3 April – 28 April 2019
Opening Wednesday 3 April 2019 5.30pm
Exhibition to be opened by Dr Yvette Watt
Young Blood brings together three young female artists in one diverse exhibition. Zoe Grey and Maggie Jeffries both translate the intimate experience and memory of place through paint, with unique approaches that feature landscapes and native plants of personal significance. Micheila Petersfield’s photographs centres on destabilising the ideals of female representation within popular media through awry digital reconstructions and self-portraiture.
More images online soon! Meanwhile, keep following us on Social Media to keep up to date with our exhibition program, artists and other news.
Gallery Views
Zoe Grey
Zoe Grey is a artist from Marrawah. Tasmania. Her paintings explore a deep connection to home, translating the complexities of memory and place through bold gestural landscapes. Zoe graduated with First Class Honors from the University of Tasmania, School of Creative Arts and Media in 2018.
“My home, Marrawah, is a raw, coastal environment, open to the elements. The landscape adapts to the wild weather; the tea trees bend to the westerly winds, the sand shifts with solid swells and the rocks are pummeled by tireless waves. I too, adjust my movements to the moods of the weather and the landscape it alters. The place I know so intimately shapes my being and through the painting process of remembering and re-presenting, I touch its existence in return.” – Zoe Grey
Maggie Jeffries
Maggie Jeffries is an artist from Hobart, currently studying fine arts and psychology at the University of Tasmania. Her practice is influenced by places from her past, including childhood gardens and the bushland that surrounded her family home at the foothills of Mt Wellington.
“My recent paintings are inspired by my awareness as a child, between the differences of native species and the array of plants that grew in our house garden, exploring their beauty, colour and life through paint. While I know that the Proteas are not native to Australia, for me they have always evoked the fantastic colours of the Australian landscape and native foliage. All of the plants and trees included in this series grow on my family’s land, and in painting them I have been able to explore a part of my own identity that speaks to the discovery of a new-found importance of place, origin and belonging.” – Maggie Jeffries
Micheila Petersfield
Micheila Petersfield is a young photographer, graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania and currently is undertaking a PhD in photography. She has been selected to be part of the Biennale of Australian Art in Ballarat 2018 and won the emerging artist category of the 2019 Woman’s Art Prize Tasmania.
“Through a controlling of the body, fashion photography portrays a concept of idealised femininity, creating a barrier of artifice through make-up and digital editing. In my work, I provide a different perspective on the commodification of the female body, where an exaggerated use of makeup, pose and digital manipulation, pushes this ideal towards a state of collapse. As such, these commercial layers begin to corrode, which exposes its flimsy construction.
Through manipulation, the subjects in my work begin to spill out from containment, smearing the retouched surface of the photograph. Distorted from their original function, the female body is adorned in hyper-feminine symbols, yet reveals an uneasy and threatening presence.” – Micheila Petersfield
