Current Artists in Residence
Introducing the 2024/2025 Primrose Park Artists in Residence
Annabel Butler
Annabel Butler is figurative artist with a practice focused on drawing and painting. Annabel works on location in the tradition of en plein air painting as well as making studiobased assemblages and constructions that evolve out of the plein air paintings. Her current interest is the relationship between man and the natural world, specifically how human presence (or absence) can dramatically affect the psychological impact of a scene. During her Primrose Park residency Annabel plans to expand a body of work that explores how human presence in her work (eg. figures, yachts, architecture) impacts the depiction of place. The proximity of the studios to the playing fields, tennis courts, yacht moorings and bushland walking tracks, provides an unparalleled opportunity to observe and paint the local community engaged in a variety of outdoor activities in and around Primrose Park.
Yvonne East
Yvonne East's practice is predominantly drawing and painting. She has a wide-ranging drawing practice from refined observational still life to large installation works on fabric. Her painting practice is primarily located around the human figure and portraiture, and she currently have work hanging in the 2024 Mosman Art Prize and the 2024 Kennedy Art Prize. A finalist in many national portrait prizes including the Archibald Prize and Portia Geach Memorial Award, Yvonne also has work in the National Portrait Gallery collection. During her residency Yvonne plans to develop of a new body of work based on a deep immersion with the landscape of the Lower North Shore of Sydney where she lives and works. This work explores the embodied experience of mindfulness within the environment, visual phenomena including the Troxler's Fading and the psychological benefits of Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing).
Allie Jonscher
Allie Jonscher is early-career artist working in painting and its expanded forms of sculpture and installation using traditional and digital processes. Her practice is a conversation with technology grappling with what it means to be human in the digital age, with a specific interest in the uncanny. Her work aims to explore the entanglements of humans and technology, reflecting on how understandings of identity, selfhood, authorship and truth are altered and mediated in digital networks and by evolving technology. She produces intricately layered works that combine physical, machine, and digital painting practices grounded in abstract gesture and mark-making. During her residency Allie will develop her current body of work collaborating with AI generative software to produce paintings and sculpture.
Janet Parker-Smith
Janet Parker-Smith's artwork is rich in the processes of printmaking, including screenprint, etching and relief printing. She uses these processes to make unconventional hybrid works in the field of expanded print. The print works are often reproduced onto papers, fabrics and different soft substrates that are then sewn into wall-hangings and banners that are then embroidered onto. The works reference relationships, memory and the changing environment. During her residency Janet will continue working with processes, imagery and mediums of familiarity to produce a new body of work based on text and image experimenting with the introduction of hand-made paper forms in juxtaposition with embroidered pieces.
Kate Riley
Kate Riley is an early-career artist working primarily in sculpture, making objects from found and recycled materials, mostly items salvaged from hard rubbish collection. Kate finds, alters and makes objects she views as "components". These are then playfully joined and examined over time in different combinations until the right "fit" is found. Kate's practice is driven by materials and processes. It is often about making something out of nothing and using making techniques like glueing, crocheting and sewing, which are also not typically associated with fine art. The resulting sculptural objects are often non-sensical and whimsical. Kate plans to push her artistic practice, producing larger scale work. Kate has several group projects in 2025 and is also planning solo exhibition.