Previous Exhibitions
SALA Festival
'This is Australia'
'This is Australia' was the theme of our multi-artist exhibition for the South Australian Living Artists Festival 2025. We were extremely pleased to showcase a collection of 27 emerging artists, each depicting works that made one thing clear: "Ah, yes. This is Australia."
We curated a space that was completely packed with a variety of works, which were as unique as they were cohesive.
Works featured flora, fauna, landscapes, cityscapes, and sculpture by our valuable emerging South Australian artists. Much of the work was wall art and included various mediums such as oil and acrylic paints, encaustic medium, oil pastels, pencils, linoprints, and watercolours - as well as some ceramics. Artists on show included:
Roby Zadow, Daniel Francis Hill, Jacinta Rooney, Justin Schultz, Deborah Rooney, Tania Aliis Lapidge, Hayley Spencer, Vivienne Ireland, Alice Tilley, Christine Fenech, Caitlin Fogarty, Candace Gwyther, Michelle L Oppert, Liesl Shipard, Diana Weeratunga, Lydie Paton, Eilish Thomas, Joanna Hubbard, Tracey Wegner, Jennifer O'Neill, Martha Augoustinos, Lara Kittel, Sue Baker, Belinda Spencer, Nika Salakaeva, Rebecca Hamdorf, and Jade Zander
Mia Behrens
'Endless Stories'
Endless Stories is an experimental, mixed-media body of work focusing entirely on one object: chairs. This niche fixation subtly depicts the memory of human interactions and relationships through what they leave behind. Each chair holds a narrative, expressed through texture, colour, wear, and adornments. Settled into ambiguous spaces, and without humans portrayed in the works, a viewer may experience each object for its personal characteristics and find their own story in each canvas.
Mia Behrens is an Adelaide-based artist, working with oil and acrylic paints to create still life and portraiture works regarding intimacy and relationships, with feminist inspirations. Mia is an accomplished and award-winning emerging artist.
Find Mia via Instagram: @miabehrens_art
Annabel Lapsys
'Beyond the Archways'
Exploring the essence of what lies beyond the archways, this collection of artworks brings memories to life through colour and texture, weaving together abstract forms and real-world imagery. In Annabel's recent work, she has focused on portraying her experiences from extensive travels in Europe. These may represent an architectural style or merely convey a memory.
Annabel's signature abstract forms are now starting to converge with real-world imagery, which is her foray into bridging the gap between the imagined and the observed. Ultimately, Annabel wishes each work to instil a sense of calm and serenity in the beholder.
Find Annabel via Instagram: annabel.lapsys.artist
Claire Russell
'Carry Me Home'
Claire Russell lives and works on Kaurna land South Australia. Claire channels her creative energy into many modalities with a particular interest in weaving with the use of sustainable materials. Taking on the name Chameleon Arts as a homage to her adaptive creative style.
With an interest in creativity as an outlet for wellbeing and self-expression,Claire discovered the ancient art of basket weaving in 2023 and has been submerged ever since. Her style is earthy yet curious and playful.
Find Claire via Instagram: claire_russell_artistry
Ruby Yates
'Medley of Hands'
Ruby Yates is an emerging artist originally from rural South Australia, Barngarla Country, Port Augusta. Ruby is currently based in Kaurna Country, Adelaide and operates out of Switchboard Studios. Ruby holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours), graduating from the University of South Australia in 2022.
Ruby works primarily with paint, where unfolding the self plays a pivotal role in her practice, exploring themes of interconnectedness, relationships, and embodiment. Often ambiguous, her work fuses abstraction and lived experiences, drawing from her interest in the theory of becoming.
Find Ruby via Instagram: rubyatesart
Liesl Shipard
'The Places We
Find Ourselves'
Liesl's art reflects her passion for the world around her. She celebrates the light, movement, and stillness in grand vistas and everyday scenes. She uses vivid tones and brushstrokes to evoke feelings of delight, serenity, and joy, encouraging viewers to see ordinary moments in new light and appreciate the simple beauty of life. Lisel paints with watercolours and oils on both paper and board.
Find Liesl's artwork via Instagram: lieslshipard.art
Rebecca Hamdorf
'Low Tide at
Kingston Park
&
Entomology (Dermestidae) Collection'
Rebecca, a ceramist based in Tarntanya (Adelaide), uses her background in biological science and work as an entomologist to inform the process of making ceramic works. Drawing from her experience in taxonomy, Rebecca creates pieces that focus on and capture the details of the natural world around her. Her practice involves exploring varying hand building ceramics techniques - from pinching and slab building to Sgraffito and Kurinuki – to replicate organic shapes similar in form, but always slightly different.
Find Rebecca's art via Instagram: rhamd.art
Sue Michael
'Place Studies'
Sue is well-known for her naïve painting style and outward-looking approach to studies of daily life, often of regional towns or overlooked domestic settings. It is people’s creative adaptiveness that she seeks to archive. She can also be focused on the genius loci, or the atmospheres of place that can be felt on locations, and that are carried forward in people’s minds. Nature’s presence, seen in the plant world, stretches of water, even the skies, may hold a central place in her architectural studies. People are not given a central narrative in her scenes.
Sue delights in keeping all her skills in use, often combining collage as a basis for her paintings, or including printmaking techniques with her collages.
Find Sue's art via Instagram: soodiorama
