections of antique and contemporary pottery. The form and texture of many of the African pots have had an influence on the development of his work.

On returning to the U.S.A. in 1979, he again worked with Makoto Yabe. During this period Yabe’s most significant influence on his professional development as a potter, was with regards to the philosophy of making and firing pots.

Malcolm returned to Australia in 1980, working in clay on a part-time basis until 1989, when he left the corporate world, finally, to begin a career as a full-time as a potter.'

malcolmgreenwood.com

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Misha Harrison is an artist from Wollongong, NSW, specialising in assembled plywood artworks. She carefully cuts, carves, sands, stitches and paints her artworks into life, depicting still life, portraiture, and abstraction. We spoke to Misha at a live interview at Sydney Road Gallery back in Feb, and at Fiona and I's exhibition back in February. Misha drove all the way from Wollongong and back to speak with us, thanks, Misha!!!! Since then she won the Jumbledonline 2022 Superstar competition, so we spoke to her again over zoom for this podcasts interview to ask her about that.

Misha's exhibition starts on May 5th at Sydney Road Gallery, Balgowlah, so go see it! 

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Michelle Connolly studio is so awesome, full of her assembled sculptures, paintings and creations. It's like stepping into a theatre, full of characters and stories between them. Michelle is very interested in outsider art, she sees something in that kind of work that she recognises. We had a great chat with her about living in the USA in North Carolina and how that shaped her work,  about how she makes her pieces with a variety of found objects and materials, her studio practice, and much more. She is a fascinating artist, bursting with creativity and life. 

Thanks for talking to us , Michelle, we loved meeting you and visiting your wonderful studio. 

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We had a fabulous chat with Donna Green in Utopia Gallery, Waterloo, surrounded by her beautiful exhibition, Vessel, which is on at the gallery from 2nd April - 30th April. Go have a look at these amazing ceramics, collages, and drawings, all speaking to each other in a visceral way. We talked to Donna about living in New York, how she came to ceramics, the technicalities of making her work, being a woman in the art world, and all things art! What a lovely woman, talented, humble, and forging new paths with her art! Very exciting to see. She is very inspiring! 
 
'Donna Green's ceramic vessels, although seemingly abstract, are all based on vases and urns that permeate human cultural history.

Thrown and altered, the bulbous shapes are melded into contorted, ambiguous forms. Glazes rich in colour, metallic or glossy, matte or layered, drip and pour over the surfaces.

Donna Green is included in the current "Clay Dynasty" exhibition of Australian Ceramics at the Powerhouse.' - Whats on Sydney

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Hedley Roberts is an artist from the Uk - he is based in Margate in Kent. His first introduction to art was an encyclopaedia on art that his parents bought him when he was 10 years old. 

We had such a fabulous chat with him about what being an artist is and how its evolved over time.

He simply states that you need
Time, Space and a network of people.

Hedley says find the activity that takes you back to core, a safe place it maybe drawing or reading, taking photographs, writing in a note book, scrapbooks  - as you will have bumps in the road - find the thing that is unchallengeable and then you can use this when you hit those bumps.

He is an artist who has been working for many years. He is predominantly interested in painting although he studied printmaking - he is an academic who has studied for a very long time, he first went to art school at 15 years old and did a degree at Central Saint Martins with the artist Helen Chadwick, and also attended the Royal College of Art and ended up lecturing after his masters at 23 years old.

You can find out more about Hedley on his website.

https://www.hedleyroberts.co.uk.

Hedley talks about what kind of artist do you want to be in the book Navigating the Art World which you can order from Delphian Gallery - see link below.

https://delphiangallery.com/artists/


The artist support pledge is a UK concept you can find out more about it here https://artistsupportpledge.com

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We interviewed Billy Bain in 2021 for a public live stream with Northern Beaches Council Creative Tool Kit, a professional development scheme for creatives in the area.  Before the interview, we visited Billy's studio in Avalon to see the new work he is creating for his upcoming show, 'Being Manly', at Manly Art Gallery and Museum opening March 25th. His ceramic creations and paintings depict characters or identities of Australian sport, the pub and beach culture. Billy has a background in Australian surf culture, previously competing at a high level before realising his calling was in the arts. 

Thanks Billy for chatting with us and doing the live stream with us and we cant wait to see the exhibition!

'Mythologies of the Australian male have long been ingrained in our country's national post-colonial identity. Stoic, white, able-bodied, and heteronormative. But what defines the Aussie bloke nowadays? And more importantly, what does it mean to be a bloke that falls outside the archaic definitions of what being an Australian man entails?

Billy Bain explores representations of Australian masculinity through taking perceptions of the Australian male and playfully deconstructing them. By interrogating and subverting representations of the Australian male in popular culture and the everyday suburban life he exists within, Bain seeks to create works that humour our Australian sense of identity. By “taking the piss” out of these perceptions of who he is meant to be, Bain reclaims power and autonomy over his sense of identity as an Indigenous man..

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Matthew Wright is from Western Australia he began his creative  life by studying Jazz music at University.  He did a short course in painting and has been working away building his painting practise.

He is a self taught - you can find out about his visual art practise from his website
 https://www.matthewwrightart.com

You can also find Matthew on social media - here is his instagram link.

https://www.instagram.com/matthewwrightart/?hl=en

Many thanks for the chat Matthew it was heaps of fun we love your laid back WA style - best of luck with the growth of your art career. 

Fiona and Julie