FLG presents our highly anticipated annual showcase of emerging and unsigned artists. Exploration was created to provide a platform for emerging artists to successfully exhibit their art within a commercial gallery context. Now in its 23rd year, this curated exhibition showcases the practices of talented artists from diverse backgrounds working across various mediums.
Winner of the Exploration Art Award 2023 (a solo exhibition at FLG 2024) is BRIDGET HILLEBRAND. Bridget impressed the judges with her meticulous technique, combined with a refined thoughtful presentation. The unique methodology combining the high fibre washi with sewing, tearing, layering and sculpting of these lightweight works to create forms with great presence.
This year's award was judged by Eddie Butler-Bowden, Program Manager of the City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection, and Lisa Warrener, Director of Global Arts Projects and FLG DIrector Claire Harris.
The Highly Commended Award has been awarded to BRADEN HOWARD for his imaginative characters and worlds and his consistently impressive output.
WINNER OF THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE: BRADEN HOWARD
BRADEN HOWARD Originally hailing from Wagga Wagga, Braden Howard is an Australian artist now based in Melbourne. His art practice revolves around the notion of a forever evolving or expanding fictional universe, within which each of his artworks exists. Influenced by childhood memories and the ideas and aesthetics of science-fiction and fantasy, the artworks he creates often feature alien like beings, gods, magical artefacts, invented contraptions and strange lands.Download Braden's CV and Bio
BRENT LUKEY Inspired by the aesthetics of cinematography Brent Lukey’s creative practice explores the interactions that exist between people, objects, and the environments around them – the choices they make and the methods by which they identify and define themselves in relation to others. Within his cinematic imagery Lukey uses light & shadow, colour and abstraction to consider the affects of time and place on our sense of self and to define the pathways thus navigated.Download Brent's CV and Bio
BRIDGET HILLEBRAND Bridget Hillebrand's creative practice explores the deconstruction of the two-dimensional image plane and examines the materiality of physical and implied interruptions in constructed printed paper. She works mainly with large sheets of printed light weight washi papers and experiments with dimensional properties through the act of folding, tearing, layering and stitching. Her recent works reflect on the fragility and changing ecology of oceans and river systems.Download Bridget's CV and Bio
LIZ PRIESTLEY Liz Priestley completed studies at Julian Ashton Art School and has since exhibited in solo and group shows within Australia. Her work explores the immediate physical landscape as well as that of the internal landscape of memory and emotional connections to place and time. The resulting image is a vehicle by which the viewer may experience their own epiphany of personal, binding memories.Download Liz's CV and Bio
LUCY RAY Creating narratives set in bleak and desolate environments, populated by out-of-place figures and uncanny objects, Lucy Ray's highly detailed graphite drawings blend the real and imagined to capture a sense of being an outsider, of being alone but not alone and to bridge the divide between the ordinary and the uncanny. Depicting the natural world and small everyday things, recurring themes explore ideas of loneliness, nostalgia and notions of sonder and liminality.Download Lucy's CV and Bio
LUKE NEIL Luke Neil is a Naarm/Melbourne-based sculptural artist working in timber, metal, digital laser cutting and light. He explores the transformation and elevation of such materials, and intentionally allows them to be malleable and free from restriction. Honouring design elements such as balance, proportion and precision, his works combine an inquisitive nature with a passion for problem solving, leading to the intuitive discovery of new qualities and characteristics within his materials and techniques.Download Luke's CV and Bio
NICHOLAS HOPWOOD Nicholas Hopwood is a realist oil painter based in Tasmania’s Huon Valley, ( Tahun’e-linah ), specializing in figurative and still life works. His art reflects the complexity of the human condition, often portraying duality and conflicting emotional states, while also celebrating beauty in each subject. Hopwood’s paintings capture the essence of the subject with precision and sensitivity, inviting the viewer to explore the depth of their own emotions.Download Nickolas' CV and Bio
PRITA TINA YEGANEH Prita Tina Yeganeh is a multidisciplinary artist of Iranian ancestry. Her practice draws on her experience as a refugee alongside her journey to reconnect and heal severed relationships with her ancestral homelands. Prita uses Iranian artisan traditions to access cultural knowledge and explore traditional modes of language and storytelling within her Iranian-Australian contemporary experience.Download Pritas' CV and BioSAMUEL MASSEY Samuel Massey is a representational painter working on Wadawurrung Country (Geelong). He is interested in the idea that the search for meaning may be the key to fulfilment, regardless of the existence of any greater meaning in life. His practice has typically depicted figures reflecting upon the absurdity of life or sincerely engaged in an activity that has no apparent meaning. This lens can be applied to the contemporary practice of painting itself which enables the freedom to embrace the act of painting as inherently meaningful regardless of subject or technique.Download Samuel's CV and Bio
VYVIAN WILSON Vyvian Wilson's work celebrates the beauty and fragility of the Australian landscape in a changing, perilous climate. Seduced by light – the way it plays on vegetation, land and water, the foundation of Wilson's works are the recollections of her emotional responses to her subjects. Working with suggestions of these visceral memories, ultimately her abstractions attempt to return a sense of strangeness to the familiar.Download Vyvian's CV and Bio
