HABITAT is an exhibition of the artistic outcomes, of nine established artists (mentors) and nine young artists (mentees) from the Artful Dodgers Studios as part of the Rudder Exchange Visual Arts Mentoring Partnerships. HABITAT presents the work of the 2012 partnerships and the 2011 artists who have continued an artistic dialogue beyond the scope of their six month partnerships.

Chloe Walsh is an emerging illustrator and hand drawn animator whose work largely comprises of pathetically depressing characters still trying to find their place in this world, just like the rest of us. Her mentor Amy is an experienced artist specialising in hand drawn animation, illustration and pre cinema techniques, whose work is mainly about love, and sometimes about underpants. Over the course of their collaboration, Chloe and Amy have shared sketch books, drawing within each others work, developing the themes which have emerged and breaking down the boundaries between their two styles – allowing their work to become one. By using traditional hand drawn animation and pre-cinema techniques, Chloe and Amy are developing the thematic and aesthetic structure of their combined work through exploring the gap between analogue and digital animation.

T.R An is a professional dilettante. These are some of the areas she has dabbled in: design, advertising, event production, cake making, and accounting. These experiences have helped to both inform her rich multidisciplinary art practice, and further her ADHD. Rudder 2012 will be her first public exhibition. Prior to this, she has exhibited widely, and, to much acclaim throughout her bedroom. Her mentor Madame Laissez-Aller is interested in presenting installations incorporating light and sculpture; focusing on facades, putting up fronts, pseudonyms and playing with perspectives. Together, T.R An and Madame L-A seek to collaborate in a display of playful perspectives, subverting their own work through the addition and subtraction of the overall installation components.

Jacqueline Black loves working with her hands creating millions and millions (ok not millions) of small, hand-made, stuffed creatures called Scaredy Monstars using a wide range of recycled materials. Her mentor Sheridan Mills is a design and social media whizz with an exuberant passion for visual art. They are collaboratively creating a video-based project featuring the Scaredy Monstars which explores video montage and mixed media combined with both fluid and stop- motion filming techniques. Jacqueline and Sheridan will invite musicians to respond to the finished piece. The hand-made Scaredy Monstars will be at play in their environment during HABITAT drop by and make your own with Jacqueline Black.

Gabrielle Ann Borden is a visual artist, musician and dancer who creates strikingly colourful abstract drawings that vibrate with life. She is mentored by artist Wendy-Jane Sheppard who employs a visual language of drawing and painting to question the complex and controversial relationships between humans (Homo Urbanus) and other animals. In their work Photo Booth Gabby and Wendy-Jane extend portraiture from simple representation of the physical features to incorporate the aura and emotional state of the sitter using pastel and charcoal. Come visit the NGV studio to see Gabby and Wendy drawing 20 minute portraits of visitors and yours too! Bring in your favourite tunes on mp3 or CD to play while you are drawn.

Kati Eyles is interested in the intersections of science, technology and art. She currently studies at Victoria University. This installation explores the theme of collapse, meta archeology and neo geological encrustment. Her mentor Kate Geck is an installation artist creating immersive, experiential environments and sculptures. Kaleidoscopic AV, silkscreened and digitally printed fabrics, custom electronics, costume elements and vague ritual are combined to create playful and sensory sculptural spaces and pieces.

ALAL have collaborated on a number of projects. After much conversation and discussion the developing work is exchanged between them until their artistic expression merges and evolves as a unified piece. Their latest work Exhale takes inspiration from imagined plant forms that make their way out of the ventilation holes in the NVG Studio wall and threaten to devour the space.

With a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Autumn Tansey graduated from Monash University in 2010. Her practice has since evolved through exhibiting widely across Melbourne and Australia, and with her involvement in the Rudder Mentorship program. She hopes to communicate tensions between the human and the land with spiritual, environmental and political undertones. Her mentor Yandell Walton is an accomplished video and projection installation artist exhibiting regularly in galleries and non-traditional public spaces both in her home country Australia and Internationally.

Anthony Skabies paints and draws sublime images of humans and various biological
growths. Anthony is renowned world wide for his titillating and flawless masterpieces. He is
mentored by Mike Makatron who is a painter that works in a variety of media including street art, canvas and illustration. He has travelled and created work around the world, painting the Berlin Wall to the River Ganges. Together at NGV Studio they are going to break out of the frame.

Clare O’Shannessy uses animals in her sculptures in order to explain human emotions. Her mentor Annee Miron’s practice explores transience, with shifts in time marked by multiples of images and forms. These are realised by barely held together constructions. Clare is creating a sculpture of a lioness parachuting from the sky into a jungle of Annee’s woven cardboard work Falling.