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In this episode of Art Wank, we focus on Australian artists Michelle Cawthorn and Peter Sharp and their recent creative residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut, USA. Together, they reflect on how this experience produced a new body of work and the opportunity to explore the foundations archives. 

During her residency at the Albers Foundation, Cawthorn immersed herself in collage of birds and particularly focussed on the work of Anni Albers. Sharp engaged directly with the legacy of Josef Albers, exploring how colour, geometry and perception can reveal new ways of seeing the landscape by painting on Albers book on colour, reinterpreting the pages for himself. 

Michelle Cawthorn – Bio

Michelle Cawthorn is a Sydney-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in drawing and extends across collage, painting, sculpture and installation. Her work explores memory, identity and belonging through an autobiographical lens, often using repetition, pattern and sensory triggers to evoke fragments of experience.

Cawthorn holds undergraduate degrees in Fine Art and Art Education from the University of New South Wales, and completed a PhD in Fine Arts in 2021. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in over sixty group shows across Australia. Her work is represented by OLSEN Gallery, Sydney.

Peter Sharp – Bio

Peter Sharp is an Australian artist whose practice has, for more than three decades, investigated how the natural world can be understood through abstraction. Working across drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture, Sharp captures the structural and rhythmic essence of nature rather than its surface appearance.

He holds a Bachelor of Art Education from the City Art Institute (now UNSW Art & Design) and a Master of Fine Arts from UNSW. Sharp has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally.

Join us as Michele Cawthorn and Peter Sharp share insights from their transformative experience at the Albers Foundation. 

Apply for the residency here.

Thanks, Peter and Michele, for speaking with us, it was a fascinating insight into your time at the Albers Foundation, and we’re really looking forward to seeing the work that emerges from the experience.