SARAH LAST
1 February - 18 March

Sarah completed a Bachelor of Art Education (Visual Arts) at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW in 1999. Since then she has worked within the arts industry as an arts educator, curator and artist including various positions at Casula Powerhouse and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. Currently she is the Director of the Booranga Writers Centre based in the Riverina. In 2003 and 2004 Sarah curated unsound Australia's only regionally based experimental arts festival and was the recipient of a Gordon Darling 2003 Domestic Travel Grant. Sarah's interest in new media began while still at University and being from a rural background she is struck by the possibilities new media technologies could provide in challenging the urban and somewhat institutionalised paradigm that dominates the creation, presentation and promotion of contemporary art forms in the national arts landscape.

At Hill End Sarah will further develop research into regionally based new media arts practices to develop a proposal for a national initiative. This iniative will aim to provide opportunity for the creation, presentation and recognition of new media arts from regional Australia.

CURTIS RHODES
21 March - 18 April (BRAG sponsored)

Former Professor of Art at West Michigan University, Curtis Rhodes has been a practicing artist and art teacher in USA for over thirty years. Concerned with cross-cultural identity, his work draws on objects, codes, signs and symbols, shared myths, fears and rituals of modern and primitive, past and present cultures. Hill End's rich symbolic history and powerful landscape features provided Curtis with powerful visual and metaphorical subject matter during his 2003 residency. He returns to Hill End in 2005 in conjunction with an exhibition of his work at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery with local artists Keely and Hayes Fielding entitled A Time and a Place.

BEN QUILTY
22 April - 20 May (NSW Ministry for the Arts)

Based in Sydney painter Ben Quilty completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney in 1994 and graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Communication/Design from the University of Western Sydney in 2001. He exhibits regularly and in 2004 was a finalist in both the Archibald and Wynne Prize exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. An expressive painter his recent work has been fuelled by the idea of the 'genius loci', which Ben describes as the gathering of inspiration and enlightenment by osmosis through a place once inhabited by a person of genius. At Hill End Ben hopes to continue his recreation of Australian Cultural icons into 'high-brow' art pieces, indulge in the natural beauty of the landscape and draw inspiration from the Village's rich artistic heritage.

Ben's awards include the 2002 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and most recently the 2004 Metro 5 Art Prize, Melbourne and the Kings School Art Prize. No stranger to artist residencies Ben was awarded a studio at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris in 2003 and a 2004 NSW Ministry for the Arts Gunnery studio.

KATTHY CAVALIERE
22 May - 5 June (BRAG sponsored)

Katthy was born in Italy in 1972 and emigrated to Australia when she was 4 years old. She initially studied photography in Sydney but now works in a number of art forms, including performance, photography, video, installation, drawing and sculpture. Her artwork presents personal experiences as a metaphor for human experiences. In 2000 Katthy won the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship and in 2003 was awarded an Australia Council Visual Arts/Craft Board studio residency in Milan, Italy.

Katthy has been invited to participate in the Hill End Artist in Residence Program by Bathurst Regional Art Gallery while the gallery is hosting Katthy Cavaliere: suspended moment an exhibition exploring the evolution of her work since 1993. This exhibition is a Goulburn Regional Art Gallery exhibition, with its tour managed by Museums and Galleries NSW.

Katthy Cavaliere: suspended moment is on exhibition at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery from 20 May to 3 July.

RONDA WALLIS
10 June - 8 July

Ronda is a visual artist who works primarily in the media of photography, painting and installation. She has a background in teaching art but since completing her Masters Degree in 1996 has focused on developing her own practice.

Based in Adelaide Ronda's recent work has explored the idea of the artist's identity as Australian combined with her curiosity about the more subtle indicators of cultural identity. At Hill End she plans to explore the relationships between land, historical landscape and a sense of being home in your own country to create work that reflects the ingenuity of early settlers. She will use a range of pinhole cameras and the photographic processes of cyanotype combined with the painted image, to interpret the landscape and the cultural identity of the Village.

NATASHA DANILOFF
11 July - 8 August

Based in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, NSW Natasha Daniloff is currently studying for her Masters in Art (Painting) at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales and has been a full-time studio artist since 1998. Natasha exhibits her work regularly in Sydney and the region and will be exhibiting a new body of work at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2005 which explores her Russian heritage.

Natasha will use her residency to research the remnants of human presence and endeavour in Hill End & Tambaroora via historical documentation and physical remains and to create a new body of work that explores the view of Hill End as a place full of ghosts of gold, spent fortunes and shadows of abundance.

KEN HUTCHINSON
12 August - 9 September

As a sculptor Ken is intrigued by the way society works on the surface, the patterns we make and the way we scratch and mark the surface of the land. He will use his residency as an opportunity to work with the stone of the area exploring 'surface' in the form of pattern as it relates to the Hill End experience of mining, agriculture and habitation.

In 2004 Ken was a finalist in the East Coast Sculpture Prize at Balina, NSW. Committed to community arts and cultural development he was the curator and coordinator of the Western Area Sculptors first exhibition at the Japanese Gardens and Cultural Centre Cowra, NSW, and currently serves on the board of the Cowra Regional Art Gallery. He exhibits regularly within the NSW and his work is represented in Cowra Art Gallery and many private collections.

KATE CORDES
12 September - 10 October

Born and educated in New Zealand Kate worked as a free lance photographer before arriving in Australia in the early 1990s. Currently she looks after the New Media business of Nickelodeon Australia. As a conceptual artist Kate now works in a variety of media & disciplines including photography, text, wood, plastics and bookbinding, most recently in February 2005 on a solo exhibition in Sydney - The Walnut Man.

Kate first visited Hill End in 2002 on a solo road trip and has wanted to return ever since. Her residency will give her the opportunity to explore her love of text in art and she plans to reproduce the experience of the residency in a book. The impetus for which would be derived from a conceptual documentary account of the very act of undertaking an artist residency in a small, rural and historic Village.

SANDRA McMAHON & LYNNE FLEMONS
14 October - 11 November

Sandra and Lynne met through their professional roles as Public Programs Officer at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and Visual Arts Teacher at Goulburn High School. Applying for a Hill End residency is part of a joint plan to reduce their work loads and to concentrate on developing their respective art practices.

The natural environment is a central focus for both artists. Sandra was initially attracted to the ruggedness of the Hill End landscape and will explore its social and pastoral development. For Lynne the effects of mining on the landscape are viewed as an ecological disaster and she will be looking at remnants and scaring left behind for symbols of this.

It will be the first time they have shared studio space and they are excited about the prospect it holds for exchanging ideologies.

ANNEKE SILVER
14 November - 12 December (NSW Ministry for the Arts)

Anneke Silver has been a practicing artist for over 30 years and is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre at James Cook University, Townsville, North Queensland. Her recent work has been inspired by two passions - landscape and the geometric configurations of shadows cast by buildings; she is particularly interested in the formal qualities that determine the character of a building or place. She explores what buildings can reveal about the psyche of the person who built, designed or maintained them. For Anneke Hill End is rich in architectural heritage and an inspirited place. During her residency she will engage in an exploration of absence and presence; traces of human activity and presence, and the common ground between geometry and representation.