In the beginning I was a keen SLR photographer. Over the years I watched with interest as computers became more and more sophisticated, and was intrigued from my very first Mac Plus by the possibilities the new technology was opening up. I enjoyed playing around with the (now-primitive) Mac Plus graphics programmes.
I forget exactly how it happened, but, for one of the editions of Antipodes which I edited, I had no drawings from Nikos Kypraios and so I resorted to my Mac Plus and created drawings on it for the magazine. (See Antipodes no. 25/26, Dec. 1989.)
Over time the capabilities of computers grew until it became possible to go beyond crude line and dot drawings to full colour pictures, and photographs manipulated with such precision that the manipulation is undetectable. One could blend many photographs to create pictures of imaginary scenes, and integrate that with graphic-art creations, themselves often digital. This was a dream come true.
I coined the term “photo-graphics” for this new art form with its endless possibilities, and it is the field I work in, in addition to straight photography. My output ranges from photographs—sometimes digitally enhanced—to digitally created “paintings”, and everything in between.
I’m an independent design professional (creative/graphic) – since 1979 – having worked for some of Australia’s best design studios and managing my own creative consultancies. I have always kept a low profile over the years. I was invited to establish an in-house creative, design and production centre for D&D Global Group in 2001 – one of Australia’s most innovative and progressive cross-media companies. We were successful two years running in winning the prestigious printing industries of America premier print awards – [Benjamin Franklin Award] for best of category for use of environmentally sound materials – Certificate of Merit for special innovation – Certificate of Merit for print and graphic arts self-promotion – and for the first time an Australian print company was awarded – “They said it couldn’t be done” award.
“Creativity is an expression of emotions released to help process moments of uncertainty, fear and joy”
Abstract and Geometric art allows me to evaluate the contrasts of life. This drives my passion. I’m a digital abstract designer and artist exploring my personal truths, and connecting to my inner thoughts and feelings, which relate back to my life experiences.
With a personal and professional commitment to visual expression, I create unique and immersive, abstract digital art.
Geometric Structures – lines, patterns, shapes, and forms, leads me to draw inspiration from my surrounding natural environment – it inspires me to study – the visual perception and power of colour – saturation, hues, lightness, and balance.
My art expresses, hope for the future – it captures an emotional feeling in an abstract contemporary style that creates freedom from reality and reflects originality with an inconsistent and unpredictable nature.
I explore shape, colour, form, function and composition which allows each person’s own experiences, views and vision to interpret my work in their own highly personal and unique way – “it is not a static image”.
Digital Geometric Abstract Artist Original Contemporary, Geometric Abstract Art Digital Fine Art + Wallpaper Murals
Anne Warren works in several different mediums including painting, drawing, collage and mixed media.
Her abstract paintings are responses to mood through several layers of paint with the final result emerging through erasure. This technique can have an element of planning with the final result emerging by chance.
The collage mixed media work dislocates found images into new and unexpected environments that can sometimes be described as plausible and at other times implausible.
Anne teaches workshops from her home studio.
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Distinction) 2009 Visual Art Diploma (2001)
Masonik is an Australian multi-disciplinary arts collective, who have performed, nationally and internationally since 2006.
Masonik’s immersive experience creates electronica / jazz-fusion / neo-classical and soundscapes layered with video projections. As Visual Artists, Masonik generates artworks based in graphic design, film, photography, sculpture, installation & theatre.
Masonik were regular contributors for the ABC Radio National show, ‘Sound Quality’ & were invited to record in the ABC studios in Sydney. Masonik has also created long form exhibitions and performances titled ‘Altar’d Lament’. These have been presented across Australia & Athens.
‘Altar’d Lament’ is a multi-disciplinary art installation and performance project. Though the critical locus of the project is the destruction of the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna in 1922, ‘Altar’d Lament’ is a pantheon for Neo-rebetes.
Masonik embarked on a pilgrimage to Piraeus and Athens to confront ‘rebetiko’, a cultural form that can be simultaneously fragile and resilient, both comforting and threatening. Refuge for the exiled, the tradition altered creating a narrative to an open-ended underworld. So was created this Unorthodox Amanes Altar.
Constantine Nicholas (HatziYiannakis) was born in Perth, Western Australia and currently lives in Sydney. He is a 3rd generation Greek Australian. His ancestry is from the isle of Kastellorizo where his grandparents and many others migrated in the early 1900s escaping foreign occupations, and seeking a new life in Australia. Most landed in Fremantle, and other parts of Australia and stayed. Nicholas has always questioned his identity which has been an ongoing theme in his work. He creates rich and layered works, installations and digital projects. His work offers fragments, of text and imagery, citing colonial, aboriginal and commercial references which the artist uses to question his Australian identity. “An ongoing theme in my work is to use historical journals (other’s truth), maps and illustrations to present a ‘point of view’.
His new line of work since 2020, harkens back to very early works, are more abstract and less referencial in nature. ART LINES explores space, digital photography and drawing to create rich coloured abstract line-scapes. Visit lynkfire.com/Artcons9
Nicholas has participated in more than 70 exhibitions in ANZ, APAC and USA. Represented in Public and Private Collections in AUS, NZ, APAC, US, EMEA.
‘A gesture in visual art is an expression of an idea or meaning which is presented and performed through the somatic effect on material and site. In other words, it is an expression of the body’s temporal rhythm, as well as a record of the body’s interaction and encounter with material and space.‘ Emmy Mavroidis
Born in 1965 in Melbourne, Emmy Mavroidis is a Master by Research candidate at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at The University of Melbourne. Currently, she is conducting research focusing on Drawing: Gesture, the Body, and Movement. At the Faculty of Fine Art and Music, The University of Melbourne, she earned a Master’s in Contemporary Art in 2020. Following her completion of her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) degree at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1986, she earned her Diploma in Education in 1992.
She founded Nyora Studio Gallery in 2003, a thriving arts centre in Melbourne. Emmy teaches & mentors other artists through the Nyora Gallery Resident Artists Program as well as holding exhibitions and workshops on drawing and sculpture.
2021-current Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts Master of Fine Art, by Research 2019-20 The University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts Fine Arts & Music, Master of Contemporary Art 2003 – current Nyora Studio Gallery Director, Melbourne 1991 The University of Melbourne, Institute of Education. Diploma of Education 1984–1986 Victorian College of the Arts Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting
SELECTED PRIZES AND AWARDS 2023 Artist in Residence at DRAWinternational Caylus, France 2022 Recipient of The University of Melbourne, Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship for excellence in drawing. 2020 Winner of the Arnold Bloch Leibler Award, Yering Station Sculpture Award, Yarra Glen, Victoria. 2020 Grant awarded, Nillumbik Shire Council. Time of COVID-19, Art and Cultural Development, 2019 Montalto Sculpture Prize, Finalist, Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove, Red Hill, Victoria 2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale Small Sculpture Prize, Finalist, Lorne, Victoria 2016 Winner, Yering Station Sculpture Award, Yering Staff & Directors Choice Award, Yarra Glenn, Victoria 2015 Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Finalist 2014 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – Semi-finalist 2013 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize – Semi-finalist 1985 Clifton Pugh Drawing Prize, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Victoria 1985 The Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria Award, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Victoria
Born in Paphos, Cyprus. Living in Melbourne Australia, Barbara’s art practice is an emotive, intellectual, and philosophical investigation of life and place in the modern world. Exploring her inner consciousness and how it interacts with her external surroundings. There is a constant push-pull effect of anarchy and control. The aim is to find balance within the chaos of these two spaces and discover what results. An ongoing theme within the artist’s practice is the study of the human condition. Examining our value system as a society and on a personal level. The use of colour is a critical part of her dialogue analysis. Engaging in an unspoken language through a spectrum of colours, form, scale, materials, and physical space.
Barbara has exhibited in Australia, Hong Kong, London. Her artworks are held in both private and public collections throughout Australia, Asia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America.
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.”
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.
