2012 Artists

Participating Artists:

• Alex Cearns
• Bridget Laudien
• Cate Jones
• Erin Burnett
• Helena Wadlsey
• Karin Wallace
• Loren Kronemyer
• Lottie Moore
• Michelle Dawson
• Nili Duvdevani
• Penny Maddison
• Philipp Pahin
• Stephanie Ives
• Susan Hauri-Downing
• Tarsh Bates
• Yvette Watt
• Zaaron Crosby

Artist Bios:

Alex Cearns

Alex Cearns is a multi award winning and widely published animal photographer. She owns Houndstooth Studio and creates stunning animal portraits of her furred, feathered, fanged and finned clients. Alex combines her extensive animal handling expertise with skilful use of lighting to capture her subjects in full colour and intricate detail. Named Best Canine Photographer/ Artist in the 2011 MDBA Dog Owners Choice Awards, she is a contributing photographer for dozens of state national and international animal charity organisations. She has worked on commission for Australian Geographic magazine and her images have graced many publications, from magazine covers to a national postage stamp release.

Bridget Laudien

Bridget Laudien is a photographer who is currently based in the New York City area and has specialized in both two and four- legged portraiture for the past 7 years. Her photographs of animals in various settings strive to alleviate speciesism by giving rise to the concept that animals are people too. After receiving a photography degree in 2007, Bridget is now completing her second degree in nursing and is working towards building an exemplary life that promotes compassion for all living beings. Her ultimate goal is to marry her two passions in an attempt to promote awareness of and help bridge the gaps between animal welfare and human welfare.

Cate Jones

Cate Jones is an artist born in Perth in 1988. Drawing every chance she got from a young age. Attempted a graphic design course but found computers to be the enemy and only excelled at the drawing and creative aspects. She mainly draws fairytale creatures, animals and obscure cartoons, favouring pencil and ink. A long time animal lover turned vegetarian turned vegan turned passionate animal rights activist. On a mission to educate and change the way the world views animals.

Erin Burnett

Erin Burnett was born in Perth, Western Australia and now lives and works in Brisbane, where she recently completed a Bachelor of Photography, majoring in Photojournalism, from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. She was awarded The FujiFilm Photographic Award for her graduating portfolio, a scholarship valued at $6000 to continue with her studies into Honours. Erin is the current issue editor of the Australian Photojournalist magazine; an annual non–profit publication that seeks to draw attention to injustices routinely ignored by the mainstream media. Having exhibited in China, New Zealand, Melbourne and Brisbane, she is now proud to exhibit a sample of her work in Perth. She is an activist and is continuing with her long-term project, investigating the hidden practices commonly used in the treatment of animals farmed for food and companionship.

Helena Wadsley

As a child, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, Helena Wadsley would respond, “A veterinarian… or an artist”. When she realised there were some unpleasant tasks involved in veterinary work, she focused on becoming an artist, and never looked back, though she still, of course, loves animals. Currently, Wadsley teaches painting at a college in Vancouver, Canada—that is, when she is not busy working in her studio or playing ball with her very energetic dog. For more information, or to view her work, please visit www.helenawadsley.com

Karin Wallace

Born in Subiaco, Western Australia, in 1951 Karin completed an Advanced Diploma of Environmental Art & Design at Polytechnic West, Midland in 2005 and second year of Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) at Edith Cowan University, W.A. in 2006. Between 1996 – 2011 she has exhibited annually in many group and invitational exhibitions including Mine own executioner in 2008, an annual exhibition of self portraiture by invited Western Australian artists, presented by the Mundaring Arts Centre. Karin received First Prize, Works on Paper, Hills Gazette Award in 1996 and was placed on the Dean’s Honour Roll (The Faculty of Education and Arts, Edith Cowan University) in 2007. She is represented in the Polytechnic West Collection, Midland, and has work in numerous private collections. Her practice primarily deals with the complexities of personal and social conscience. Karin often makes use of archetypal symbols and metaphor in an attempt to offer layered readings to the works.

Loren Kronemyer

Loren Kronemyer is an interdisciplinary artist whose work seeks to explore and manipulate fundamental truths about being in the world. Especially of concern is the human relationship to the animal and the environment, and how the accumulation of history, culture, and knowledge colours our perceptions thereof. Using any and all tools available, her art serves to expand the chronicle of our dynamic understanding of the forces at work around us. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Biological Arts degree through SymbioticA at UWA.

Lottie Moore

Lottie Moore is a Perth based photographer who recently graduated from the Central Institute of Technology. She is currently working on fashion portraits but is keen to develop her animal welfare project that she started in 2010. Lottie’s aim is to create confronting and controversial images that illustrate the effects of animal cruelty and criticise those who are responsible for it. She also hopes to later work on a similar project based on women’s rights and equality. If you would like to see the work she has already produced please visit her website: www.lottiemoorephotography.com

Michelle Dawson

Born in New Zealand, Michelle moved to Australia in 1985. She has been working as a professional artist since 1996 and has studied both in Australia and the UK. She has twice represented Australia at the Intercontinental Biennale of Small Graphics in Romania and was shortlisted for the CBCA 2009 Crichton Award for Best New Illustrator for her drawings for “How Weird Is That…”. Michelle has been a finalist in several major art prizes including the Robert Jacks Drawing Prize and The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize. She recently received a Highly Commended in the 2011 Portia Geach Art Award. Her artwork can also be spotted on several album/cd covers including Susanna Carmen’s Circus Girl, James Cruickshank’s Note to Self and Gyan’s Superfragalistically. She lives and works in a converted church near the east coast in rural NSW. Her website is www.msdawson.com

Nili Duvdevani

Nili Duvdevani is a Perth based artist, graphic & web designer as well as poet who has exhibited regularly since 1992 and published her first collection of poetry “Gambling with God and Dancing with the Devil” in 2009. Her brightly coloured images, inspired by beloved friends of assorted species, evoke the magical sense of presence and personality that exists in the natural world. As co-founder of the Oryn Gham project exploring plant healing, Nili has found another way to present the unique gifts that the creatures we share our world with offer to human beings.

Penny Maddison

Penny Maddison specialises in traditional watercolour, painting just about every subject from wildlife and birds, landscape and architectural subjects, flowers and plants, still life and portraits. She was President of the Watercolour Society of W.A. (2004-2007, vice president 2000-2004), exhibiting with them regularly and other groups and has held two successful solos (1999 & 2008). Her work is in international and Australian public, corporate and private collections. A well-known watercolour teacher, she has tutored two overseas painting trips. Penny Maddison can be contacted at pmaddison@iinet.net.au and examples of her work can be seen on Penny’s page at www.watercolourswa.org.au

Philipp Pahin

Philipp Pahin was born in Vienna in 1972 to a Spanish mother and French father. They moved to North Queensland in 1980. After high school Philipp worked in the hospitality industry and later as an occupational salvage deep-sea diver. His contact with local and international artists greatly influenced his decision to develop his skills as a painter. Subsequently Philipp studied visual arts at TNQIT, Cairns JCU, and art history through Curtin by distance. He later moved to the Northern Territory where he studied art, photography and pre-press graphic design at NTU, (now CDU) during which time he designed the logo for the NTU art gallery, and undertook commissioned illustration work for the NT Department of Commerce. He was later employed at Newslimited QLD to design regional newspaper advertising. He completed a Bachelor in Communication Design with research Honours in wildlife illustration, whereupon he moved to Melbourne to study design at Swinburne University, completing a Design Masters in 2010. Philipp was always fascinated by observing the reactions of fauna to human behaviour. His current PhD work and thesis investigates the relational aesthetics of human-animal interactions.

Stephanie Ives

Stephanie Ives was born in England in 1990 and migrated to Australia at two years of age with her mother and sister. Ives began drawing at a very early age, a passion which she has sustained to this day. Ives is inspired by animated films, including Watership Down and Rover Dangerfiled. She is also inspired by the natural world, incorporating wildlife and pets into many of her works. Ives’ art is continuously evolving, becoming heavily influenced by pop surrealism, a genre of art which juxtaposes dreams and the subconscious mind with fantasy. Ives is inspired by pop surrealist artists Greg Craola Simkins and Gris Grimly. In 2010, two pieces of Ives’ art were featured in Curtin University’s Grok Magazine (issue 4). In 2011, Ives exhibited work in the Sentience Exhibition at Kurb Gallery. Ives is also a member of Propel Youth Arts W.A.

Susan Hauri-Downing

In the past five years, after starting a family and spending time in Australia and Switzerland, the focus of Susan Hauri-Downing’s work has shifted from themes directly related to environmental degradation caused by unsustainable land management practices introduced by early Australian colonists in the 19th Century, towards exploring the ways in which the global cultivation of native and foreign plant species and their related ecologies represent personal and cultural signifiers of human needs. These needs include aesthetics, cultural ties to the past, food security, availability of traditional food, relationships with other species with which we coexist, biodiversity and many other factors.

Tarsh Bates

Tarsh Bates is interested in bodies as material and as sites for intervention, in evocative objects, and in the aesthetics of care: embodied encounters that are durational, affective, relational, proximal and particular. Her artistic practice is concerned with the aestheticisation of bodies, our capacity for alternative possibilities for care and the ambiguities of embodiment in a biotechnological era. Tarsh explores these concepts through biology, sculpture and performance, using artistic and scientific tools to examine the nexus of bodies, meaning and culture. She is currently a candidate for a Master of Science (Biological Arts) at SymbioticA UWA and has a background in biotechnology, environmental science and contemporary art.

Yvette Watt

Yvette Watt is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania. Watt was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in 2003 and a PhD in Fine Art in 2009 from this institution. She is a committee member of the both the Australian Animal Studies Group and the UTAS Animals and Society Study Group, and the Tasmanian representative of the Animals Australia executive. Watt’s art practice spans more than 25 years. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and has been the recipient of a number of grants and awards. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections including Parliament House, Canberra, Artbank and the Art Gallery of WA. Watt has been actively involved in animal advocacy since the mid 1980s, and her artwork is heavily informed by her activism. Watt is a co-editor of, and contributor to, the collection of essays titled Considering Animals: Contemporary Studies in Human- Animal Relations (Ashgate, 2011) and was commissioned to contribute an entry on ‘Animals Art and Ethics’ for the Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, (Marc Bekoff ed., Greenwood Press, 2010).

Zaaron Crosby

Currently studying a BA Fine Arts, Zaaron Crosby is a Visual Artist interested in all aspects of creative expression, including painting, photography and mixed medium. Born in London, Zaaron arrived in Australia in 1999 and was immediately struck by the natural beauty in Western Australia. After travelling extensively around the coast of Australia, Zaaron settled back in Western Australia in 2000 and now works in the foot-hills of Kalamunda Shire painting and exploring various media and styles. Zaaron is the owner and director of the online art gallery, Artless Impact, www.artlessimpact.com.au, which provides a vehicle for ethically minded people to purchase sustainable, ecologically sound, fair trade artworks. Trained as a Creativity Coach, Zaaron runs the Creativity Coaching practice “think.feel.dream”, www.thinkfeeldream.com.au and is passionate about creativity and the creative process. He has worked with novelists and visual artists around the world supporting their journeys to better understand and push past creative blocks, to think big and work more productively on meaningful projects and to overcome doubts, fears and anxieties that so often hinder the creative mind.