Outdoor Gallery

Sunday Jemmott is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist, seeking to challenge the marginalisation of play within both art history and contemporary culture.

At the core of Sunday’s art practice, lies a celebration and exploration of creative play. Their work serves as a melting pot of visually dynamic elements, combining clashing textures, unexpected colour palettes and materials. Through this approach, Sunday invites viewers to reconsider the boundaries of art and the inherent value of playfulness in the creative process.

Social media handle: @sundaysartclub

Arabella Walker is an emerging artist from the maternal line of the Auburn Hawkwood Wulli Wulli people, and through her art practice explores the complexities of bridging her First Nations heritage with modern life. She interweaves Indigenous cultural wisdom into her work through mediums like paint, video projections and installations.

Perfect Chaos is Arabella's reflection on her journey as a new First Nation artist over the past year. She describes it as a mix of exciting opportunities, challenges and setbacks, embodying chaos in its perfect form. This artwork reminds us that everyone is on a journey created by a tapestry of their own unique experiences and navigating their version of perfect chaos within their lives.

Social media handle: @arabella_walker_artz

Brisbane-based artist Bonnie Hislop is widely known for her expertise in ceramics, particularly hand-building and delightful illustrations. Bonnie has since shifted her focus to crafting large-scale sculptures, demonstrating her impressive technical skills. One of her stand-out pieces titled I need some space, is characterised by fun motifs, lively colours and nods to pop culture, staying true to Bonnie's distinctive style.

Displayed alongside the works of fellow artist Lindsay Stitches, Bonnie's creations stand out with detailed close-ups, offering a glimpse into the meticulous and labour-intensive process behind their artistic practices.

Social media handle: @bonnie_hislop

Lindsay Stitches is famous for her detailed hand embroidery of iconic buildings and quirky places from around the country. Her latest piece, which is featured in the Hutton Lane light boxes, Brisbane, shows off the city's landmarks such as the Story Bridge, Southbank's Wheel of Brisbane and even the notoriously cheeky bin chicken.

Displayed with Bonnie Hislop's work, Lindsay’s work gives us a closer look at the intricate process behind her craft. Alongside are smaller pieces from her embroidery journal, revealing more about her creative journey and style. Together, they offer a fun peek into the world of contemporary embroidery art.

Social media handle: @lindsay_stitches

Elisha McGuckin redefines still life painting with a vibrant pop art twist, infusing mundane objects with vivid acrylic colours. Her work captivates with bold nostalgia, evoking joy and excitement while triggering a dopamine release. In a world where sugar is a common reward, McGuckin’s art offers another, more enriching visual feast for the soul as seen in her artwork A mixed bag no.2. 

Social media handle: @elishamcguckinartist

Jessica Nothdurft is a multimedia artist who transforms deeply personal circumstances into universal scenes. Her faux-naive style explores the existence of struggle below the surface and the many facets of shame.

Jessica is a strong advocate around using art to process one’s struggles, with the selected artworks striking a balance between a sense of burden and the hopeful lightness of being.

Social media handle: @jessicanothdurft.art

Combining functionality with whimsy, Rachel Burke’s creations are a captivating blend of fashion-forward designs and dopamine-inducing artistry. Her work serves as a cathartic and labour-intensive exploration of colour, vibrancy and duality.

Not merely kitschy or crafty, Rachel’s practice embodies evidence of creative play and consideration. From wearable art to functional items, Rachel’s creations offer a recipe for heightened serotonin levels and reduced cortisol, all in the name of fun.

Social media handle: @imakestagram

Melanie specialises in creating symbolic still life paintings, with a particular emphasis on textiles, attire and the expressive language and memory of fabrics.

In The Loved Ones, Melanie created this new artwork in her distinctive style of acrylic and ink painting that depicts the wardrobe of Brisbane fashion icon Rachel Burke (also featured in Irish Lane). This piece vividly captures the colours and exuberance of Rachel's clothing collection in a semi-realistic manner, emphasising the concept of dopamine dressing.

Social media handle: @melanieshmelanie

Col Mac is an emerging multidisciplinary artist from Brisbane. By drawing from both art history and language, Col’s work explores how our relationships with text and image create connections over time, allowing us to view something as both static and alive, present and past.

Col's selected artworks are currently displayed alongside pieces by fellow artist Alice Lang in the King George Square Carpark light boxes. Together, these collections strike a delicate balance: while Lang's smiley-face masks evoke mental well-being connotations, Col's illustrated poetry acts as a reflective prompt, akin to journal entries commonly used in wellness practices, offering a counterbalance to the mental well-being connotations of the mask-like smileys. By engaging in journaling, individuals find calm amidst chaos, transforming the act into a mindfulness activity that helps quiet the noise of everyday life.

Social media handle: @mucho_okay

Alice Lang, an Australian artist currently residing in Los Angeles, explores the influence of existing power structures on the interpretation of objects, text and imagery. Her intricate and detail-rich works delve into the complex interplay between value and meaning.

Originally designed to boost employee morale, the smiley face has evolved into a symbol representing various counter-cultural movements, subcultures and emojis.

Alice's artworks are displayed alongside text pieces by fellow artist Col Mac in the King George Square Carpark light boxes. Together, these collections strike a delicate balance: Col's illustrated poetry acts as a reflective prompt, akin to journal entries commonly used in wellness practices, offering a counterbalance to the mental well-being connotations of the mask-like smileys. By engaging in journaling, individuals find calm amidst chaos, transforming the act into a mindfulness activity that helps quiet the noise of everyday life.

Social media handle: @alicemlang

Samuel Leighton-Dore is a multidisciplinary artist, screenwriter and author based on the Gold Coast. Working predominantly across ceramics, illustration and animation, his art brings colour and levity to themes of mental health, identity and sexuality. His work has appeared on the cover of the Journal of Australian Ceramics, been acquired into the Gold Coast City collection and the Tweed Regional Gallery collection, and twice selected for the biennial North Queensland Ceramic Awards. In 2019 he was named Visual Artist of the Year at ACON’s Honour Awards, recognising his creative contribution to the LGBTIQ+ arts community. He has released two books, How To Be A Big Strong Man (2019, Smith Street Books) and Wow It’s All A Lot (HarperCollins, 2023). He and his husband run Sad Man Studio, a production company focused on boutique animation, and have a coming-of-age animated series in development with Ludo Studio, the producers of Bluey.

"With Cloud-Based Fantasy I wanted to capture the potential joy of free-falling — the idea that irreverence and connection are possible alongside the deep discomfort of uncertainty. After all, nothing symbolises the simultaneous beauty and fragility of life quite like suspended ceramics encased in glass on a busy Brisbane street." Samuel Leighton-Dore

Social media handle: @samleightondore

Susan Lincoln is an established Meanjin/Brisbane artist working with form and light within space. Her practice explores experimental 2D and 3D artworks in a broad range of reflective materials which are used to attain a highly refined aesthetic.

Featured in the vitrine, In Light We Trust (Paradise 2424AD), is a sculptural, light-reflecting artwork exploring the simplicity and nostalgia of light through glass, crystal and reflective material. The outcome is a portal of shimmering light that transcends the physical constraints of the vitrine, creating a renewable and changing visual dialogue between the passerby and the space.

“Stop, listen, breathe, feel.” - Susan Lincoln

Social media handle: @susanlincolnart

Frances Powell is a Meanjin/Brisbane still life and collage artist, drawing inspiration from figure drawing, abstract shapes and colour associations in her work, which primarily focuses on paper.

Her latest works, exhibited in Heritage Lane, reflect on the significance of slowing down and cherishing moments shared over a meal with loved ones, celebrating the individual elements that make up the sum of the experience.

Social media handle: @byfrances_

Within the domain of Michelle Xen’s practice, sound, object, saturated colour and environmental immersion are crushed together to form a new, highly compressed system of experimental engagements with sensory data.

Michelle’s artwork Mnemonic featured in the Museum Of Brisbane foyer and Howard Smith Wharves’ displays text onto the screens and rock walls, showcasing a vibrant and dynamic projection.

Mnemonic is a video series remixing abstracted music videos and text.  The words are selected from a list of 2048 words utilised by the original BIP39 protocol, an encryption used for early Bitcoin wallets. These randomly selected mnemonic phrases were originally composed of 12 words and referred to as a seed phrase.

For this artwork words were selected based on their poetic resonance within the video. As a whole the phrase also forms a hidden acronym.

Social media handle:@michellexen