Lou Hubbard’s practice encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and the moving image to interrogate the nature of training, submission and subordination. Basic materials of domestic and institutional utility—very often personal objects—are tried and tested, then shaped into formal relationships. Objects are subjected to various modes of control and duress through which they must submit to her rules, and emotional resonances are drawn out through careful selection and placement of these found and readily-at-hand materials. Hubbard uses a combination of rudimentary and refined approaches in her practice, refusing any tendency toward embellishment or artifice; the ultimate effect of her works might be perversely humorous or strangely sentimental.

Lou Hubbard has exhibited widely throughout Australia and her work is held in numerous collections nationwide. Recent solo and collaborative exhibitions include An Emergency Exit Sealed Shut with Alexis Hunter, Kunstverein, Amsterdam, 2023; Lou Hubbard 1976, Savage Garden, Melbourne, 2022; Walkers with Dinosaurs, Gallery Mejia, Melbourne, 2021; Operative, Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne, 2021. Recent group exhibitions include Melbourne Now, The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, Melbourne, 2023; It’s not you it’s me, Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Melbourne, 2023; Attention seeker, Latrobe Art Institute, Victoria, 2022; This is a Poem, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, 2021; The Sculptural Body; Connecting the World through Sculpture Celebrating 60 years, Monash University Collection MUMA, Melbourne, 2021; With Compliments, Bus Projects, Melbourne, 2018; 4th/5th Artist Facilitated Biennale, TarraWarra, Victoria, 2016.

Lou Hubbard is represented by Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.

Augusta Vinall Richardson (b. 1991, Naarm/Melbourne) works with sheet and cast metals to produce abstract composite sculpture. Modular and idiosyncratic in form, Vinall Richardson’s works occupy an aesthetic space adjacent to ‘serious modernist sculpture’, retaining an implicit humour and playful disposition. Her objects—suspended, free-standing and wall-based in stainless steel, bronze and silver—utilise the materials and machinery of industry in their making yet convey an experience that is substantially more tender. Edges become soft and slippery, while treated surfaces draw attention to the otherwise incidental material aesthetics of her studies and the sentience of her process.

Augusta Vinall Richardson has exhibited widely in commercial and artist-run-initiatives in Australia. She has a Master of Fine Art from Monash University, Melbourne. Recent solo and collaborative exhibitions include Template/Sketch, CAVES Gallery, Melbourne 2023; LIGHTMOVING, The Commercial, Sydney, 2022; Teeter, Conners Conners, Melbourne 2021; Square Up, Lon Gallery, Melbourne 2018.

Augusta Vinall Richardson is represented by The Commercial, Sydney.

Madeline Simm (b. 1994, Naarm/Melbourne) painting practice investigates compositional play, materiality and colour. Borrowing form and line from cosmetic packaging, textiles patterns, consumerist culture and art history, Simm connects her inner thoughts with the flow of her paint brush. This glimpse into the artists process of viewing and feeling creates sentimental and personal narratives that evoke both abstract voyeurism and a sense of daydreaming.

Madeline Simm has a Masters in Writing and Publishing from RMIT, Melbourne and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from the Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions include Madeline Simm, CHAUFFEUR, Sydney, 2023; My friend’s in the other room, Conners Conners, Melbourne, 2023; Studies for Quilts, Cathedral Cabinet, Melbourne, 2019. Recent group exhibitions include Pink Heat, Haydens Gallery, Melbourne, 2023; Love, Work (For KD), Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne, 2022; Das Boot, ACCA, Melbourne, 2022; The Process of Making, West Space, Melbourne, 2019; La Rosa Social Club, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2017. Most recently Simm released a limited-edition artist monograph Click, blink, floral, fade published by Stray Pages.

Paul Wotherspoon’s practice explores the interplay of painting as image, object, and machine, informed by a keen modernist eye, Neo-Dada wit, and a unique DIY approach. In Surface edge, he has created a series of colourful, textured artworks in the language of relief paintings and sculptures. To activate the paintings spatially, Wotherspoon uses a simple one-part resin casting process of various common materials including vinyl, cellotape, paint, and air. This process creates a trompe l’oeil-like form, in which the original materials are humorously reasserted by the artist, when he alters or exaggerates the colours, forms, or textures. The resulting form-filled artworks embody this unique production method, while also paying respect to the medium of painting and its history.

Paul Wotherspoon lives and works in Narm/Melbourne. Recent exhibitions include Pants Splitter, Pants Splitter Gallery, Melbourne, 2018; Curated by Julia …., Rear View Projects, 2017; Fin, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2014; Forgetting The Ordinary the Last Straw, Blindside Gallery, Melbourne, 2015; Merzbarn and Grizdale Arts Residency, Lakes District, United Kingdom, 2014; Forgetting the Ordinary Part 2, Sawtooth Gallery, Tasmania; 2013; Always Moving, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2010.

Exhibition image courtesy of Darcey Bella Arnold, represented by ReadingRoom, Melbourne.