Kate Gorringe-Smith sees migratory birds as a metaphor embodying human migration and the search for home and safety. She reveals how she learnt printmaking on Fred Williams’ printing press at school and went on to study printmaking at RMIT. Discover how working at BirdLife Australia influenced her art and the genesis for the Overwintering Project. Kate also discusses how the AGL proposal at Western Port was recently overturned and how the exhibition is a celebration rather than a requiem for this internationally significant site.
A conversation with MPRG Director, Danny Lacy, 2021.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Kate Gorringe-Smith - The Overwintering Project

MPRG Director Danny Lacy and artist and co-curator Rosie Weiss take us through Surreal Landscapes - a group exhibition that explores the way artists position subtle and strange, absurd and dreamlike interventions within the landscape, abstracting and shifting our reading of the landscape. Find out more about works in the show, including artists Hayley Millar Baker, Nadine Christensen, Peta Clancy, Emily Ferretti, Tara Gilbee, Philip Hunter, Raafat Ishak, James Newitt, Emma Phillips and Christian Thompson AO.

Surreal Landscapes audio tour

Lisa Walker and Brendan Huntley talk to curator Dunja Rmandić about the exhibition News from Nowhere at MPRG. 

Lisa Walker’s vast body of work is a career-length conversation with the question of ‘what is jewellery?’ 

As well as being the frontman for the Melbourne punk rock band Eddie Current Suppression Ring, Brendan Huntley’s paintings, objects and works on paper depict faces and explore the emotional depth of humanity.

In this conversation they discuss how sitting across both fine art and craft allows them the freedom to break rules.

Lisa Walker and Brendan Huntley – the freedom to break rules

Artist Zoe Croggon talks about her exhibition at MPRG Deep Cuts. Croggon’s artwork splices together the human body with the natural landscape and built environment, seamlessly integrating dancers and athletes with details of modern architecture. She works with sculpture, video, drawing and collage and draws on her personal experiences of studying ballet and dance.

Recorded with a live audience at MPRG for monthly conversation series with curator Danny Lacy.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Zoe Croggon collage, architecture and the human body

Lucilla Wyborn d’Abrera talks about her mother Constance Stokes and the retrospective at MPRG. Constance Stokes was one of the leading artists of her generation. In this podcast Lucilla reveals memories of her mother and how she balanced her desire to be an artist with the realities of domestic life.

Recorded with a live audience at MPRG for monthly conversation series with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Lucilla Wyborn D'Abrera on her mother Constance Stokes

Artist Minna Gilligan talks about her collage works, her love for all things retro and how she became an Instagram superstar. We also discover more about her love of fashion and colour and she gives her advice for artists just starting out.

Recorded with a live audience at MPRG for conversation series with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Minna Gilligan on collage, Instagram, fashion and retro

Gosia Wlodarczak's work explores the fragility of life and celebrates the present moment. Find out more about her 10-day drawing performance at MPRG and how her practice has developed over time.

Recorded with a live audience at MPRG for conversation series with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Image by Longin Sarnecki

Gosia Wlodarczak, immersive drawing in the present moment

Tom Polo talks about researching the MPRG Collection, winning the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and how working in public demystifies the artist’s process.

Recorded with a live audience at MPRG for conversation series with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Tom Polo on the MPRG collection and creating a site specific work

Kerrie Poliness talks about founding Store 5, an artist-run space focusing on abstraction, having a DIY attitude to her work and how her trademark diamond landscape paintings began. 

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy, recorded at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation. 

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Kerrie Poliness on making abstract art and finding your tribe

Raafat Ishak responds to Nicholas Chevalier’s painting of Pulpit Rock in the exhibition Coast: The artists' retreat. Raaf talks about his development as an artist and the many influences on his art practice. Raaf was an artist in residence at Police Point in 2017 and found the area to be loaded with significant historical material. Hear how he hosted a dinner party at the artist in residence cottage to develop ideas for his work in Coast.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy, recorded at Raaf's studio. Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Raafat Ishak hosts a dinner party to develop an idea

GW Bot drew inspiration from the landscape of Point Nepean and Sorrento back beach, translating the landscape into a symbolic language of glyphs for her works in Coast: The artists' retreat. GW talks about the development of her work, her memories of the peninsula and how she learnt to draw in the shadows of the coastal cliffs.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy. Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

GW Bot captures the language of the Australian landscape

Jon Campbell talks about his exhibition Ball Yeah, a selection of his works from the past 15 years that reference aspects of our passionate sporting culture. Discover more about Campbell’s sporting background, his iconic ‘yeah’ flag and what it meant for him to win the $100,000 Basil Sellers Art Prize.

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Jon Campbell on art and sport

Andrew Hazewinkel talks about his exhibition What the sea never told. This project takes as its starting point the 1892 Mornington football club tragedy where fifteen young men from Mornington drowned whilst returning from playing a game of football against the township of Mordialloc. Andrew talks candidly about this ambitious project that he developed over a period of three years. Discover more about Andrew’s work for the exhibition which included an epic new video installation, unique cibachrome photographs and an artist publication that reflects on Australia’s worst sporting tragedy.

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Andrew Hazewinkel - What the sea never told

Kylie Stillman is best known for her book sculptures and woodcarvings. She uses scalpel blades, jigsaws, sewing materials and drills to alter objects and create negative spaces that depict ‘signs of life’. Kylie talks to curator Danny Lacy about the defiance of creativity, the genesis of her book carvings and the idea behind her National Works on Paper piece Just C.

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Kylie Stillman - art as defiance

Curator Danny Lacy talks to James Tylor and Laura Wills, winners of the $15,000 Mornington Peninsula Shire / Beleura - The Tallis Foundation major acquisitive award in the 2018 National Works on Paper.
Their award-winning work The Forgotten Wars 2017 was based on town and mining maps from the British Parliamentary papers and Commissioners’ reports on the colonization of Australia. The Australian Frontier wars were a series of armed conflicts, massacres and battles that took place from 1788 to 1930 between the invading British Government and Aboriginal Australians.
They talk about this unique collaboration as an Indigenous and a non-indigenous artist and how they are decolonising the Australian frontier war stories.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

James Tylor & Laura Wills on the forgotten wars

Rosie Weiss is a Mornington Peninsula based artist and educator. In 1992 she won the Moet & Chandon Australian art Fellowship. Rosie's work Two Banksias Holding On was acquired for the MPRG collection in the 2018 National Works on Paper.
Rosie talks about her diaristic approach to her work, her interest in the environment and how she makes sense of the world through her art. Hear about her first teaching job at Pentridge, instructing life drawing in Saudi Arabia and her work with the Rosebud West women’s group.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Rosie Weiss - artist as a gentle activist

Katherine Hattam who has been a finalist in the National Works on Paper eleven times. Katherine talks about her two stage process of making work, her repeating motif of the table covered in everyday objects and why she is fascinated by the William Buckley story, featured in her 2018 National Works on Paper work He Forgot How To Speak English.

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Katherine Hattam - objects of the everyday

Danica Chappell explores the malleability of analogue photography to create unique abstract works. Hear about the process and challenges behind the work she makes and her defining research at the Bauhaus museum after receiving a Jim Marks Postgraduate Scholarship.

A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.

Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Image: Danica Chappell, Shallow Shadow #1 (detail)

Danica Chappell - riffing off photography’s history

Natasha Bieniek’s works shrink the everyday down into microcosms. Her tiniest paintings are only 4 x 5 centimetres. Natasha talks about how she is reviving the tradition of miniature painting and why she has shifted from portraiture to landscape painting.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Podcasts

Natasha Bieniek - Reviving miniature painting

Chris Bond’s practice involves the invention and embodiment of fictional artists and writers. In his painting practice, this is often realised in imagined books, magazines and correspondence. Bond’s new series of four small watercolours for the Obsession: Devil in the detail exhibition continue his chimerical alter-ego of Martin Meeks, a Boston-based artist possessing species dysphoria, who identifies himself as an ocelot. Find out more about how Chris Bond works in ways that are unlikely.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Chris Bond - fictional constructs

Christian Capurro's 'Another Misspent Portrait of Etienne de Silhouette' is a September 1986 issue of Vogue Hommes magazine that has been carefully erased by over 260 people. The participants inscribed the time taken to erase the page with its monetary value according to their current income. Discover how Capurro is interested in the idea of how erasure is manifested and how image making is simultaneously a making and unmaking process.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Christian Capurro - making and unmaking

A special episode of practical and inspirational advice for artists by artists featured in MPRG's 2018 exhibition program and podcast series.

We asked artists what they wish they knew when they were just starting out. Hear advice from 14 Australian artists, including Raafat Ishak, Jon Campbell, Andrew Hazewinkel, Kylie Stillman, James Tylor, Laura Wills, Rosie Weiss, Katherine Hattam, Danica Chappell, Catherine Truman, Natasha Bieniek, Vipoo Srivilasa, Chris Bond and Christian Capurro.

Top tips:
Be incredibly patient and don’t compromise.
Raafat Ishak

Be prepared to work hard … and stay with it.
Jon Campbell

If you make things that take a long time to make, make things simultaneously that are really quick. If you’re making things that are really big in scale, make things simultaneously that are of a really intimate scale. Always work across the full spectrum of what you are doing …
Andrew Hazewinkel

Find work that you enjoy to support your practice … because if your practice is purely non-financial you have so much more freedom in what you make.
Kylie Stillman

You’re an artist for a lifetime. It doesn’t all have to happen straight away.
Rosie Weiss

Listen to your heart, not always your head.
Catherine Truman

Say yes to opportunities when they present themselves, even if that scares you.
Natasha Bieniek

Keep making good work.
Vipoo Srivilasa

Avoid fads.
Chris Bond

Be incredibly dogged and find people who care about what you do.
Christian Cappuro

Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Podcast series

Best advice for artists from 14 Australian artists

Juan Ford examines the human figure and its relationship to the environment. He has consistently been engaged with opening up new possibilities for realism in painting. Find out more about how exhibiting in artist-run spaces helped develop his practice. He also talks about his artistic process and still life constructions and why his work is often a multifaceted, but sometimes contradictory affair.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Our 2018 podcast program is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Juan Ford - timeless painting

Three generations of artists from the same family - Christine Lloyd,  Michael Favaloro and Merryn Lloyd - talk to curator Danny Lacy about their work in a recent exhibition at MPRG. In the Valley was an exhibition that highlighted the beauty and fragility of our natural environment and was presented as part of CLIMARTE’s ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019 festival. Discover how three generations from one family presented different perspectives of the same Mornington Peninsula location.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Christine Lloyd, Michael Favaloro and Merryn Lloyd - three generations of artists

Artist and avid collector Patrick Pound talks about his MPRG exhibition 'A Collection of Stranger Things'. Pound delved into the MPRG Collection and drew out works that he recontexualised alongside his own collections of found photographs and objects. Patrick Pound is well known for his collections-based artworks, where he collects thousands of photographs that he themes together as museums. Discover more about his collection methodology and how the collection has become the medium.
A conversation with MPRG curator Danny Lacy, 2020.
Introduction by Nathan Schroeder, Music courtesy of The Basics

Patrick Pound - A Collection of Stranger Things

Artist Tara Gilbee has a multidisciplinary approach to art making that incorporates solograph and pin hole photography techniques. Her work will be displayed in MPRG’s upcoming exhibition ‘Surreal Landscapes’ as well as an online exhibition of her works resulting from her time spent at the Police Point Artist in Residency, on the Mornington Peninsula, in 2018 and 2019. Discover more about Tara’s background as a health professional and how this has fostered ideas around power and forensics and ideas around the body and how we speak about illness and negotiate vulnerability.

Tara Gilbee - solograph and pin hole photography

How do we access our True Selves? 

Tai Snaith and Katherine Hattam discuss how making and depicting space can merge the inside (mental) world with the outside (public) world of politics and ideas. Reflecting on Katherine’s interest in psychoanalysis and unconscious time vs real time and how family life can be political.

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Katherine Hattam - Window to the inside

How do our gestures and bodies become part of our work? And how is the act of cutting a feminist action?

Tai Snaith and Sally Smart talk about female identity and archetypes of women such as pirates, witches and more- ideas which have been present in Sally’s life and imagination since she was a child. We talk about the act of cutting and how the female identity is both fragile and sturdy, but ultimately ‘re-arrangeable’ and fluid.

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Sally Smart - Big horizons

As artists, how we can learn to use our megaphones to create a world we can bear to live in? Can a knife have a mind of it’s own? Can desire be an animating force?

In this conversation Tai Snaith converses with Deborah Kelly about her animated paper work ‘LYING WOMEN’ from the MPRG collection and the process of making it. They talk of freeing the female figures from white man’s HIStory and letting them rub up against each other in HERstory.  They go on to explore a series of juicy topics from starting her own religion to using art-making as an attempt to save her own life.

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Deborah Kelly - A task for many hands

How can the overload of images in daily life be seen as a positive thing? How can we keep ideas alive over decades of practice? How do you KEEP EVERYTHING and not become a hoarder?

In this conversation Tai Snaith and Elizabeth Gower discuss an early work of hers on paper called ‘Precious Life’ from the MPRG collection. They explore the practice of collecting and sorting both actual materials and symbols and how it has adapted and changed over her life. Elizabeth shares how she learnt to ‘accept the chaos.’

Image: Elizabeth Gower in front of 'Found Images' NGV Melbourne,1987 (photo: John Brash) from 'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman' 1974 – 2020. 

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Elizabeth Gower - Sweeping in and sorting life

How can the way in which something is painted affect the way we read it? How is the self-discipline involved in painting similar to the self-discipline of an athlete? How can we forget the cost of our materials in order to paint freely?

In this episode Tai Snaith converses with Fiona McMonagle about her watercolour painting ‘Wonky’ from the MPRG collection. This work is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Fiona’s fascination with complicated female subjects and making up her own rules. Here, she reveals her understanding of the medium of watercolour and her willingness to fail as part of the process.

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Fiona McMonagle - Willing to fight and willing to fall

What does it mean to push past perfectionism? How can feeling powerless create more power for us in the end? How do we strike a balance between depicting the absurdity of life and the serious nature of compulsion?

In this episode Tai Snaith and Lily Mae Martin start by deciphering her work on paper from the MPRG collection called ‘Wrestling.’ They go on to unpack a series of ideas around how we see the female body, comfort zones, censorship and control. 
Together they navigate the very personal terrain of pushing through self-loathing and how making art relates to motherhood, career, health and life.

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Lily Mae Martin - Wrestling with control

As artists, how can we fill in the gaps of knowledge about our cultural histories? How can nature and country act as a connector? How can collaboration help strengthen our practice?

Tai Snaith kicks off this new series by speaking with Gundijmara/ Italian/ Torres Strait islander artist LISA WAUP about her powerfully personal, shield-like work on paper from the MPRG collection called ‘Admit to Care.’ 

Together they discuss Lisa’s process of collecting history and stitching it together in order to ‘protect the layers.’

Presented as part of ‘A World of One’s Own’ a podcast and exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2021. 'A World of One’s Own' is an ongoing document which began in 2017 at ACCA and has had further iterations and exhibitions at Sarah Scout Presents in October 2018, The Art Gallery Of Ballarat in 2019.

Lisa Waup - Stitching together

A podcast for people curious about art and the lives of artists, a conversation series produced by Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.
MPRG is the region's premier public art gallery, supported by Mornington Peninsula Shire and other partners.
Transcripts for our podcasts can be read here: https://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au/LEARN/Podcasts/Transcripts

Popular tracks by Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery