Alex Rizkalla

Biography

Alex Rizkalla lives and works in Melbourne.

The aim of his projects are to bring found and made objects together within a setting and a discourse where the material things form a language with a relationship to the intellectual discourse of the day. His installations have focused on an inquiry into language as it folds into objects and images.

His work has been exhibited both locally and overseas:

• 2009
  • "Japan Kunstkammer", Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan
  • "Apocrypha", Place Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
• 2007
  • "R is for relics, remains and ruins" in collaboration with Victor Georgopoulos, Ocular Lab inc., Melbourne, Australia
  • "R is for Resistance", George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
• 2006
  • "N is for No", Ocular Lab inc. , Melbourne, Australia
  • "Trinity Nine", Trinity College, Melbourne, Australia
• 2004
  • "W is for walking sticks, war & witness", Ocular Lab inc., Melbourne, Australia
  • "A Molecular History of Everything", Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
• 2002
  • "skinned" Yarra array, Birrarung Marr, Melbourne, Australia
  • "A to Z of health and wealth", Center for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia
• 1999 "TRACE", Liverpool Biennial UK
• 1997 ".....we all fall down", Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
• 1996 ".....we all fall down", Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, Germany
• Alex Rizkalla is also the co-founders of 'h' project (1997-98) and Ocular Lab inc. (2003-09) , Melbourne, Australia

Lucy Bleach

Biography

Lucy Bleach works within an installation based practice, developing artworks that explore and reflect the way we engage with our world, and the stuff that binds us together. Her chosen media is cross-disciplinary, typically setting up opportunities for encounter and change beyond the artist's touch. Lucy lives with her family in Australia's island state Tasmania, and exhibits locally, nationally, and internationally.

Lucy completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Art, University of N.S.W in 1990, and was awarded a Master of Fine art from the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania in 2007, where she is a lecturer in Sculpture and Core Studies.

Lucy has been the recipient of several Arts Tasmania and Australia Council grants for new work and professional development. In 2005 she was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award research scholarship, through the University of Tasmania. She has participated in three Ten Days on the Island festivals, and is a current Asialink Visual Arts Resident in Japan, where she is participating in the Echigo-Tsumari Triennale.

Richard Thomas

"OIKOS"

This ecological installation utilizes found objects and architectural elements of the Australia House in relation to the local history, habitation and ecology of the region and beyond. The work reflects on the interconnected systems of nature and humanity through material composition and metaphysical resonance.

Biography

Richard Thomas has exhibited in 17 different countries over a 20 year period in art spaces, non art contexts and in the landscape. His work addresses ecology and the confluence of man made and natural systems, forms and spaces. Media includes installation, sculpture, photography and video. He has also curated and directed various artist initiated events such as "The Bridge" (Construction in process VI) in 1998, and the Australian Pavilion at the "Satellite" project coinciding with the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. He has participated in artist's residencies in Japan, Belfast, Spain, the Netherlands and New York. In recent years, perhaps in sync with what Joseph Beuys called "The Expanded Concept of Art", he has initiated creative environmental projects beyond the artworld. These include a vermiculture enterprise, a carbon financed conservation organisation, a sustainable music festival, and earth conscious architecture projects.

For more information please go to www.richardthomas.com.au

"Analysis, contemplation and understanding of natural forms, energies and systems provides a continuous basis, motivation and template for aesthetic and creative activity. My projects are a dialogue on the understanding and representation of nature in the contemporary intercultural world, and the relationship of humanity and ecology in an epoch of catastrophic decline of the biosphere. Art as process, and creative consciousness can simultaneously acknowledge complicity in these forces of decline and destruction, whilst showing creative and regenerative guidance towards their solutions."