I am a Sculptor and Painter with a passion for story telling through art with a focus on themes that are inspired by my Hellenic heritage and modern art.
I have expertise in Painting, Sculpture, Street Art and Murals, Installation, Performance Art and Graphic Design. My training in Art Therapy and role as a co-founder of the Melbourne Art Therapy Studio, provided me with additional skills in the therapeutic application of the visual arts in both clinical and private, individual and group settings.
Bachelor Degree in Visual Arts /South Australian School of Art, Australia Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts/ Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece Erasmus Scholarship/Madrid School of Fine Arts, Spain Master of Art Therapy/ La Trobe University, Melbourne
My artwork draws energy and inspiration from the land in its many forms, The layers of impasto and graffiti like marks are evident within my contemporary mixed media palette which comprises of acrylics, aerosol, collage, gouache, ink, graphite. Artists such as De Kooning, CY Twombly and Aida Tomescu have influenced my style.
The process of mark making became my focus when I joined the Drawing Marathon in Soho NY and worked under mentor Graham Nickson. The vocabulary of drawing crossed the boundaries of paint and my personal style broadened through unorthodox tools and exercises. As a result my art process became intuitive in its approach.
Bachelor Fine Art University of New South Wales
New York School of Painting drawing and sculpture
My art is fluid and interpretive. My recent project involves multi-media collage influenced by the luxury market.
“The challenge was not to translate everything I see, but rather create spaces which house the information.”
Jenny Dumont has travelled to many countries over the years to paint and view the work of past and present masters. She worked as an artist and teacher during her time living in Greece, Canada and since 2008 in her Bayside art studio in Melbourne Australia. Originally trained in Graphic Design but greatly inspired by the Surrealist movement with artists such as Dali, Man Ray and Duchamp. She went on to blend and create works that explore several different mediums and styles from modern acrylics and traditional oils to abstract inks and resins.
Her journey with resin as an art medium began in 2014 with works executed on custom made round boards and canvas. Inspiration came mainly from nature especially flowers, the beautiful local Bayside beaches, and the landscape of this earth in general. She mixes inks, pigments and powders with clear resin which is then poured in layers to create a composition that is fluid, has depth and is rich in colour and visual texture.
Jenny’s artist journey reflects her love of Surrealist ideals of juxtaposing images, mediums and methods. These attributes are an influence on her style and belief that, ‘not all needs to be as we know it’. Whilst working with and teaching resin, she began experimenting with the creation of art through furniture. Leaning on her experience as a wood and metal craft teacher, her love of art and mixing mediums, Jenny sourced home furnishings with unique architecture and their potential for metamorphosis. Each piece is lovingly restored, reinvented, and adorned with a piece of resin art, one of a kind and unique to that piece.
Today, Jenny is a full-time artist, Secondary teacher and entrepreneur. She continues to work with mixed media, experimenting with the vast boundaries this medium has to offer. She stands by the belief that, ‘an artist should not be branded but be a conduit, a forever evolving fluid medium’. Private collections of her work are held in Greece, Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom and Brazil.
Exhibitions:
1999 Pylaia Art Gallery Greece
2003 Matticks Farm Art Gallery Canada
2004 Vancouver Island Food and Wine Festival
2009 Canterbury Art Show Melbourne
2010 Beaumaris Art Group2014 Art for Life
2013-2021 Bluethumb Art Gallery
2015 Antipodean Palette Steps Gallery Carlton
2015 The Bayside Art Show
2015 Mingara Art Gallery Phillip Island
2015 Emerging Art Gallery Windsor
2015-2016 Without Pier Gallery Bayside
2017 Beaumaris Art & Craft Exhibition
2015 November issue of Inside Out Magazine
Bachelor of Education in Art and Design, Melbourne University (1985-1989)
Secondary Art and Design teacher, Arts coordinator, State examiner and mentor for VCE art students (1990-1992)
Professional exhibiting artist and teacher (1993-current)
Co-founder of Steaming Ink Design Partnership (advertising, graphic design and photography)
James Raftopoulos is a Melbourne based Graphic Designer and Artist. Through abstract mark-making, rudimentary printing techniques and digital compositions and motion, James explores the fuzzier edges of what outlines the human experience. James has exhibited work in group shows across Melbourne, culminating in his first regional solo show ‘Alive/Opaque’ in 2018.
Pasakos reflects scenes of the Melbourne Docklands. It holds many experiences for the artist from his childhood, cultural identity, and reflects a sense of home. These elements form the foundation for the artist. Most of his works to date are part of an ongoing personal journey to endeavour to understand belonging and identity. Deep connections are made between the two worlds of his Australian upbringing and Greek heritage. He often visits the Melbourne Docklands to collect his thoughts and to view the maritime landscape, to seek his own iconography, narrative, purpose and understanding of sense of place.
The Docklands is an historical area with much significance to the Australian contemporary landscape, which came into prominence during the Victorian Gold rush of the 1850s as a very busy Melbourne shipping hub. Portraying the Melbourne Docklands is to continue the narrative of travel and discovery. During his travels overseas, he has often considered the valuable migrant stories. His works reflect these powerful experiences as they act as reminders of the fragility of our sense of self in the world, and the way in which that sense of identity may develop and spawn new cultural identities that change or shape values of other cultural frameworks. His methods are in Printmaking, Drawing and in Mixed Media. Works can be seen as surreal and atmospheric. They are often rich in colour and evoke a sense of mystery. They can be quite dark and with this brings a personal insight of the artist. As a practicing artist, Pasakos has been involved in many collaborative projects, print exchanges and exhibitions that has allowed him to produce other thematic works that have enriched not only his own techniques and methods but his practice and narrative. Pasakos grew up in Melbourne and now lives in Ballarat, a rural Victorian city. He studied Visual Arts at Monash University, Melbourne. He has a Bachelor of Visual Arts Degree, a Post Graduate Diploma in Printmaking, a Graduate Diploma in Teaching, a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education and a Master of Fine Art majoring in Printmaking & Drawing.
Since 1991 Pasakos has regularly exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally. His works are represented in public, private and university collections. Pasakos is a Visual Arts Lecturer at Federation University Australia teaching into Printmaking, Drawing and Studio Practice.
Global conferences – Peered Review Papers admitted and accepted – exhibitions:
International Print Conference, IMPACT – International Multi-disciplinary Printmaking, Artists, Concepts and Techniques
An Australian Artist born in Melbourne and residing in Rosanna, Victoria. Katherine’s love for drawing and painting began at an early age along with her fascination for archaeology, science, flora, fauna and her inspiration is nature and colour. She enjoys experimenting with different art mediums, styles, surfaces and techniques and her years of experience in painting and drawing is seen in her artworks which vary in style from abstract, contemporary and traditional, in subject matter such as fauna and flora, portraits, landscapes, seascapes and free form abstracts, and mediums from acrylics, oils, pastels, watercolour, scratch board, pencil and mixed media.
Katherine was ‘Artist in Residence’ at the ‘Mungga Studio’, ‘Ivanhoe Library & Cultural Hub’ from April 11-18, 2021. During her successful residency, she painted, exhibited and conducted workshops for children and adults in ‘Pull String Art’ technique. Katherine has been exhibiting her artworks since 1992 at many art shows such as The Victorian Artists’ Society, Heidelberg Artists’ Society, Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, ‘Urban Crafter’ Brunswick St, Fitzroy and ‘Riot Art’ Northland Preston. Also at Argyle on the Park, Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Camberwell Rotary Show, Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar, Alphington Grammar, Loyola College, Parade College and Banyule Art ‘Winter Exhibition’ Austin Hospital, Heidelberg.
Her signature artworks are her abstracts/contemporary art. The contemporary artwork ‘Autumn Spirit’ was selected for nomination for the ‘Undine Autumn Landscape Award’ by the Victorian Artists’ Society in 2016. Katherine is a member of various Artists’ Societies: since 1995, the Victorian Artists’ Society and Banyule Pinpoint; since 2015, the Heidelberg Artists’ Society; Contemporary Artists’ Society; Victorian Pastel Artists’ Society; Wildlife Artists’ Society Australia and since 2021, the Diamond Valley Artists’ Society.
Her other passions are photography and travelling and she uses many of her photos for reference and inspiration. She accepts commissions and also works from photographs.
Sophia Xeros-Constantinides’ art-making was re-awakened as a mother of two. Once Sebastian and Bianca were both at school she was able to study Fine Art part-time as a mature-aged student at Monash University, Caulfield Campus. Prior to this, Sophia had seen her dear mother, Maria Xeros Colbert, learn to paint at summer school in Melbourne in the 1960s, under the direction of artists Robert Grieve and Dawn Westbrook, and later Sophia saw Maria extend her embroidery skills to new heights at the Embroiderer’s Guild, Victoria.
Through her clinical work as a Medical Doctor and Psychological Therapist treating pregnant women and new mothers, Sophia started to explore the visualisation of women’s reproductive experiences. This led Sophia to use drawing, printmaking and collage in her post-graduate art-making, to create her own visual metaphors for the complex and often traumatic reproductive experiences that women reported to her and to others. Sophia’s own maternal grandmother, Yiayia Evdokia, lost her first-born babe-in-arms Eleftheria when they had to flee Smyrna before the catastrophe in September 1922. Later, Evdokia had thirteen more pregnancies but only five babies survived to grow as children and adults.
In her Collage work, Sophia explores the female form and questions what it is to be human. Her art-practice is characterised by appropriation and juxtaposition that manifest in her collage works on paper and in her prints and drawings. These works challenge integrity and identity, recall surrealistic and uncanny forces and give expression to alternative realities.
Since completing her PhD, Sophia has taken up Painting in oils and gouache. For this she has ventured to Europe, and back to England, where she had lived for eight years, in her secondary school years, in Birmingham with her aunt Margaret Ryle and her dear Uncle Nick. She finds inspiration in the traditions of European art, in figurative painting, in colour and in representing the interface between Nature and (Western) Culture.
QUALIFICATIONS 1998-2001: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University 2002-2005: Masters of Fine Art (by Research) Monash University (Thesis Title: “Procreative Bodies Envisioned: A Visual Exploration of Female Reproductive Experiences.”) 2006-2017: Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art)(by Research), Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University. (Thesis Title: “Strangers in a Strange Land: Envisioning the Darker side of Motherhood.”)
ART THERAPY PUBLICATION ‘Myself as a Tree: The enabling power of an Art Therapy intervention in clinical work with post-natally distressed women-mothers’ in “Therapeutic Arts in Pregnancy, Birth and New Parenthood” Edited by Susan Hogan, Routledge, New York, 2021.
SELECTED PRIZES / AWARDS 2012: Mayoral Art Prize Maroondah City Council (acquisitive) 2006: Prize-winner (acquisitive) textile art in Fabricate 2006, Embroiderers’ Guild, Vic 2002: Australian Postgraduate Award
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016: Bitter-Sweet Embrace PhD Exam Exhibition, Monash Uni, MADA Gallery, Caulfield 2013: More Earthly Delights, Catherine Asquith Gallery, Collingwood 2012: Earthly Delights, Jackman Gallery St Kilda. 20-page catalogue, Earthly Delights 2010: Bedlam: The bitter-sweet embrace of motherhood, Maroondah Art Gallery, exhibition of collage, drawings and digital prints. 28-page catalogue, Bedlam 2009: Gestate – AAIMH/Marcé Conference Solo Exhibition, University of Melbourne 2006: Running with Pigs – Solo Exhibition exploring peri-natal loss, P.O. Gallery, Ballarat 2005: Concoct – Masters Fine Art by Research Exhibition, Monash Faculty Gallery, Caulfield 2001: Template: Beginnings & Becomings-An exploration of women’s experience in relation to reproduction, Women’s Bodies/History Conference, University of Melbourne
A contemporary artist and tutor, born in North West Greece, Mary arrived in Australia as an older child with her family.
Mary’s love of art began at an early age, continually pursuing various creative avenues such as painting, pottery, project and design to discover where her artistic passion lay. All the knowledge gained throughout her studies contributed to her skill as an artist and she has been consistently involved with painting and art projects ever since.
Nature, the environment and her travels in Australia and overseas have all been strong influences in her work. Having lived and worked in Darwin with extensive travel throughout the Northern Territory, Mary has attended and facilitated various painting workshops whilst also observing indigenous artists create their own unique and beautiful art.
“…the burnt sienna land and cobalt blue sea, are brought to life by colour and texture, appearing out of worldly and spiritual, become my inspiration to create, to dream, to visit. My art expresses the beauty of nature, the energy and spirituality around me, of peace, tranquillity and freedom. My art is of contemporary style with the use of vibrant colours, variety of techniques, textures, materials and mediums, it conveys the essence of my outback experiences. The vast red centre, the salt lakes, the deserts, the blue hues of the surrounding sea and my own exploration of the remote outback, where the elements of colour, texture, energy, and spirituality combine, inspire my need to express on canvas and through my paintings….I relive the mystique, the enormity, and uniqueness of our land…”
Mary has exhibited and sold her art extensively in both solo and group exhibitions and her art graces the walls of many art lovers and collectors both in Australia and Overseas.
Her paintings are currrently showing at Ryazanoff Gallery and Nissarana Gallery in Victoria.
Listed below are some of the galleries Mary has exhibited, both in solo and group exhibitions:
