Buy Tickets

Artist Panel featuring Christine Willcocks, Emma Walker and Michael Cusack

HOTA Collects: Direction Public Program

10th Oct

Artist Panel featuring Christine Willcocks, Emma Walker and Michael Cusack

Join us for a morning of art and conversation! Susi Muddiman OAM, Director of HOTA Gallery, will personally lead a tour through HOTA Collects: Direction, currently showing in Gallery 2.

You will then proceed upstairs to Level 5 to hear from an Artist Panel consisting of Christine Willcocks, Emma Walker and Michael Cusack, all based in the beautiful Northern Rivers of New South Wales.

Christine’s etching Kangaroo Paw – Anigozanthos Manglesii, 1999 and Emma’s painting Walk the Line, 2013 are included in Direction. One of Michael’s paintings will soon be joining the HOTA Gallery Collection.

Tea and coffee will be provided.

Dates

10th Oct

Where

Gallery 2

Duration

2 hrs

Tickets

All Tickets $18

Times

Thu 10 October - 10:30am

#Artist Bios

Christine Willcocks

Christine Willcocks studied at Southern Cross University Lismore and Monash University Melbourne, majoring in printmaking. Although printmaking is a primary focus, Christine’s art practice works across the disciplines of drawing, painting, photography and installation.

Over the past years her work has focused on the demise of the natural world and its renewal, often as objects or artifacts within an institutional setting; exploring the rituals of collecting and display and how this act plays a key role in the preservation of our memories.

Christine has received many awards and acquisitions, some of which include the Freemantle Print Award, the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, National Works on Paper and the Waterhouse Natural History Prize. In 2014 Christine became the recipient of the highly sought after Studio Residency at the Paris Cité, funded through the Australia Council, Skills and Arts Development Board. Her work is in numerous public collections - city and regional galleries, universities and schools - as well as Artbank and The Print Council of Australia, The Queensland and Victorian State Libraries, Australian War Memorial and many private collections.

Christine is a Director/teacher and co-founder of the Byron School of Art. She is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne. Christine lives and works in Mullumbimby, NSW.

Emma Walker

Emma Walker consistently engages with the world around her and the world within. Carving, sanding, grinding and scratching into plywood substrates, the artist creates a unique process and approach to her sculptural wall paintings. From ancient landscapes of sea, rock and sky to microscopic patterns and rhythms that power existence, her work moves between the micro and the macro in a formative dance. Emma’s imagery emerges from a combination of experimentation and automaticity, each mark informing the next, echoing both geological and psychological processes.

Emma has been exhibiting for over thirty years. She holds a BFA from the National Art School, Sydney. Winner of the prestigious Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (2014) and joint winner of the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize (2020). Emma has held numerous exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne, and her work features in several major collections including Macquarie Bank, Australian Club, Lismore Regional Gallery, Tweed Regional Gallery and HOTA in addition to various private collections worldwide.

Michael Cusack

Michael Cusack has developed a practice over 30 years encompassing painting, drawing, and found objects. Born in Dublin, Michael emigrated to Australia in 1982 and currently lives and works in Mullumbimby. He holds a Master of Visual Arts from Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane.

Michael has exhibited extensively in both solo and group shows, and his work is held in numerous private and public collections. He has been a finalist in multiple art prizes including the Mosman, Waverly, Fisher’s Ghosts, and Paddington Art Prizes, and is a recipient of the AGNSW Cite Internationale de arts Residency, Paris. Cusack is currently represented by Olsen Gallery.

Michael is the Co founder of the Byron School of Art. He has curated numerous group exhibitions at the Project Space including Black Diamond Money - artists from Newcastle, Dirty Filthy Painting – a survey of contemporary painting, We are Not Ourselves – student work from Griffith University, Southern Cross University, and the Byron School of Art. Most recently Cusack has co curated BSA 10 Years at Tweed Regional Gallery.