FARMER STREET OPEN STUDIO

Farmer Street Studio's six artists present paintings and sculptures in an Open Studio over the weekend 31 October to 1 November.

The current studio artists are established and emerging artists, each have distinctive styles, media and genres. Small and large paintings and sculptures range from realism and figurative to abstract and conceptual. Work by these artists can be found in many public and private collections in Australia and overseas, including the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Read more about the current Artists...

FRANCES DENNIS has an enduring enthusiasm for experimenting with oil paint creating a unique visual language. This creates space to muse and hypothesise and recognise. A Western Australian born painter and sculptor working between landscape and portraiture genres, she is a ECU graduate. Frances has exhibited widely, winning sculptural and painting prizes, including an exhibition at the 2017 Chianciano Art Expo in Chianciano Terme, Tuscany, Italy. Frances's artwork is in private collections in Australia and overseas, and she has been a studio member for nearly 25 years.

LAUREN JANE SALT is an emerging Boorloo-based ceramic artist who draws upon mythology, anthropology and cultural memory.  New work considers the relationship between revelation and authority, and the ways religious and mythological narratives construct ideas of virtue, transgression, judgement and consequence. In November, her second solo exhibition will be at the Current Gallery, Fremantle. Within Farmer Street Studio, Salt teaches inclusive and sensitive hand-building and ceramic sculpture classes for all. 

SARAH JANE MARCHANT is a contemporary landscape painter, trained as an Illustrator in the UK, before falling in love with the Kimberley in 2002. Previously interpreting the Kimberley landscape and Boab tree through the lens of a personal narrative, the last 12 months has seen a transition to a traditional painterly perspective influenced by frequent driving Indian Ocean Drive to Moore River. Returning to painting “in” the landscape and her illustration roots is a welcomed chance, illustrating similarities to the British countryside and so connecting to her distant UK family. Sarah has exhibited extensively across Australia and has work in private collections around the world. Sarah has run popular acrylic painting classes from her space at Farmer St (and previously Robertson Park) since 2013. 

CAROL ROWLING creates abstract textural paintings inspired by aerial perspectives, using Pilbara and Kimberley region ochres. Her work has no narrative and is open to viewers' subjective interpretation. Carol studied Art and Design at Carine TAFE and Claremont School of Art, exhibiting extensively nationally and internationally at private galleries and art fairs including Sydney, London, Madrid, Bologna and Galway. She held a solo at Turner Galleries and Collie Art Gallery in 2018 and has been a studio member since 2000.

GRAHAM HAY speculates metaphilosophically on the simultaneous interplay of fragility and strength, while sculpting in ceramic covered alloy. His work featured in 23 textbooks and many international art journals. His artwork has won 23 awards and acquired by public collections in ten countries, after exhibitions or biennales across 18 countries. The Open Studio offers viewers a unique chance to see all together his multi-award-winning larger Mortal Coils series. 

CHRISTOPHER MCCLELLAND uses traditional oil painting techniques to create lush oceans and landscapes disrupted with surreal or discordant inclusions. ​A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne University he has completed post-graduate studies in Florence and Paris. A multi-award winning artist with over 20 solo exhibitions in Australia and overseas over the last 40 years, he is represented in public and private collections in Australia, Europe and the United States. 

Find out more.