Address: Sidespace Gallery

Opening Event :
Thursday 5 June 2025
*TIME TBC*

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 5 June – Sunday 15 June 2025
10:00am – 4:00pm daily

Come celebrate the talents of queer artists in Lutrawita / Tasmania

Hear Us. See Us. Know our Names. is an art exhibition dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the diverse talents and unique perspectives of gay, lesbian, gender diverse, and trans artists based in Tasmania. This exhibition seeks to highlight the cultural, social, and personal narratives that influence and shape the work of these artists, providing a platform for visibility, dialogue, and appreciation within the wider community.

Opening Event :
Thursday 17 April 2025 @ 5.30pm

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 18 – Sunday 27 April 2025
Daily 10:00am – 4:00pm

Michelle Hiscock, Sue Nettlefold, Julie Williams, Gina Bruce

Four painters, three from Sydney painters and one from Tasmania, connected through their association with the National Art School, and a love of landscape, are coming together to showcase their unique approaches to painting and drawing the world around us.

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Michelle Hiscock trained at the Canberra School of Art (ANU). Her powerfully evocative early landscapes were well received by collectors and critics, and she has continued to develop a pictorial language based on a contemporary interpretation of the classical landscape tradition.

Hiscock has lived in Japan and France and travelled widely sketching in Europe. She has had 15 solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and is regularly a finalist in national competitions such as the Archibald Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Art Award and the Gallipoli Art Prize. She has had survey exhibitions at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery and Rusten House in Queanbeyan.

Sue Nettlefold is a Tasmanian based painter with a particular focus on building creativity in Community. Since her return to Tasmania in 2008 Sue has completed an MFAD in painting at UTAS in 2017 and established the Spring Bay Studio and Gallery on the East Coast in 2011.  

Sue’s recent solo exhibition, ‘Vantage Point’ at Sidespace Gallery in 2022, was followed by an invitation to participate in Paint 2022, Relationships and Limitations, in Launceston and Devonport (Polmeina and Nant Galleries). Sue has exhibited in Sydney and Melbourne over many years before her return to Tasmania in 2008.

Sue was recently awarded ‘Citizen of the Year, 2025’ for her cultural contribution to the East Coast.

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Julie Williams is an Australian painter, printmaker and teacher who divides her time between studios in Sydney and Hill End, NSW.  Julie also exhibited in Paint 22, Relationships and Limitations in both Launceston and Devonport, Tasmania.

Julie has exhibited widely in Sydney, Regional Galleries in NSW and in South-East Asia during her 5 years living in Singapore. Her work is held in both public and private collections.  She has been a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize in Sydney on more than one occasion including their inaugural exhibition.  

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Gina Bruce is a celebrated painter known for her en plein air works and exploration of landscape and figurative compositions. She graduated with Honors from the National Art School after completing a commerce degree at the University of Sydney. Bruce has held nine solo exhibitions at the Robin Gibson Gallery and earned notable awards, including the Waverley Art Prize (2011) and the Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award (2002). Residencies, such as at the Denise Hickey Paris studio (2003) and Nokia Asia Pacific Art Award in Bangkok (2002), have contributed to shaping her career.

Opening Event :
Friday 9 May 2025, 5:00pm – 7:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 2 – Sunday 18 May 2025
Monday – Friday 9:30am – 4:00pm
Saturdays 10:00am – 3:00pm
Sundays 11:00am – 3:00pm

HoCo Now : a showcase of Year 11 and 12 students from Hobart College’s 2024 cohort working in a variety of media.

Every year art students from across the state work hundreds of hours to produce art as part of their coursework, largely unseen except by peers and teachers.

HoCo Now is an annual survey of work from Hobart College, celebrating the depth and breadth of contemporary student practice. Featuring works across a diverse range of media—including painting, sculpture, digital art, photography, and installation—the exhibition highlights personal reflections, social themes, and technical skill of the next generation of artists.

Opening Event :
Friday 4 April 2025, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 3 – Monday 14 April 2025
10:00am – 4:00pm Saturday – Wednesday
10:00am – 7:00pm Thursdays & Fridays

A presentation of works by three friends, Mark Buckland, Eo Greensticks and Steve Hargreaves. who have been exhibiting their work together for over a decade.

Artistically their styles and content are individually quite distinct, but somehow together it always seems to work.

Much of Eo’s work is large scale ferro-cement sculpture and bright paintings inspired by people like Joan Miro.

In this exhibition Mark is presenting a single work comprised of 486 works created over the last 35 years titled Check Mate – Experiments in Colour, Space and Time 1990 -2025.

Steve works mainly in oils, ceramics and photographic imagery.

Opening Event :
Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 20 – Monday 31 March 2025
10:00am – 3:00pm daily

An exhibition of works created as a result of the Struth Ruth! Group Residency at Melaleuca near Bathurst Harbour.  

Presented by the Struth Ruth! Art Group (consisting of graduates and non-graduate artists).

Featured Artists include : Helen Jessup, Trudy Humphries, Jane Broad, Karen Vincent, Janne Mooney, Helen Spaulding, and Susan Kenny.

The exhibition was inspired by a trip to the South West of Tasmania. The paintings are a showcase and a unique representation of our wonderful island.  

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Helen Jessup

Helen Jessup reinvented herself as a painter following retirement from her working life as a TAFE teacher, social worker and academic.  Robin Mary Calvert was her primary art teacher until she commenced a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2013 completing in 2018. Helen joined Struth Ruth! in 2019. She has participated in many group, solo and competition exhibitions since retirement, including a recent residency at Derby. An exhibition displaying works generated from this residency opened in December 2023 and ran over the summer.

Helen paints and shows with several groups regularly, including weekly with local “Struth Ruth!”, Sunny Coasters residential bi annual En Plein Air group based in Orford, Images of Tasmania, an annual group or Art School alumni, and POGO, a  Hobart Based En Plein Air community. She is a member of Huon Art Exhibition Group, Cygnet, showing at the Lovett Gallery.

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Trudy Humphries

Born and raised on the northwest coast of Tasmania, Trudy Humphries has been immersed in the world of art for as long as she can remember. Her creative practice is deeply rooted in the landscapes around her, expressed through watercolour and acrylic painting. While Trudy’s current focus is inspired by nature, her artistic journey has also included installation art, exploring spacial dynamics, materiality, and conceptual narratives.

Trudy’s dedication to art extends beyond her personal practice – she spent approximately a decade teaching in various schools, as well as at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and TAFE, guiding students in their own artistic explorations.

Trudy holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1996) and First Class Honours BFA (1999) from UTAS. In 2004, she completed a Master of Fine Arts with a focus on installation art. Furthering her commitment to education, she earned a Bachelor of Teaching in 2008.

Her work is influenced by artists such as Max Angus, Patricia Giles, Roger Murphy, Rosemary Mastnak, and Amanda Hyatt, whose approaches to colour, light, and atmosphere continue to inspire her practice.

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Jane Broad

Jane Broad completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts as a mature age student whilst working as a social worker. She has worked extensively with disadvantaged migrants both in tertiary education and in ESL contexts, and these experiences have informed her work, although she does also enjoy painting landscape and abstract

Jane has had three Solo Exhibitions, including one on Refugee experiences at the Moonah Arts Centre and participated in three group exhibitions. She was also a participant in the ‘Transformation’ mural exhibition.

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Karen Vincent

Karen Vincent has been painting since her first watercolour class with Tasmanian art teacher Terry Gough in the ’90s. Travels around Australia, Europe and in the United States, her second home, have involved mostly Plein Aire excursions with fellow artists and numerous exhibitions featuring natural landscapes.

Since returning to live in Tasmania, on the beautiful South Arm Peninsula, she has been increasingly working with other mediums and particularly enjoys pastel and acrylics. Seldom found in her art studio, Karen prefers the company of fellow artists working together to try to ‘capture’ the unique physical and spiritual qualities of Tasmania in the wild.

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Janne Mooney

Janne Mooney was originally a dental therapist but completed her B Fin Arts as a mature age student (with 3 children) majoring in ceramics. She has been an art teacher however this has been expressed through teaching ESL students at Rosny College and special needs students at St Francis.

Janne decided to learn to paint as a vehicle to work collectively with others as she found ceramics an isolating experience. She also joined Robin Mary Calvert’s group, becoming a founding member of the current group after several years with Robin Mary. Janne has participated in solo and group shows as well as curated many exhibitions for her students over the years  

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Helen Spaulding

Life circumstances, ie born in the 1950’s, female, married young, three children required Helen to express her artistic leanings as a hairdresser running a hairdressing salon, and the requirements of homemaking. On retirement she also commenced classes with Robin Mary Calvert and was a founding member in what has become ”Struth Ruth!”

Helen participated in several annual group exhibitions whilst part of Robin Mary Calvert’s group and has had works hung with the Struth Ruth group at local venues including Meadowbank / Coal valley Winery, Amaze Richmond and the commission at Molly’s Run, Cidery at Richmond.

She has also completed several commissioned works and has sold at the Rotary Art Exhibition at Wrest Point.

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Susan Kenny

Susan Kenny’s interest in art began at school and continued in a very protracted fashion for many years. Marriage, family and moving around the state made it difficult to complete her Fine Arts Degree.

She attended many Adult Ed art classes, painting weekends, and joined a painting group. Her journey certainly was rekindled over the past ten years when she joined Struth Ruth! She paints what pleases her, animals, landscapes, portraits, still life and occasionally abstract. Her painting also includes portraits and some commissioned landscapes, working indoors mostly from photographs she has taken, given our Tasmanian weather. She has been inspired recently to give Plein Air and watercolour a go. Her paintings are well received, participating in a Mural for Mollies Run Cidery, exhibiting at Amaze and Coal Valley Vineyard at Richmond. She paints mostly in Acrylic but as her journey continues she is keen to paint in oils too. That journey never ends.

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 7 – Sunday 16 February 2025
Friday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday – Thursday 10am – 4pm

Opening Event :
5:30pm Thursday 6 February 2025

Photographer, Tom Polacheck’s exhibition highlights Madagascar’s rich maritime heritage, where wooden boats blend influences from Southeast Asian outrigger canoes, Arab dhows, and Western schooners along the island’s 3,000 km coastline.

A photo and video exhibition that celebrates the 1000s of traditional wooden boats that still prevail along Madagascar’s 3000km coast line. Madagascar is the last large coastal region where open-ocean, wooden sailing vessels still predominate. These vessels are critical for sustaining the daily lives of the people living there. They are central for providing food and transport in a region where roads and terrestrial infrastructure hardly exist. While off the coast of Africa, Madagascar retains strong links with the Pacific and SE Asia as its original inhabitants sailed there around 1200 years ago. Since then, it has been at the cross roads of the Atlantic-Indian Ocean trade routes. It has absorbed, combined and maintained the traditions and knowledge from (1) Southeast Asian/Pacific outrigger canoes (2) Arab dhows and (3) the western gaff rigged schooners.In November 2024, five Australian’s undertook a journey of discovery to Madagascar, (including a 2 week cruise in a traditional schooner) to learn about and document its rich maritime history. Presented here is a visual display of some of what they learned and discovered about this diverse range of beautiful vessels and the people that build and sail them.

Launch Gathering :
Friday 14 March 2025, 5:15pm – 7:15pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 13 – Sunday 16 March 2025
10:00am – 6:00pm daily

A walk through half a century of Hobartian Monte John Latham‘s abstract expressionism and ‘worldscape’ paintings.

Monte John Latham’s Walk in the Worldscape exhibition features a selection of striking and vibrant works of oil and acrylic on canvas that explore the interplays between humanity, nature, the metaphysical, mind, journey, and locale. Dreamlike landscapes flow out of and into intricate abstractions expressing serene harmony, dynamism and love through ethereal and evocative colours. 

Largely unknown, Latham is an elusive local underground artist whose prolific journey spans decades of steady and passionate creation, each piece serving as a testament to his unwavering passion for capturing the essence of life and the world around us. Born in the middle of the twentieth century, Latham began painting as a boy. His work blossomed with surrealism, defiance and inquiry during the counterculture currents of the sixties and seventies. 

This exhibition showcases Latham’s most striking works, thoughtfully selected to illustrate the breadth of his artistic journey. It is a rare opportunity to experience the creative evolution of an artist whose vision remains timeless and deeply resonant.

Originals and numbered replica prints will be available for purchase.

Opening Event :
Friday 21 February 2025, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 19 February – Sunday 2 March 2025
Monday – Friday 9:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday & Sunday 8:00am – 5:00pm 

A photographic study of the Tasmanian wilderness, by Tim Faircloth.

Viewers will be taken on a black and white journey celebrating and exploring some of the State’s favourite places. 

Tim Faircloth is a classically trained film photographer using a large format wooden field camera, vintage lenses and black and white film, processed in a home darkroom. 

Driven by a deep passion for photography as an art form, images are presented as a single edition artwork, emphasising the rarity and the significant time and effort invested in capturing it.

Opening Event :
Thursday 9 January 2025, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Exhibition to be Opened by Caroline Davies Choi

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 9 – Sunday 19 January 2025
10:00am – 4:00pm daily

An exhibition by Rachel Bremner, exploring the expressive possibilities of contemporary mosaic using an improvised process highlighting texture, reflection, the effects of changing light on the surface.

“From early childhood leading up to my life as a visual artist, I trained and performed as a professional violinist. I continue to be fascinated by the similarities and differences between the two forms of artistic expression.

I had never conceived of music as an art form that needed words to provide background or convey what I mean to express.

Expressing myself in words has never come easily to me, I can rarely find the right ones for my purpose, music was always the perfect medium for my intense  sense of privacy. In music performance I could present my inner world to the audience, all my thoughts, reactions, emotions without having to describe the background story.

When I started to put my mosaic work out into the world, in contrast to music-making, I struggled with the obligation in the art world to use words when presenting to an audience. I felt a growing conflict with the wordless immediacy with which I wanted to engage and how much words can interfere with that engagement.

I presented the past exhibition as  an intense offering to the audience to pause, observe each work and examine emotional reactions in their own terms, with no titles, no accompanying prompts.

This Second Cycle is intended as an expression of where my life, imagination and emotional being have moved since my previous exhibition.”
– Rachel Bremner

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 22 January – Monday 3 February 2025
Monday – Friday 9:30am – 5:30pm
Saturday & Sunday 10:00am – 5:00pm
*Closing at 2:00pm on Final Day : Monday 3 February 2025

An exploration of Tasmania’s dolerite and granite, by Anna Brooks

“Tasmania’s geology has fascinated me since I first saw the towering dolerite pillars on kunanyi/Mt Wellington 20 years ago.  Their straight columns and dark vertical chasms are truly inspiring.  Tasmania has the largest exposure of dolerite in the world, and roughly a third of our state is dolerite.  These rock columns therefore are a strong part of my sense of Tasmania, and have come to feel ‘home’ to me.  Likewise, the granite of the east coast and Flinders island, with its rounded sea-worn curves and orange lichen, give these places much of their character.

As a rock climber, I have had a very personal association with rock.  Climbing involves constantly feeling the rock surface to find protrusions and cracks that might supply a finger or toe hold.  The rock can become the most intimate of friends.  In this exhibition I have tried to capture the varied shapes of rock and stone and also the closer details of texture and pattern.  I have included ink drawings, acrylic paintings and photographic works.”
– Anna Brooks