Australian Ceramics Association National Open Studio Weekend
Vacant Assembly resident artists will open their studios to the public during this epic annual, national weekend event.
Our potters Julie Smeros, Laura Pascoe will be joined by our resident team of interdisciplinary artists and makers, Sam Eyles, Sarah Seminutin, Chloë Waddell, Maria Nelson Molloy, Tracy McDowall, Tony White, Emily Devers and Isobel Kingswell. They will each have work on display available for purchase.
Julie Smeros Ceramics is a play of porcelain, cobalt and mythology. Her influences from her years living in Japan and her Greek heritage are merged to create functional and sculptural work. Her imagery and repeated motifs reflect the tradition of story telling from generation to generation and those found on Greek pottery.
Web: www.juliesmeros.com Instagram: @juliesmeros
Laura Pascoe Vacant Assembly co-director and resident artist is inspired by nature and particularly loves brushwork, layering and glaze alchemy. The majority of her work is wheel thrown and functional although she does also work with hand-built sculptural forms.
Web: www.brushandwheel.com.au Instagram: @brushandwheel
Sam Eyles, Vacant Assembly co-director and resident artist, creates layered abstract works through painting and drawing. His evolving process uncovers personal reflections, as gestural strokes of charcoal, pastel, and paint reveal hidden narratives. Eyles aims to disrupt and deconstruct, inviting viewers into a liminal space where past and future converge, fostering new perspectives.
Web: www.sameyles.com Instagram: @eylesy
Sarah Seminutin, Vacant Assembly co-director, is a multidisciplinary practitioner, working simultaneously in social work, communications, art, making and design. Sarah’s practice is multi-model, with a focus on recycled materials, exploring the ability to transform the ‘discarded' or ‘wasted’ into domestic objects that regain value and significant lifespan. She is driven by improved practices of play, connection, experimentation and tactility. Her work aims to bring sensory qualities to the forefront of the everyday experience.
Instagram: @blacktulipprojects
Chloë Waddell, is an artist, maker, jeweller and teacher who practices out of Vacant Assembly studios. Primarily process driven, it is the materials she is drawn to work with which usually determine the final form. It is the pure love of making which drives both her studio practice and her teaching, and that which is solidified in her made objects.
Web: www.cholewaddell.com Instagram: @chloewaddell
Maria Nelson Molloy is the director of the independent Nelson Molloy clothing studio and head of the Chasing Zero Project. Her studio supports a circular design space that focuses on ethical sourcing of materials and the making of beautiful and thoughtful items of clothing while the Chasing Zero Project explores the possibilities of zero waste in collaborative and creative ways that positively engage with the wider community.
Web: nelsonmolloy.com Instagram: @nelson_molloy
Tracy McDowall is an interdisciplinary artist working across mark making, ceramics, sculpture and works on paper.
Instagram: @tracymcdowall.artist
Tony White is an Australian artist with a background in education, marine biology and animation who works in several media including drawing and works on paper, painting and sculpture. He has a MAVA from Griffith University Queensland College of Art. His work seeks to act as a contemplative haven from the fast pace of modern life, and acknowledges the value of quiet reflection and imagination.
Instagram: @tonywhiteartstuff
Emily Devers is an Artist, Designer, and Arts facilitator based in Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia. Her practice sees the convergence of realism and abstraction, as she uses contemporary painting and collage techniques to explore the abstract realm.
Emily has developed a visual language integrating public (new-genre mural art) and private (institutional art) methodologies within an expanded painting practice. Recurring visual motifs such as the grid, erasure textures, the painter's drop sheet, repurposed urban detritus and safety red, appear as tactile symbols for the urban art experience in the Anthropocene, and markers of her history as a commercial mural artist who is now navigating the fine art world. This approach seeks to raise awareness for the inherent barriers we experience in public and private space, and how these barriers are visualised in contemporary compositions.
Emily has maintained a public art and graphic design practice for over 15 years, participated in multiple national and international residency projects, and assumed teaching positions in Brisbane's premiere design colleges, universities and as an Arts mentor for various councils. She holds a Certificate IV in Visual Arts, a Bachelor in Fine Art (Visual Arts) and is currently undertaking research as a Master of Visual Art at Queensland College of Art & Design.
Web: emily-devers.com Instagram: @emily.devers
Isobel Kingswell is an emerging visual artist living and working in Meanjin (Brisbane). Influenced by her University studies in Architecture, her painting practice considers connections between people and the places they occupy or share. Her current work is a way of safe keeping memories of place, embracing scenes where human building and nature intersect joyfully. She recreates these images in minimally abstracted, patterned and colourful compositions to unite those distinct categories.
Web: isobelkingswell.com Instagram: @isobel._k