Welcome to our PAST EXHIBITIONS page.

‘99 NAMES’

AYMAN KAAKE

photographic artist

“Your belief is a belief; my existence is a reality” – Divina De Campo, Drag queen.

 Homosexuality is still a crime in at least 74 countries, 13 of which impose death by public stoning as a penalty. “99 Names”, is a non-apologetic work for the double standard of society that we live in. An instalment which does not seek approval to accept homosexuality. This series is a testament on how we have been manipulated for years by hypocritical acts of atrocity whilst believers loudly quote from their holy books in the name of religion. They connect religion with politics to have control upon us. To fit their shiny image of love whilst criminalising the act of love.

Ayman Kaake

AYMAN KAAKE (he/him) is a queer award-winning Lebanon-born Australian photo-media visual artist currently based in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs. He explores diasporic melancholy and the agony of exile through contemplative portraiture and sculptural, styled poses. 

His many accomplishments include being finalist at the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 and 2023, Nillumbik Prize Contemporary Art 2023, Bowness Prize 2022 and 2023, the winner of Midsumma and Australia Post Award 2022, the winner of the small Work Art Prize at Brunswick Street Gallery 2022, the recipient of Room to Create residency at Collingwood Yards 2020.

AYMAN KAAKE’S exhibition was printed on large hanging canvas which were hung throughout the main gallery inviting the observer to walk among them as if journeying.

The exhibition continued downstairs in our cellar installation space where Ayman had two large works hanging from the rafters accompanied by a video film. Stones with the 99 names of God were placed within two of the recessed installation windows.

Please contact EDGE for any enquiries regarding Ayman’s limited edition work.

MALDON LANDSCAPE PRIZE 2023

Painting, drawing and mixed media

Sponsored by the HMR Foundation

Presented in partnership with MALDON ARTIST NETWORK (MANet) and EDGE galleries

Exhibition of finalist works from Sunday October 29 - Saturday November 11

The following invitation was presented to artists as a springboard for their submissions.

We received 177 entries nationally from which 41 were chosen as finalists in a ‘blind’ judging process with three experts:

Vera Moller, David Moore and Paul Northam.

Humans have since the beginning of time drawn in the clay, on cave walls, on pots, inside tombs, on bark, on stone, on papyrus and eventually on canvas, paper, wood and all manner of surfaces, Nature itself in the form of the land that is part of us, around us and among us. This response to place has wrought paintings that are figurative, works of adoration and of a spiritual nature, impressions and abstractions that provoke awe, question and inspiration.

The desire to record or to bring landscape into inhabited building spaces, to bring nature itself indoors from outdoors began in ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, Egyptian, Grecian and Roman times as if one could capture the essence or the feeling of awe that being in landscape offered and have this inspiration with us permanently. The Romantic Era brought us such aesthetic concepts as the Pastoral, the Picturesque and the Sublime.

 The industrial urbanisation of our world separated humans more and more from the natural world and the desire for reminders of the sublime and transcendent powers of the landscape grew even more urgent. Some opted for formal representation while others lusted for the wildness of oceans and wind-swept terrains. The Surrealists and the Impressionists and Post Modernists re-imagined landscape in ways that were both disturbing and unsettling, yet fascinating and strangely beautiful and beguiling.

What is landscape? It is what the individual perceives. If we eschew rules and concepts of how we are meant to look at our world, what emerges? While there are certain elements and rules within many methodologies for painting, all of them perhaps important and valid and time tested, what if we look with fresh eyes and new imagination?

We encourage all artists to bring to the table their skills, everything they know and everything they don’t know in order to present work for consideration that is perhaps formal, technically balanced, out of order, maverick, wildly inventive, courageous, traditionally understood, lively, arresting, composed, sublime, honest, joyous, anguished, abstract or a combination of the above. 

We look forward to witnessing your work whether it be geometric, surreal, tonalist, abstract, impressionist, formal, linear, textural, rule breaking, realistic, surprising, imaginative, brilliantly executed, puzzling and …

Environment is another word for landscape… where we find ourselves, and the ways in which we interact with, preserve, hold on to, respond to, capture, take away or record impressions of our experience of this environment. Our view or visceral response to its beauty, its wildness, its unpredictability its soul wrenching beauty and its light inhabited wonder.

We welcome your response to place, to environment re-imagined.

Esteemed Australian painter, MARY TONKIN, graciously agreed to judge the Maldon Landscape Prize and on Saturday October 28th, 2023, announced to a gathering of some 200 people the winning work.

WINNER of the 2023 MALDON LANDSCAPE PRIZE

‘Wild Winter Mountain, Leanganook’ by artist ROBERT MACLAURIN $2,750

The above works received a commendation from MARY TONKIN.

1. Chris Delpratt 2. Mark Fuller 3. Mark Dober

(Detail of works)

‘HENAYNI’

Installations

HEATHER ELLYARD

MARCH 26 - APRIL 19, 2023

A Statement of intention…..

HENAYNI the title of my exhibition at EDGE galleries, is a transliteration of the Hebrew, meaning I am here (a witness). My work occupies both Gallery I and Gallery II down below, among the historic Ironmonger’s stone walls. Fragments of poems float on the walls upstairs. Portable Offerings, Shelters, Alphabets on fabric hangings, and a 5.4 metre long piece about bearing witness are also there. Downstairs are vitrines and their holdings, and small installations. There are silences in my work which will take time to absorb. I am collecting words against oblivion…..hunting and gathering the ruins and wonders of my time, looking for hope. I go like the poets, on my knees.

Heather Ellyard was born and educated in Boston USA. She migrated to Australia in 1970 and currently lives on 22 acres in Tarrengower, Central Victoria.

Ellyard has held 30 solo exhibitions within Australia, has been represented in over 50 group shows, was a finalist in The Blake Prize in Sydney 3 times and The Blake Poetry Prize, 2020. She was art reviewer on ABC radio, has taught in art schools in Canberra, Adelaide, and Melbourne and has written for several art publications and published in poetry journals.

Ellyard’s work is in private collections here and abroad and in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Commonwealth Parliament House Collection, the Jewish Museum of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the University of South Australia, the University of Canberra, Monash University Medical Centre, etc.

A Conversation with myself……..

There are artists who love the paint, the fall of light, the reality of representation, the ways of abstraction, and of the computer, but, my work is not tied to technique. I pick up and use what I need to address the ragged edges of history, the tribulations of geo-politics and the uncertainty of truths.

I use carbon, plaster, remnants and salt. I use grids, bell-jars, and rubber looping. I use blackboards, drawings, cloth and generic dolls covered in words. And I use granite from home, where there used to be gold, among those ancient rocks. But the core is always recognizably mine, because the need for meaning is always there, pushing, shoving and making unstoppable claims.

More and more, words are my paint and the structures I choose become my various compositions. In an atmosphere of global imbalance, violence and suffering, I need to pay attention to my time, to remember, to empathize and to make art that matters. And beauty may be a by-product and poems may rise up, in fragments. I call them bone-poems, essential and condensed.

‘S T R A T U M’

GREG MALLYON

FEBRUARY 25 - MARCH 13, 2023

Select works below are available for purchase from the STRATUM exhibition through EDGE galleries. PLEASE ENQUIRE.

ARTIST STATEMENT

GREG MALLYON, 2023

STRATUM – aerial landscapes of Australia

During the pandemic when I was confined to my studio in Daylesford I focused on the surrounding landscape as inspiration for new images . The goldfields region is rich in geographic diversity from plains and grasslands to extinct volcanoes , gorges , rocky outcrops , creeks and lakes . The industrial degradation of the land through mineshafts , mullock heaps and clearing of the natural features of creeks and hills also creates a unique topography.  

During a particularly grim winter in 2020 and 2021 when rain , cold and fog kept me inside for weeks on end I also resorted to creating new works on my computer .This process involves a lot of research and utilizing my vast archive of photographs , sketches and maps .I also scanned numerous photographs I had taken of natural surfaces such as lichen on rocks , patterns created by bark on tree trunks , veins in rock formations or clay pans . These were also incorporated into compositions with satellite and drone photographs. At that time of the year the region is dry and rich in softer tones such as yellow and brown. 

The result was a fresh take on my aerial landscapes .

This exhibition features recent images of the Dja Dja Wurrung ( Daylesford and surrounds )and Wadawurrung country in central Victoria. Werribee Gorge and the Great Dividing Range.The landscape around Clunes and Maldon were also explored .

Past trips to Arnhem Land, central desert areas and the vast coastline of Eastern Australia  inspired new works and reflect the vibrant pinks , blues and greens of those regions.

Greg's unique works have been acquired by collectors.luxury hotels, public galleries.universities

and government departments for over three decades .He has exhibited throughout Australian capitals and also in Rome, Digne des Baines (Provence), Hamburg, Dortmund and Wurtzburg (Germany) Singapore, Zagreb (Croatia), Honolulu and Hong Kong.

He has participated in over 40 solo and 80 group exhibitions. His paintings have been presented in 12 international art fairs including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore. In recent

years Greg has been awarded three artist residencies in Barcelona (2011), Venice (2013) and Chiang Mai (2017).He has been a finalist in 12 national art awards and in 2021 he won the landscape award in the inaugural National Capital Art Prize in Canberra. 

Greg holds a Masters Degree in Art (majoring in painting) from the University of New South Wales as well as an Associate Diploma in Fine Art (majoring in printmaking) from the Queensland College of Art and a Post Graduate Diploma in Art Education from Queensland University of Technology.

Top image: Arnhem Land dry season 2 / mixed media on aluminium / 52cmx52cm / $1550

Second image: Arnhem Land dry season 5 / mixed media on aluminium / 52cmx52cm / $1550

Third image: Coastal study Surfers Paradise / mixed media on aluminium / 42 cm x 42cm / $1250

PLEASE ENQUIRE

MESSY BEAUTIFUL

JESSICA LEDWICH

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

MARCH 20 - MAY 1, 2021

Top row L to R: ‘Pleasure in Darkness’, ‘Messy Beautiful’ 01, 02, 03

Middle ro L to R: ‘Messy Beautiful’ 04, 05, 06, 07

Lower row: ‘Messy Beautiful’ 08, 09, 10

Jessica Ledwich is a Melbourne based visual artist whose work explores the more contentious topics of conversation.  Female body culture, technology and contemporary ideals are themes that regularly feature in her work. She explores the uncanny, the abject and often the irrational to unmask the more complex side of human behaviour, analysing its perversities, to distil down these strange phenomena we call 'culture'.

She regularly exhibits in Australia and overseas and her work is held in private collections in Australia, London, The United States and Hong Kong. Her work was featured in the New York photography publication Musée Magazine's WOMEN issue and the Chicago political magazine The Point and her 2019 solo Our Desires Are Not Our Own was selected by Art Guide Australia as Top 5 Exhibition to see in Australia. She is a recipient of both an Australia Arts Council Artstart award as well as a Cultural Career Fund award. (Bio as of March 2021)

Beneath the carefully constructed social masks we wear we all have aspects of ourselves that we don’t like or think that society will disapprove of. These ‘inappropriate’ parts of ourselves: our immoral urges, irrational fears, sexual desires and shameful experiences all form ‘shadow’ parts of ourselves which, for the most part, we seek to deny. Women are often shamed for owning their desire, men for displaying fear and vulnerability. Rather than confronting, accepting and integrating these threatening aspects of ourselves, our mind often pretends they don’t exist. For to acknowledge the messy, uncontained, stimulating yet terrifying parts of our mind threatens the image of who we imagine ourselves to be.

This exhibition Messy Beautiful explores and gives voice to these more unconscious parts of our psyche. It looks to embrace these aspects of our nature which make us human and pose the question “can we completely accept who we are if there are aspects of ourselves that we are too afraid to explore?”

Jessica Ledwich, 2021

MEMENTO MORI

This exhibition featured the work of Simon Dow Photographer and ran from May 15 - July 4, 2021.

All images are available for purchase so please enquire if you are interested or have any questions.

The above images are all 330mm x 490mm and priced at 1500 unframed.

Limited edition of 15 with varying numbers of the above still available.

The above images are varying dimensions smaller than the previous images and priced at 1250 unframed.

Please enquire for exact dimensions. All dimensions listed are image only and do not include the border.

OTHER SELFIE

MAY 3-MAY 12, 2021

We invited through social media, friends of the gallery, community and through newspaper articles the submission of a selfie that captured your ‘other self’. These images were printed and became a tapestry on the main wall at EDGE for a ten day exhibition. Below are just a few examples of submissions received.

‘S K I N S U R F A C E S U B S T A N C E’

ORRYELLE DEFENESTRATE-BASCULE

ARTIST

at EDGE LEFT

‘S K I N S U R F A C E S U B S T A N C E’

ORRYELLE DEFENESTRATE-BASCULE

Maldon / Belgium based artist / May 8-9, 2021

all images below (detail) © Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule

‘SIT STILL’

Installation by NICOLA LAY, mixed media artist.

The installation ran from May 15 to July 4, 2021 as part of the ‘MEMENTO MORI’ exhibition.

‘MORE OR LESS (IN)COMPLETE’

ARRAYAH LOYND / PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

JULY 10 - AUGUST 15, 2021

The below images are currently available for purchase in limited editions of 8 plus 2 AP.

Please enquire.

L to R 2., 3., 4., 5., 6. 42 x 60cm $1500 or 56 x 80cm. $1800

L to R 7., 19., 72 x 80cm 20., 110 x 60cm 21., 22. 72 x 80cm. $2200

9. ‘The shame is yours to own.’ Triptych. 20 x 25cm each $900 (all three images together)

10., 11. 56 x 80cm. $1800

13. Turning it back in on myself. Triptych 3 images 29 x 29cm each. $900

L to R. 14., 15., 16., 17., 18. 20 x 20cm. $330 each

L to R 24., 25. 70 x 70cm. $2200

T R A C E

SIMON DOW PHOTOGRAPHER

October 3 - December 5 2021

All images available for purchase.

590mm x 420mm

$1,100 unframed

Limited editions of 12 + 2 AP

Archival digital inkjet prints on Canson Rag fine art paper

Artist statement / Simon Dow

‘Good action leaves no trace’.

Tao Te Ching

The ‘TRACE’ series began in 2018 as an investigation into translating a felt sense into a visual recording, through the use of layering and elements of imagery. We are layered beings, whether on the level of implicit existence, experience, impression, learned ‘truths’, or assumed, constructed persona. Once this layering dissolves away, a dissolution of sorts, what remains? Is this trace the true unfettered sense of being, this simple aliveness free of concept or even context or measurement?  

The use of personal ephemera combined with self-portraiture, personal x-rays, found objects of significance and self-photographed archival material have made up layers worked with to realise and reveal these images. As an adopted child I have no real way to trace my lineage.

 What remains of this ephemeral existence once the body begins its disappearing act?  

In truth how real is this experiential moment when the unspeakable nature of spirit clothes itself for an instant in human flesh?  

There is ultimately no solid evidence. Dust to dust…  

This body of work is an exploration of what we leave behind both while existing and once existence has been realised.

 The exploration of layer upon layer, of translucency and opacity, of the forthright and the hidden has, perhaps, no real proven end or outcome as such. Can we actually be seen for what we truly are or do our stories and constructed aspects of self obscure a real seeing?

www.simondowphotographer.com

Instagram: @simondowphotographer

‘BE SAD FOR ME’

AN EXHIBITION BRINGING ART AND SCIENCE TOGETHER

DEBORAH ALDRIDGE

ARTIST

I am a bio artist interested in exploring connection through the physical and conceptual intersection of science and art. After moving from Sydney to Perth (the most isolated city in the world) over 15 years ago, I now reside in the Central Highlands. I’ve made positive connections with people, places and animals during my lifetime and maintaining these is very important to me, no matter where we are all placed in the world.

Connecting through shared experience with family, friends and environments who are a great distance from Perth, would not be possible without science. Human science expands our understanding of the world we live in and creates tools that make human lives more comfortable. Aristotle first gave us the hierarchical ladder of species with humans at the top and scientific research continues to define the human from other beings. 

This exhibition investigates scientific agreement that ‘only humans weep” because there is no scientific proof that emotional tears are shed by any other than the human. ‘Be Sad For Me’ extends the mechanism of crying to a non-human semi-living apparatus in an attempt to free us humans from the constant sadness that worldwide news media invites us to share. In doing so are we outsourcing our humanity to this crying non-human and disproving scientific hypothesis in the process?!  The semi-living apparatus comes to life through a collaboration with Peter Minson, a glass artist living and working in Binalong, New South Wales.

I am hopeful that this exhibition will encourage consideration of humans’ kinship with what is not human through questioning the scientific hypothesis that humans are separate and central to everything else. 

To better understand scientific perspective the audience is invited to micro and macro views of the lacrimal glands that produce tears. There is also documentation of an exploration of scientific tools and methodology used to capture, measure and analyse the volume of tears cried by audience members, during a film screening.

This is a new direction for me and through an event like this I hope for a sharing of ideas that might inspire future projects and opportunities for collaboration that inspire positive conversation and actions that might improve ecological connections.  

MALDON PORTRAIT PRIZE

PAINTING, DRAWING, MIXED MEDIA

February 5 - 13, 2022

Left: ‘Self Portrait no.4, Work in Progress’ © ROXY XIE, Artist / Honourable Mention

Right: ‘Pip’ © ROZ AVENT, Artist / Honourable Mention

STICKY BITS

JESSICA LEDWICH

Photographic artist

MARCH 26 - MAY 1, 2022

All the above works are available for purchase in limited editions of 5 plus 2 AP in two sizes.

Please enquire for pricing and availability.

BIO

Jessica Ledwich is a Melbourne based visual artist whose work explores attitudes towards body image, sexuality and desire. She initially studied a Bachelor of Performing Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, but found her true calling in photography and visual art. She regularly exhibits in Australia and overseas and her work is held in private collections in Australia, London, The United States and Hong Kong. In 2014 she completed a Master of Fine Art with Distinction at RMIT, Melbourne. in 2021 she was awarded the British Journal of Photography Fast Track Award as well as the 1854 Edition365 Award and she is a recipient of both an Australia Arts Council Artstart award as well as a Cultural Career Fund award. Her series Monstrous Feminine featured press coverage in the US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia and New Zealand and was featured in the New York photography publication Musée Magazine's WOMEN issue and the Chicago political magazine The Point. Monstrous Feminine will be exhibiting at Oriq Gallery in Lisbon Portugal later this year. Her 2021 solo show Messy Beautiful at Edge Galleries will be exhibited at PRPG Gallery in Mexico City in April 2022. 

SOPHIE GABRIELLE

MAY 14 - JUNE 19, 2022

Máthair Mhór

Welcomed Touch

Images below are representative of full exhibitions.

Please enquire.

above images from Máthair Mhór © Sophie Gabrielle

above images from Wellcomed Touch series © Sophie Gabrielle

Sophie Gabrielle is a queer Melbourne based contemporary photographer and curator. Since 2015 their

work has been exhibited in Australia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, France, Germany, South Korea, the USA and the UK. Notably, The New Yorker commissioned 3 pieces from Sophie for their Fiction Issue, (July 2021), and their work appeared as the cover art for The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra’s Die Seejungfrau (The Little Mermaid, 2020). Uk musician Seabuckthron's album Through a vulnerable occur was produced as a companion piece to the Ikki Selects photobook by the same name containing a curated selection of Sophie’s work. Sophie was the first Australian recipient of FOAM Talent (NL,2018) and a finalist for the Lensculture Emerging Talent Awards (2016).

They are also a board member of Good Moon Rising, a creative collective that creates safe spaces for gender diverse artists and musicians to be celebrated in Melbourne. In 2021 Sophie made the Dean’s list for their MA in Arts Management at RMIT.
Sophie’s artistic practice is inspired by capturing images that represent the hidden, delving into psychology, archive and myth.

MEMENTO MORI

JUNE 25 -JULY 3, 2022

LAUREN STARR

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

WITH

SIMON DOW

PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST

Above images © Lauren Starr Photographic Artist

Please enquire.

Above images © Simon Dow Photographer

Please enquire. Additional images available upon request.

JULY 9 - AUGUST 7, 2022

shroud

GARY DEIRMENDJIAN

artist

All works © gary deirmendjian

Please enquire regarding pricing, dimensions and purchase of Gary Deirmendjian’s artworks encompassing sculpture, photographic images and video.

Gary Deirmendjian is a Sydney based contemporary artist whose practice encompasses sculpture, photography, video, installation and site-specific intervention. Working predominantly in public/shared space, he is broadly acknowledged as a sharp observer of the present, creating thought provoking and socially concerned works that challenge with scale and immersive qualities. He has exhibited extensively and received numerous new work invitations and commissions for private and public artworks, as well as site-specific projects, realised broadly in Australia and several internationally.

Recent points of note include:

·       publication of his multi-voiced monograph A PREVAILING SENSE OF DISQUIET (Hardie Grant Books 2020; launched also in UK/Europe in May 2021);

·       Award of the British School at Rome, NAS Residency (2017);

·       presence (2017), a major site-specific moving image commission by Transport for NSW, Wynyard Railway Station, Sydney; and

·       pulse (2020), a major site-specific moving image commission for Federation Square, Melbourne.

Gary holds an MFA in Sculpture from the National Art School (2006), where he currently teaches (Sessional Lecturer since 2012 serving extensively in the BA Sculpture program and broadly across other disciplines as Post Graduate supervisor).

Prior to turning to full-time artistic practice, he trained as an Aeronautical Engineer (Honours, University of NSW, 1990) becoming significantly active in Defence Research & Development and then Industrial Design through establishing private practice and teaching (full time Lecturer, Western Sydney University, 1996–2001). He is the author/photographer of Sydney Sandstone (Craftsman House, 2002), which includes essay contributions by Tim Flannery and Philip Cox amongst others.

‘4SQUARED’ FEATURING WORK BY

PHOTOGRAPHER, SIMON DOW.

SEPTEMBER 3 - 18 , 2022

What happens when you only make pictures within a 4 sq metre space with introduced objects?

The series began as an experiment in limitation. I chose to impose a spatial restriction on this work by only shooting within a particular measured parameter. I was drawn to a section of public park in Melbourne that when passing at night felt somehow secretive, hidden and tinged with a sense of danger.

The environment was hedged partially giving it a feel of a maze of sorts with corners and edges around or behind which something might hide or surprise or wait. This heightened sense was always at night, so I decided to use flash at the same time each evening. The first images were grass and hedging as the shadows played along with the stark capture of the flash bringing greenness into high relief. I mapped out four square metres and only allowed myself to make pictures within this space.

I then began to introduce paradoxical objects and they started to take on a life of their own in this night-time place hidden and yet exposed through the use of flash. I was particular in maintaining secrecy and not allowing this repeated weekly action to be observed by anyone, ever. It became a world that threw up surprises constantly.

I chose to work only with one focal length lens for continuity and simplicity and this made framing and composition crucial. It was clear from the beginning that this series would have to be vibrant and almost cartoon-like colour with high saturation and a sense of the surreal.

All images are available for purchase in limited editions. Please enquire for availability and pricing.

ORCHESTRA OF EXTINCTION

FOREST KEEGEL and AMANDA KING

CONFLUENCE

AMANDA KING / FOREST KEEGEL / SIMON DOW

OCTOBER 2 - 22, 2022

© Forest Keegel, Artist

Orchestra of Extinction - A contemporary interpretation of a Cabinet of Curiosities that highlights extinction and the vulnerability of threatened species. Conceived in 2014 by Forest Keegel and Amanda King as a decade long project, in which they do annual residencies in threatened species habitat. Where they record sound and video to emanate from old radiogram cabinets that are encrusted with residues of habitat, such as varnish made from plant saps and local beeswax. Each of these cabinets become an archive for a particular species forming a record of what King and Keegel have learnt about them through research, time walking and recording in their habitat and speaking with scientists and local experts. They never imagined koala would be added to the list or that the perils and threats to the biosphere would become so severe so rapidly. This showing of work in development at Edge Galleries is and the first time the ensemble of cabinets has been exhibited.

© Amanda King, Photographic Artist, 2022

PLANTAE IN POSTERUM

ELLEN HANSA

CERAMIC ARTIST

November 19 - December 11

ELLEN HANSA-STANYER

1942 Vienna

Clay for me has always been a very exiting medium which to work with. At the age of 14 I saw the first pot being thrown. It was magic to see something so beautiful being created out of a lump of mud. It took 10 years before I was able to learn to do just that. Now almost 50 years on, I use clay to tell stories.” 

At the age of 15 Ellen Hansa studied photography beginning her passion for visual expression. Having finished her diploma she then worked in Norway and Vienna. In 1964, she decided to have a small adventure and travelled to Australia to visit her brother. This adventure has endured to this day.

Settling in Melbourne, Ellen followed her dream and took up pottery as a hobby under the auspice of her husband, Ray Stanyer, who had studied fine art ,majoring in sculpture. Soon he joined her and during a weekend visit to Maldon they decided to move out of Melbourne.

In 1970 Stanyers Pottery was born and for 25 years Ellen and Ray worked as production potters supplying many shops and galleries. They also held many exhibitions at their shop and gallery, the Scotch Pie House in Maldon.

Upon retirement in 1996, and the children having left home, the opportunity came to be more creative with her work.  She stated that “clay, to me, is the ideal story telling medium” and this is reflected in her ceramic sculptures. The versatility of her work reflects her strong belief that expression does not seek fame, but moreover, fun and inspirational release. 

Ellen has exhibited widely in Australia as well as overseas. She is represented in Norway, Germany and Austria.

THE PORTRAITS

SIMON DOW

PHOTOGRAPHER

NOVEMBER 19 - DECEMBER 31, 2022

This series of portraits is the first of a three part series of central Victorian portraits that hopefully will culminate in a ;published book. They are staged environmental portraits seeking to look beneath the surface to reveal more than is immediately obvious in each person.

All portraits are available in limited edition archival prints while numbers last.

PLEASE ENQUIRE.

We welcome all enquiries.

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