In 2022 Ballarat Evolve paired six artists with empty spaces across the centre of the city - turning space into art.
Meet the artists and learn more about their work.
Bell Ryan working in the Arthur Creative studios
Bell Ryan and Ronni Finch, Arthur Creative
26 Bridge Mall
Arthur Creative aims to encourage and facilitate high quality arts and cultural activity within Ballarat, whilst promoting a wider acceptance and participation in a professional arts context by people with disability.
About the artwork on the windows:
Bell Ryan - Painting - Untitiled
Bell Ryan has been working on a series of ink paintings that represent ‘all things natural’. The colours Bell uses are from nature, such as plants and human flesh (skin tones). Bell uses different tools for mark making, including brushes attached to sticks and bird feathers.
Ronni Finch - Painting – Abstract One
To make this abstact work I used ink to make the shapes,I got the idea when I was asked to experiment with ink, so I thought I would drop it onto paper and move it around andlet the ink run on the page. I wanted to give something different to the viewers that come to have a look at my work, and once the ind had dried I decided to use another medium which involved shading with pencil and lots of detail with fine liners.
Website: https://www.melbasupport.com.au/arthur-creative
Instagram:
Antayjo Art
10 Bridge Mall
I’m Ang the resident Australian artist, Illustrator, Surface Designer AND Overthinker at Antayjo Art. I create uniquely detailed art to quirk up your life and mine, that is Fashiony, Patterny, Flowery and Portraity.
My main focus areas right now are designing patterns that can be licensed by brands, creating art for your walls and ‘arting up’ OOAK wearable pieces. Being an Overthinker is actually what led me back to being creative after spending the best part of two decades not doing anything arty.
I was actually obsessed with art from an early age, drawing on anything I could get my hands on, my own jeans included! I thought I would follow an art path but after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree I ending up choosing a less frowned upon career. (I know right! Regrets!!)
It was not until I had my second child that I realised I needed a creative outlet and my love/obsession with art came flooding back. The ‘Antayjo’ in Antayjo Art is actually a mash up of mine and my children’s names as they inspired me!”
About the artwork on the windows:
"1. The Girls. This piece was inspired by my love of fashion. I can not sew to save my life but I often draw outfits that I would love to make and wear. Some days my confidence is through the roof and other days it is rock bottom but on those days I draw how I want to feel everyday.
2. The Journey. This piece is a representation of the journey some people face medically (specifically Cancer related) and I wanted to show the beauty of life despite the struggles. Incorporating fashion once again and using lots of details to draw my stress away to combat overthinking about my Fathers diagnosis.
Website: https://antayjoart.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antayjoart/
Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/antayjoart
Spencer Harrison
324 Sturt Street
Spencer Harrison is a visual artist whose work distils colour, form and space into ordered abstract structures that reflect on our lived urban experience. His visual language draws on the world around us, referencing design, architecture, science and the built environment. Within his works, Harrison explores tensions between minimalism and maximalism, order and chaos, contemplating the role these forces play in the modern world. Employing a range of methodologies of making across painting, digital video, sculpture and installation, the works he creates questions the nature of abstraction and its relationship to contemporary life.
About the work on the windows:
But Don’t You Wish You Could (Hit) Escape, 2021 is an installation of digital video works that explore our relationship to the screen and our addiction to alluring online content. Each looping animation embraces the bright luminous colours of the RGB colour system to create a series of works that are native to digital screens. The animations utilise the 16:9 rectangle as a formal element in the works, drawing attention to the ubiquity of this shape in our daily lives. Each video is intentionally short and looping, referencing our ever-shortening digital attention spans and the rise of tik-tok style videos. As we spend more and more time staring at screens these works ask; how can we escape these ever present screens? or do we even really want to?
Website: https://spencerharrison.art/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spenceroni/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spenceroni/
Marce King
the unicorn 131 Sturt St, Ballarat Central VIC 3350
Marce is a portrait and figurative artist living and working in Ballarat.
The hands featured on the window are all titled 'Universal' and are about human connection. There is no definitive gender or race in these images showing that connection is why we are here, it's what gives us purpose and meaning in our lives, this need and desire should surpass any of our differences.
“Drawing in any medium is my preferred technique but I LOVE printmaking and majored in Printmaking, specifically Lithography at University. For me it adds another layer of emotional energy to an artwork. The tactile nature of it adds to the physical experience of creating.”
About the artwork on the windows:
“As well as exploration of general human existence, a very strong aspect of my work is exploring the lives of the LGBTIQ+ people and communities through my work. Their experiences, their lives, and the emotional aspect of their personal journeys. I identify as Transgender and nonbinary so my work also reflects my own personal experience. My work expresses and challenges, gender, identity, belonging and the social constructs around binary identification.”
Website: https://www.markingart.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marce_king_art/
Jenna Oldaker
NORWICH PLAZA
Through her art, Jenna, who is a Wadawurrung Traditional Owner, expresses her deep connection and love for her culture, country, and heritage. Every piece created by Jenna comes from her heart and strong connection to Wadawurrung culture. Her passion is to create each work with its own individual story and meaning.
Based in Ballarat on Wadawurrung Country, Jenna uses a mixture of both traditional and contemporary colours to create unique and detailed artworks. Working primarily with acrylic paints on canvas, Jenna enjoys creating new pieces using a variety of forms and dimensions.
About the artwork on the windows:
Ton – Ton (Brain), Acrylic on Canvas
This artwork is a representation of the inner workings of the mind coming to life in colour. The traditional U shapes represent people on Country, as they move around the tracks weaving back and forth across the land sharing their stories and culture. The variety of different colours and shapes are used to illustrate diversity and the celebration of individual expression.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murrup_art
Email: murrup_art@outlook.com
Emily Van Der Molen
428a Sturt Street
Emily is an artist, maker and seeker of visual wonder who sees the world through a kaleidoscopic filter.
She finds things like the iridescence hiding within a seashell, the rainbow swirl of an oil stain on the road, or a prismatic reflection cast mysteriously on a wall entrancingly magical, and squirrels away the imagery in her minds eye to later inform her visual works.
The media and techniques she engages in her work are vast and varied. Having been raised amongst strong, crafty women, traditional crafts play a proud role in her creativity, while a lifetime of making pictures and studying art bring a solid repertoire of painting and drawing skills to her creative table.
Emily’s subject matter repeatedly circles back to the domestic realm, with a focus on gardens and florals. A childhood of being dragged to plant nurseries, absorbing plant knowledge by osmosis, playing in the gardens of generations of her family before inheriting an enormous garden of her own have left an indelible mark on her DNA.
And gratefully, her work.
About the artwork on the windows:
Through the act of gardening; through nurturing, tending and noticing, we become anchored in the present, while maintaining an eye to the future.
Gardens teach us about the beauty of imperfection and the delicate balance between nature and nurture, and within this relationship become immersive, healing, sensory spaces.
These works explore this fragile place between surrender and control, and invite the viewer into the wonder of cultivated chaos.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyvandermolen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilyvandermolenartist
Website: https://www.emilyvandermolen.com.au
TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSd1eDnUb/
