Through the lens of each other’s practice, five artists engage in dialogue to create a series of responsive artworks, embracing the fresh perspectives on their established practice.
Junko Kitamura
It is profoundly clear how Junko Kitamura’s Japanese origins influence both her aesthetic and her appeal for the printmaking process itself. Many of Kitamura’s highly dynamic prints can be seen to echo the collective psyche of post war Japan. Human endurance and tenacity is evoked and explored through shadowy relics of the industrial age and mechanization. This contemporary industrial style adopted by the artist is organic and animated in form and quality. Diametrical opposed elements create a tapestry of surprises which are dynamic and inventive. Within this tumult of imagery there is balance and refinement, strength with subtlety and an energy that is both unrestrained and contagious. Junko Kitamura was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1980. In 2004 she completed a degree in printmaking with high standing at the Kyoto Seiko University. During this time Kitamura was invited internationally to participate in printmaking and textile workshops in both Austria and Canberra. Whilst still studying, Junko’s artwork was nominated for display at the Kyoto Museum Exhibition and was then selected for the MASUO IKEDA Exhibition for printmaking. Junko has exhibited many times since coming to WA and won many awards including The City of Melville Art Award “Works on Paper”, Deloitte Spring Rose Art show “Peoples Choice Award”, Open Mind Open Doors Art exhibition “Special Commendation” and City of Gosnells Art Award “Works on Paper”. Junko has been focused on developing a multidisciplinary approach to her creations increasing her freedom of expression through different art mediums. She has been running many printmaking workshops to share her skills with others since 2020.
Rosina Wonglorz
Rosina Wonglorz is a German Australian painter and illustrator based in Fremantle. She enjoys the combination of paint and line, layering colour with charcoal and pencil, stripping back and layering again. Rosina often examines mundane objects in her studies, capturing the beauty in the quiet everyday things. Over the past six years Rosina has hosted many exhibitions at her beachside cafe, supporting emerging and established artists. Now Rosina turns her attention back to her own art practice and since a recent trip to Brazil, her husband’s home, her examination of the everyday is joined by a nuance of the tropics. Rosina Wonglorz was born in Germany in 1985 and studied visual arts at Curtin University. She has taught children’s art programs at both Central TAFE and Kidogo art house in the past and has exhibited her work in a handful of group exhibitions around Fremantle.
Annette Wiguna
Born in Indonesia, Annette Wiguna began her art practice as a self taught illustrator and painter. In 2004, She obtained her Bachelor of Arts (Art) from Curtin University with a major in Fibre-textiles, specially in wet felting and dyeing. Driven by a growing concern for environmental sustainability, Annette found it necessary to delve into the process of botanical printing and dyeing. Subsequently, the Western Australian landscape, our engagement with it, and the effects of urbanisation on the environment has become a fertile source of inspiration for her artistic endeavours. Working across diverse disciplines, Annette seeks to depict the landscape with media derived from natural sources as organic dyes, pigments, and oxides. Her paintings have been widely acquired through a number of group and solo shows. She is currently represented by Juniper Galleries in Darlington. As a textile artist, Annette is deeply passionate about celebrating the beauty and the enduring aspects of West Australian landscape by using native plants and rust through a process known as botanical/ecoprinting and dyeing. She recognises the importance of using non-toxic dyeing methods, reducing excessive water usage, and repurposing kitchen waste and preloved garments. She channels this enthusiasm into her creative workshops held in Victoria Park and Fremantle, welcoming both beginners and experienced artisans to explore the wonders of natural dyes.
Madeline Clare
Madeline paints abstract landscapes and still lifes, exploring the colour and edges of contemporary painting. Inspired by long distance walking on trails through forests, along beaches and over mountains, she is ever curious about a language of patterning and threads in the land and body. A once upon a time milliner, Madeline has exhibited locally in Fremantle and faraway in England and Iceland. Exhibitions include Kidogo, Sculpture by the Sea, Mandorla, Town of Claremont, Earlyworks and The Doghouse. She has tertiary degrees in Design History (BA Hons) and Fine Art, and studies in trompe d’oeil, life drawing, interior design and fashion. Aligned with her art practice, Madeline is influenced by her mothering of three and a decades-long practice and training in the Art of Yoga, the understanding of which was elevated through eight years of Ayurvedic studies.
Fran Sullivan -Rohodes
As a serial migrant, now dwelling near Mandjoogardap, Frances Sullivan-Rhodes has an interest in migrancy’s effect on the perception of places and the emergence of a hybrid identity that can encompass familiar myths and new hopes and experiences and imaginings. Her practice spans painting, photography, sculpture, installation and curation, negotiating inherited aesthetic sensibilities and the history and culture and landscape of WA. She has exhibited and curated in the UK, NSW and WA since 1997 and has worked as an academic in Art & Design and Education with Curtin University and Curtin College since 2004. Since becoming a mother, she has made particular focus on the interactions of children with the world around them, interactions that are irrespective of the concerns of their elders and without regard to the politics and heritage that attach to their being in a West Australian landscape. Their world is at once a place of delight and somewhere incredibly precarious, precious and fragile and full of wonder. Her recent works playfully combine domestic pattern, abstraction and figurative references to the figure in the landscape, calling into question the reliability and complexity of perception itself.