TOM THOMPSON
2 April – 30 April 2007

Art historian and publisher Tom Thompson was first introduced to Donald Friend’s Hillendiana as a 12 year old. Since then, Tom has been fascinated by Hill End, its artists, and the life and legacy of 19th century photographer Bernard Holtermann. While in Hill End, Thompson will work on a documentary film on the current Hill End experience using original documents and interviews conducted with artists Donald Friend and Jean Bellette in the 1980s. He will also finalise work on research into Bernard Holtermann’s remarkable role in documenting and promoting Australian life in the late 1800s.

Thompson has enjoyed an illustrious career in many fields including: publishing (Currency Press, Australian Bicentennial Authority, Collins Australia, A&R and Harper Collins ETT Imprint); journalism (Sydney Morning Herald, National Times, the ABC); television production (Photographer: Lewis Morley, shown on the ABC in 2005 and 2006); and has written thirteen books.

RAFAELA PANDOLFINI
5 May – 2 June 2007

A photographer and video artist based in Melbourne, Victoria, Rafaela Pandolfini completed her Honours at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2006 and has been exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions around Melbourne for the past 4 years.

Inspired by Australian photographer Ruth Maddison, Pandolfini’s work focuses on the personal spaces her subjects inhabit – how they reflect and reaffirm notions of self. While in Hill End, she hopes to produce a series of video portraits of Hill End residents.

ED WRIGHT
11 July – 8 August 2007

Ed Wright intends to use his Hill End residency to explore the town, its landscape and its history for inspiration for his next book. Set in a gold mining town in colonial New South Wales, the story, as Wright describes it, is a “love triangle tale of greed, lust, frustration and impossible longing”. Wright also intends to produce a series of poems for publication.

Wright has a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Sydney where he currently lectures in American Literature and Culture. He has also worked as an editor, research assistant and freelance writer and editor. In 2006, Wright was the recipient of the Australia Council Emerging Writer’s Grant for Fiction and was the winner of the Red Room Organisation’s Toilet Door Poetry Award.

ANNABEL NOWLAN
13 August – 10 September 2007 (Funded by the Department of Environment and Conservation, Parks Services Division)

Annabel Nowlan completed a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney College of the Fine Arts in 1992, Honors in 19997 and a Masters of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows and has won a number of awards including the New York Art Expo Images of Australia in 1989 and the Studio Cite Internationale de Paris in 1995.

Nowlan’s practice is informed by an ongoing interest in the land and rural history and attempts to create new dialogues around landscape and sense of place. In Hill End, Nowlan is interested in researching the lives and experiences of pioneer women and to create works which intertwine texts and imagery with surfaces and textures using materials such as bitumen, mattress ticking, flattened line, dust and pigments. Her work attempts to locate human endeavour using the products of our attempts to dominate and subdue the land.

KEN ORCHARD
24 September – 22 October 2007 (BRAG sponsored resident)

Ken Orchard and Ed Douglas will embark on a collaborative residency aimed at creating a body of work for exhibition and tour in 2008 inspired by the work of colonial artist George French Angas (1822 – 86). Angas created a series of lithographs of the diggings at Ophir from sketches executed in the field in June 1851. Using this important series of images as a springboard for exploring ‘place’, the pair proposes to locate the areas delineated by Angas, as well as other sites in the district, as reference points for a series of panoramic works on paper (Orchard) and a suite of black and white photographs (Douglas).

Ken Orchard has been a professional practicing artist since 1977, and has undertaken a number of thematic projects reflecting the unique nature of regional Australian landscapes. These have explored historically significant localities, and 19th and 20th century artistic traditions often found in association with Australian mining history. He has participated in many solo and group exhibitions, and won numerous awards, most recently the 2006 Heyson Prize for Landscape Art, and the 2006 Fleurieu Peninsula Water Prize. His works are held in state and regional collections throughout Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Queensland Art Gallery.

KAYE PEMBERTON
3 November – 1 December 2007 (Arts NSW funded.)

Kaye Pemberton taught secondary art in South Australia for seven years before concentrating full time on her ceramic practice, completing a Diploma of Fine Art (Ceramics) at the Australian National University in 2001.

Working predominantly from her home studio in Canberra, Pemberton’s practice essentially consists of the manufacture of domestic ware. Four weeks in Hill End will give Pemberton the opportunity to ‘step back’ from her daily practice and develop a body of new work focusing on historic tools. This will serve as a catalyst for Pemberton to challenge both her current practice, and create a dialogue between use and perceived use.

MARISA PURCELL
1 March to 28 March 2008

Painter Marisa Purcell has held nine solo exhibitions both in Australia and overseas including France and Switzerland. She recently completed a three month residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris and since her return to Australia has been attempting to reconnect with her ‘idea’ of Australia. A Hill End residency will give Purcell the opportunity to connect with the Australian landscape and to “experience the land by way of observation”. It will also give the artist an opportunity to deepen her understanding of her ancestors’ experiences as they negotiated a journey from Lebanon to regional Australia in the late 1800’s. The opportunity to work without the distractions of city life will enable her to produce a body of work that directly responds to the environment.