MAVA Pathfinders: Open Studio

James Barth is Meanjin/Brisbane-based artist whose work reflects her intersecting interests in painting, 3d computer graphics, self-portraiture, and cinematic languages. Barth’s work manipulates processes of painting and 3d animation to interrogate how digital spaces can simultaneously hold productive and critical mediations for her transgender identity and representation more broadly. In her paintings and videos, avatars that recall the artist’s own image fluctuate between the tangible and ambiguous.

Barth’s works has been featured in a number of group and solo exhibition that include; EarthBound at Gertrude Contemporary, with music by Isha Ram Das (2022); Embodied Knowledge: Contemporary Queensland Art, Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (2021); The Placeholder, Milani Gallery (2021), ZONWEE: The Last Known Recording of a Daydream, Boxcopy (2019); Screen Tests at Milani Galleries CARPARK (2019). New Woman, Museum of Brisbane (2019); Assuming a Surface, Outerspace (2018); and Crossexions, Metro Arts and The Cross Art Projects, Sydney (2016), amongst others. In 2016 Barth obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) with first class Honours at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. Bath’s work is held in numerous public and private collections including; The National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra; Monash University Museum of Art; Naarm/Melbourne; and Griffith University Art Museum, Meanjin/Brisbane. Barth is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/ Brisbane.

Caitlin Franzmann is a Brisbane-based artist who creates installations, sonic experiences, performances, and social practice works that focus on place-based knowledge and embodied practices. She creates intimate situations within galleries and public spaces that allow for gathering, conversation and storytelling as a way to encourage reflection on histories, complex ecosystems and environmental concerns specific to a place.

Caitlin has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at National Gallery of Victoria, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and Kyoto Art Centre. She was included in Primavera 2014: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Passages at New Museum, New York in 2020, TarraWarra Biennial 2021: Slow Moving Waters at TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria and Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art at QAGOMA, Brisbane in 2022.  She was recipient of the 2014 Churchie National Emerging Art Prize and recently awarded the inaugural Metro Arts Visual Arts Pathfinder Program residency (2022-2023).

Caitlin was a member of feminist art collective LEVEL from 2013 to 2017 and is currently a member of Ensayos, a collective research practice centered on extinction, human geography, coastal health and peatland conservation. Since 2018, she has been co-hosting a series of plant inspired events and investigations with artist/naturopath Dhana Merritt under the banner of Mutual Making. She originally trained as an urban planner before completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at Queensland College of Art in 2012.

Elizabeth Willing is a Brisbane based visual artist whose works are performative and often participatory explorations of food and hosting. Primarily working in sculpture, installation, and performance, Elizabeth’s work additionally takes the form of concept dinners, collaborative performances that use the dining table as stage for interactive designs and experiences.

Elizabeth has undertaken professional development mentorships in New York with Janine Antoni (2011), with the Experimental Food Society in London (2012) and then with Thomas Rentmeister in Berlin (2014). In 2019 she completed a Masters of Fine Art at Queensland University of Technology.

In 2014 Elizabeth was the recipient of the Australia Council Kunstlerhaus Bethanien one-year residency. Furthermore Elizabeth has undertaken residencies at Helsinki International Art Program HIAP (2015), New England Regional art Museum Armidale (2018), The Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide (2019), Museum of Brisbane (2020), Urban Art Projects and Metro Arts (2022).

Exhibitions of Elizabeth’s work have been held in Australia and overseas at The Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, Trapholt Museum of Art and Design Denmark, Tinguely Museum Basel, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane, and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

Elizabeth is represented by Tolarno Galleries Melbourne.

Tyza Hart’s artworks extend from ungraspable and indefinable experience. They’ve shown at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and West Space, Melbourne; Artspace, and FirstDraft, Sydney; QAGOMA, the Institute of Modern Art, the Museum of Brisbane, and Gympie Regional Art Gallery, and are represented by Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.

Dhana Merritt is an artist, naturopath, collaborator, curator and arts worker based in Meanjin (Brisbane). Her research-driven practice is informed by vis medicatrix naturae – the healing power of nature and utilises simple therapeutic lifestyle rituals to enhance community health and wellbeing.

Since 2016, under the moniker DM Teahouse, Dhana has hosted ongoing interactive performative artworks centred around the act of drinking medicinal herbal beverages.  In 2017 Caitlin Franzmann and Dhana as Mutual Making, started collaborating, presenting  plant-based art happenings and travelling residencies.