Light Weight Artists Talk

Lineup

• More details about Dr Emily Cormack

  Dr Emily Cormack

  Curator and Head of Exhibitions and Programs at TarraWarra Museum of Art.

• More details about Danica Chappell

  Danica Chappell

  Danica Chappell is a Naarm/Melbourne-based visual artist working on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples. Through an experimental darkroom practice, she explores the intersections of abstraction and photographic history, investigating the possibilities of cameraless photography. Using the photogram process, Chappell constructs compositions through light, shadow, form, colour and gesture, transforming the physical actions of the darkroom into abstract photographic works. Her practice challenges conventional photographic imagery, exploring the relationship between material, image and perception. Chappell has presented commissioned exhibitions including Slippery Images for Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria (2023); Far From The Eye at La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, in conjunction with PHOTO 2021; and Thickness of Time at Heide Museum of Modern Art's Project Gallery (2018–19). Other significant exhibitions include Colour Bleeds and Light Folds at Mejia Gallery (2023); Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now at the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana, USA (2023); New Matter: Recent Forms of Photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2016); and Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand (2016). Chappell received an Australian Council Arts Projects Grant in 2017 and has been shortlisted for the Bowness Photography Prize and MAMA National Photography Prize. Her international residencies include Stichting BAD, Rotterdam; Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop; and Bauhaus University Summer School, Weimar. She has also undertaken research at significant European collections and institutions, including the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin and the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

• More details about Jeremy Eaton

  Jeremy Eaton

  Jeremy Eaton is a Melbourne-based artist, writer, editor and curator. He is currently Managing Editor of Art + Australia at the Centre of Visual Art, University of Melbourne, and Deputy Chair of un Projects. His practice spans visual art, critical writing, publishing and curatorial projects, with a particular interest in contemporary artistic practice and the cultural conversations surrounding it. Eaton has held a number of significant editorial and arts industry positions, including Managing Editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art (2019–2023), Gallery Coordinator at KINGS Artist-Run (2017–2021), and Co-Editor of Currents Graduate Research Journal. He has contributed extensively to contemporary art discourse through editorial work, interviews, reviews and catalogue essays for artists and institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Gertrude Contemporary. As an artist, Eaton has presented numerous solo exhibitions, including On Frank at LON Gallery (2024), Beach Boys (2022), Through the hand to the mouth at Bundoora Homestead (2021), and Some thoughts on cinema, dancing men at BUS Projects (2019). His work has also been exhibited widely in group and collaborative exhibitions across Melbourne and interstate. His curatorial projects include James Gleeson: The Cosmic Erotic at Charles Nodrum Gallery (2024), RITA 4: Decor Drive at Sutton Gallery (2023), A Physical Reader at CAVES Gallery (2022), and Tender Gestures, Loud Voices at Footscray Community Arts Centre (2021). Eaton holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours and a Master of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. He is currently completing a PhD at the University of Melbourne, supported by a Research Training Program Stipend.

• More details about Natasha Johns-Messenger

  Natasha Johns-Messenger

  Natasha Johns-Messenger is an Australian-American installation artist and filmmaker whose practice explores perception, space and site. Working across installation, sculpture, film and photography, she creates immersive, site-responsive works that incorporate architectural interventions and optical elements to challenge and expand our experience of the built and natural environment. She completed an MFA in Film at Columbia University, New York, in 2012, following a Master’s by Research in Fine Art at RMIT in 2000. Her work has been exhibited internationally across Italy, Japan, Colombia, China, the Netherlands, Taiwan and the United States. Her significant exhibitions and commissions include LightWater – STRATA for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale (2025); Somewhere Other, a collaboration with John Wardle Architects for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia (2018); Water-Orb for the Ian Potter Sculpture Court Commission at MUMA (2018); Sitelines at Heide Museum of Modern Art (2016); and ThreeFold at El Museo de Los Sures, New York (2015). Johns-Messenger has also realised numerous major public art commissions, including Compass, a Southern Way McClelland Commission (2023–24); SoftTime, a MUMA and Monash Public Art Commission at Monash University Caulfield Campus (2024); EllipseCircleView for Manningham City Council at Ruffey Lake Park (2023–24); Alterview, commissioned through New York's Percent for Art program (2013); and ThisSideIn, commissioned by the New York Public Art Fund (2009).

• More details about Ross Manning

  Ross Manning

  Ross Manning (born 1978) is an Australian artist and musician who lives and works in Brisbane. Working across kinetic sculpture, installation, sound, light, video and performance, his practice explores the relationships between technology, physics and the natural world. Using everyday materials, discarded electronics and repurposed domestic and industrial objects, Manning creates intricate systems that generate unexpected interactions between light, sound, colour and movement. His work reveals the hidden potential of overlooked technologies, transforming familiar objects into immersive and often mesmerising sensory experiences. Drawing on his background in experimental music, instrument building and audiovisual technology, Manning approaches sculpture as a form of experimentation. His installations frequently incorporate motors, fans, fluorescent lighting and electronic components, allowing objects to operate through their own kinetic and sonic logic. His work explores the movement of energy between different forms, while drawing on the histories of Minimalism, sound art and expanded cinema. Manning has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. Significant presentations include Why Not Ask Again? at the 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016); You Imagine What You Desire, the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Sonic Spheres at the TarraWarra Biennial (2012); and Idling Engines, a major solo commission for the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2020). His survey exhibition Dissonant Rhythms, presented at the Institute of Modern Art in 2017, toured nationally between 2018 and 2020. Recent exhibitions and commissions include Rare Earth (2024), Matter and Matrix (2023), and rainy at Hub Gallery, Caboolture (2025). Manning's work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Museum of Old and New Art, Monash University Museum of Art and the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery. He was awarded first prize in the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize in 2011.

• More details about Taree Mackenzie

  Taree Mackenzie

  Taree Mackenzie has exhibited extensively across Australia and internationally, with a practice spanning more than 15 years. Her solo exhibitions include Wave Works (2026), Taree Mackenzie (2018) at Neon Parc, Hairdryer Work (2016) at TCB Art Inc., and Line Shadows (2014) at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne. Selected group exhibitions include Light Source at Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra (2025); Colour Working / Working Colour at Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery (2025); Living Patterns: Contemporary Australian Abstraction at QAGOMA (2024); Arriving Slowly: Exploring the Abstract at Ipswich Art Gallery (2024); Electric Dreams (2023); Light Sensitive (2023); and Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria (2013 and 2023). Other significant exhibitions include Set in Motion at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand (2016), Dancing Umbrellas at Heide Museum of Modern Art (2016), and NEW14 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2014). Her work is held in major public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, QAGOMA, ACMI, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Justin Art House Museum and Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre, New Zealand.