Although based in Melbourne, Lisa’s practice has incorporated residencies in some of the world’s leading zoos including Zoo Atlanta, USA (1996 and 1997), Berlin Zoo, Germany (1997), Antwerp Zoo, Belgium (1999), and Kuala Lumpur Zoo, Malaysia (2000), and the Language Research Centre at Georgia University, USA (1997). These residencies have incorporated contact time with primates at each institution, directly informing the drawings, photographs and sculptural works produced. Lisa’s work is represented in numerous collections in Australia and internationally. In 2003 she was winner of the National Sculpture Prize at the National Gallery of Australia and the Mornington Peninsular Drawing Award.

"Descendant includes paintings and sculptures that examine cultural ambiguity through the visual representation of computer-generated objects. Descendant are living creatures that resemble mechanical parts or children’s toys. They have been given marks of “heads, eyes, mouths, arms, legs and tails” which project an animate quality to fabricate the unidentifiable autonomous being. The constructed beings thus may be akin to the insect/bird/fish/human/machine hybrids that represent a kind of futuristic creature. These objects are the descendants of artistic imagination and technological manipulation.

The objects are surrounded by the background flowers taken from traditional Chinese brocade patterns. The objects are presented in a diverse and fluid environment to portray a balance between the beauty and disturbance, certainty and ambiguity.

Descendant explores the techniques of traditional Chinese painting, ivory carving, and western oil painting are utilized to display cultural difference. In the representation of 3D objects on a 2D plane, Chinese ivory relief carving transcribes onto the surface of ivory panel the landscapes paralleling those found in Chinese paintings. It is a process in which the artist subtracts, or cuts away, superfluous material until the desired form or depth is reached. The Chinese artists have created a brilliant technique of composing a landscape and figures with restricted volume and depth strongly affected by the narrow dimensions of the ivory used. In Descendant I paint the same way as I have learned from ivory carving - to use the brush to ‘carve’ [paint] out the painting surface, as if carving an ivory relief or low relief sculpture. Thus to bring out a sense of 3D volume on the 2D surface, a visual illusionism expressed in the traditional Chinese art."

Deborah Paauwe and Mark Kimber are leading Australian photographers, both based in Adelaide. Variously described as enigmatic, seductive and erotic, Deborah’s images of young girls in gorgeous vintage costumes are powerful and unsettling explorations of friendships and the transition from child to womanhood. Mark’s nocturnal images of lone men create a simulation of the real, of a warped urban masculinity in which his ‘toy boys’ strut like models on a sidewalk catwalk. His use of theatrical lighting results in strong chiaroscuro effects that transform viewer into voyeur.

Guan Wei’s February 2004 exhibition formed an important part of the Perth International Arts Festival.

Guan Wei graduated in 1986 from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University. He first visited Australia in 1989 to take up a two-month residency at the Tasmanian School of Art. He was invited to undertake two further residencies in the early 1990s: one at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the other at the Canberra School of Art. Guan Wei became an Australian resident in 1993 under the Distinguished Talent Scheme.

He has held thirty solo exhibitions and has been included in numerous important contemporary exhibitions in Australia and internationally. Guan Wei has also been awarded many prizes including the Asia Link Grant, the Mosman Art Prize, the 39th Festival of Fisher’s Ghost Award and in 2002 he was awarded The Sulman Prize, from the Art Gallery of NSW. His work often refers to current social and environmental issues, made more potent by his experience of two vastly differing cultures. Throughout all he "aims for the trifecta of 'wisdom, knowledge and humour' in every painting."
[Linda Jaivin, Australian Art Collector, #20].

The limited edition screen printed image that Guan Wei has created for the 2004 Art Angels was inspired by a residency in New York, in 2003, where he witnessed a country embroiled in a controversial war. The print has strong links to other of his recent works in which he reworks maps, overlaying them with his symbols and figures and incorporating a political and historical narrative.

Collections include
National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Artbank, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of WA, Australian National University, Contemporary Art & Culture Centre Osaka, Geelong Gallery, Griffith University Qld, Monash University, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Parliament House Canberra, Tokyo Gallery Japan, University of NSW, University of Tasmania, University of Technology Sydney, University of Western Sydney.

Darren commenced his residency with The Church Gallery in early March and spent the following weeks photographing various sites around Perth to feature in his distinctive artworks. He selected a range of works featuring South Australia and, from his recent travels whilst undertaking his Masters Degree at the Chelsea School of Art, the UK to accompany his Perth photographs in this exhibition. Whilst in Perth Darren will also be working with students at the University of Western Australia, providing workshops and tutorials. He is a Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship recipient [2002] and has work in several major collections, including the National Gallery of Australia and most state collections.

Darren is a young Aboriginal artist based in Adelaide whose photographic work is becoming highly sought after by public and private collectors alike. He has become well known for his nocturnal images of ethereal figures standing in recognisable locations around Adelaide, the UK and now Perth. These ghostly figures, often of Darren and his wife, are created using a method of time-lapse photography. The resulting eerily lit photographs are loaded with meaning, often referencing issues of identity – personal, historical and cultural. A well-dressed Aboriginal man stands in front of a church, a memorial, or a historic building, signifying his integration into a white community and his detachment and alienation from it. Darren’s blurred figures also represent the endurance and losses of the Aboriginal people and their culture throughout the colonisation of Australia.

Darren has a strong interest in history, politics, philosophy and the cultural dynamics, including class inequities, which are prevalent in a particular place and time. He recently wrote that, “as an artist I don’t see my role is to change the world - but I do think that art can influence society both in a good or bad way in relation to their perceptions of superiority and class. I also don’t want to make people feel guilty about the class they may well be fortunate enough to be in, or guilty of – as some ‘post colonial artists’ do – the past mistakes resulting in the tragedy which happened to the Aboriginal people. As an artist I am happy to just create work which comments on the differences in our classes and societies, and in the inequalities that exist.”

Louise Paramor was the final artist in residence for 2004 in association with The Church Gallery Art Angels Incorporated and Edith Cowan University.

She stated about her work:

My latest work is a series of large collages. These are meticulously assembled using pre-hand-painted gloss paper which is cut into numerous shapes and then pasted to form images. This imagery comprises a variety of over-scaled interpretations of the Mills and Boon series’ covers, chosen specifically to highlight the awkwardly stereotypical scenarios of men and women in various settings and situations. This coupling of overt 'handmade-ness', using a cut-and-paste ’primary’ technique, with the obsessive iconic imagery results in a series that contradicts and subverts the stereotyped aesthetic representations employed by Mills and Boon. The works are at once equally earnest and comical, which can result in a rather ‘confounding’ experience for the audience.

Prior to this ‘couples’ series, the collage technique was developed while making the works for Mädchen Club in 2002 ­ an interpretation of the 'girlie' imagery that was the focus of my installations during the previous two years.

From afar, the FOREVERYOURS collages appear simply as large, glossy poster-style paintings. It is not until the viewer gets closer that the crude 'home-made’ texture from the hand-painted and hand-cut elements becomes apparent. Although the works loom large and colourful, they are a subtle play on popular culture; while appearing to conform to the expediency and sophistication of digital imagery, they actually embody its’ antithesis.

The collage work developed from my recent solo exhibitions, Heart-On (Perth, 2001 and Melbourne, 2003) and Outback Heat (Hanover, 2001), where decorative paper sculptures were juxtaposed against ‘girlie’ beach towels with embroidered titles from Mills and Boon romantic novels. These installations also juxtaposed ‘cheap’ materials with ‘vulgar’ elements to construct a referential framework to confront with formal clichés on eroticism in a highly exaggerated staging.

Hardy & Strong is a collaborative partnership between Charmaine Hardy and Simon Strong.
They are Swinburne School of Art graduates. Their work consists of the digital composition and manipulation of photographs into large, detailed works that are influenced by popular culture and commercial imagery. Ironic, facetious, and sometimes confronting, these images can be appreciated both for their surface of playful exuberance, and for their social critique. This photographic print is reprinted from an earlier work from their “Domestic Gods” exhibition at Span Galleries in 2000.

Collections include
National Gallery of Victoria, Rockhampton Gallery, Queensland, BHP, private collectors.

Carlier Makigawa is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary metalsmiths. She returned to Perth, her birthplace, to participate in a joint residency between The Church Gallery and Curtin University. The majority of Carlier’s works are wearable, in the form of rings, bangles and pins that have a sculptural and architectural presence. Their forms are inspired by nature, seed pods and buds, symbols of life and energy. This limited edition pin for the 2003 Art Angels is a fine example of her current work.

Collections include
many major pubic collections around Australia, Kyoto Museum of Modern Art Japan, Smithsonian Institute New York, Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts.

William Breen graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1992. He describes his paintings as being moments of “clarity, suspended in time and space, projected upon an emotive, urban landscape”. His urban landscapes of Perth and Fremantle will be exhibited in his solo exhibition at The Church Gallery in December 2003. They will be accompanied by a series of seductive, meditative landscapes that are dwarfed by clouded Victorian skies. William's series of etchings for the 2003 Art Angels featuring a florist shop front.

Collections include
Artbank, National Australia Bank, Loyola College, La Trobe University, and the Smorgan Collection.

Eugene Carchesio was the Artist in Residence during April 2002. His minimal, simplified forms and structures exude a quiet beauty and have a tough conceptual foundation that has not been overlooked by curators and collectors around the country. In 2001 Eugene was selected to represent Australia at the tenth Indian Triennale of Art in New Delhi and his work is held in many prestigious collections. Eugene was one of just three Australian artists included in the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002.

Eugene was born in Brisbane, where he still lives and works. He is a self-taught artist and musician who has been practicing since the early 1980s and quietly achieving national recognition. His artworks, including watercolours, collages, assemblages and sculptures, are also quiet and unassuming. Often created on an intimate scale, they are the product of his interest in the spiritual ‘interconnectedness of things’ and show a reductive analysis of conceptual art and abstraction. Works are loaded with possible interpretations about man in relation to nature and the cosmos. Eugene uses a number of recurring symbols in his artworks. The cone, the sphere, the cube. The cone, one of his most popular, represents human beings in general and himself.

His watercolours often express the simplicity and purity of geometric patterning in fresh, clean colours. Eugene sometimes incorporates words, letters or numbers into their surface, toying with the signifiers of language and meaning. His sculptural assemblages make use of discarded objects from everyday life, such as match boxes, paper or cardboard. By reusing them Eugene injects them with fresh vitality, giving them another chance at life, a life that incorporates their history, and a life that will deteriorate and fade like the first. As one critic mused, “His art flows blissfully against the tides of fashion.”

Collections include
Art Gallery of NSW, the Art Gallery of WA, the National Gallery in Canberra, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank, private collectors.

Rosslynd Piggott is an artist of international calibre, exhibiting at ARCO O2 in Madrid, the 1999 Liverpool Biennial, and has held solo exhibitions in Japan and Belgium. Her work is held in 25 major public collections. In 1998 the National Gallery of Victoria acknowledged Rosslynd with a major survey of her work, titled ‘Suspended Breath’. Whilst in Perth, Rosslynd spent four weeks working with ECU’s post graduate students at the Mount Lawley campus.

Rosslynd’s exhibition at The Church Gallery was comprised of two series of six digital inkjet prints, ‘Storm 2’ and ‘Tracing Sky’. Digital imagery is a new medium for this innovative artist, whose work also encompasses painting, sculpture and installation. Her work has been variously described as ‘subliminal’, ‘intuitive’, ‘transformative’, ‘feminine’ and ‘delicate’. It beguiles and seduces the viewer with its simplicity and enigmatic properties. These new powerful and romantic images are no exception. Rosslynd has referred to them as her ‘High Romantic’ period, however the works also reveal considerable intellectual restraint.

‘Storm 2’ is a series of prints that have evolved from her involvement in the 2001 Citylights project in Melbourne. Rosslynd discovered a photo booth in Melbourne’s China town that provided a range of digital landscape based backdrops for the sitter, which she utilised to create spontaneous and abstracted self portraits. These have been printed in a large scale format in an intense ultramarine blue.

‘Tracing Sky’ is a series of cloud studies based on photographs taken by Rosslynd. Within these she has created interventions that investigate notions of space, emptiness and metaphysical voids. The surface quality of these, and the ‘Storm 2’ prints, are important to Rosslynd. She chose to print them on cotton rag mat paper to give the images a velvety luminosity and sensuous surface, very much in keeping with their romantic themes.

Collections include
State Galleries of NSW, SA, WA, Qld, Vic and the National Gallery of Australia.

Helen Geier's work over the past decade has been investigating vision and perspectival systems, bringing together Western and Eastern ideas of vision and beauty. The resulting artworks are beautifully layered images evoking different cultural ways of interpreting what we see. Repeating imagery include an archway and a sensuous tree, however many works appear abstract, with floating shapes diffused with light.

The Canberra Museum and Gallery held a major survey of Helen’s work in 2000. Peter Haynes, the director, wrote the following about Helen’s work in the accompanying catalogue:
“The art of Helen Geier speaks of a finely honed and constantly inquiring aesthetic intellect. It is an art marked by strident polarities where the metaphysical and the physical coexist. The role and placement of each pictorial device are in ongoing active dialogue with all other devices present in the picture with the viewer and with the artist herself.”

Helen has work in many prestigious collections here and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Artbank, National Library of Australia, Newcastle Art Gallery, Holmes a Court Collection, Parliament House Collection ACT and the New England Regional Art Museum, who recently purchased the entire Dissolving View survey exhibition.