Jill Ansell
Artist and art educator
Jill Ansell is a painter and assemblage artist. She is a finalist in the 2023 Archibald Prize. Jill has twice been a finalist in the Lester Portrait Prize and in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize. She is the recipient of many Art Awards including the BankWest Open Art Award, York Art Award, Victoria Park Art Award, the Town of Cambridge Art Award, and the Town of Vincent Art Award. Her work is held in public and private collections, both nationally and internationally.
Jill works across a wide range of subjects from the local beach to surreal desert landscapes, but her favourite subject is the portrait. Her portraits typically engage the viewer with their humour and warm humanity. Her recent work in assemblage carefully weaves real objects and portrait together into an intriguing glimpse into the intimate world of the subject.
Photo supplied by artist.
Ric Burkitt
Artist and art educator
Ric is an ex-graphic designer, part-time painting teacher, and full-time artist. Primarily a painter, Ric works in a variety of styles and mediums from his studio in Stoneville. His current body of work explores the potential for non-representational painting-using colour, line, shape, texture, and so on-to make emotional connections and convey impressions and insights that may resonate with the viewer.
He also enjoys painting semi-abstract florals in oils and acrylics, as well as mixed-media landscapes that attempt to capture the mood and feel of Stoneville's surrounding countryside.
In 2022, Ric won the Award for Painting at Ellenbrook Art Gallery and held a solo show there in October that year. Previously, he won the Ellenbrook Award for Painting with a large landscape work and was recently awarded both the painting and drawings prizes at the Northam Art Prize.
Ric is a member of the Mundaring Hills Open Studios group (where artists open their studios to the public in October each year), and regularly participates in group shows around Perth, most recently at Juniper Galleries, Darlington, and Art Marx Gallery in Fremantle. His extensive body of work can be explored at www.ricburkittstudio.com
Photo supplied by artist.
Tania Fabris
Artist and curator
Tania Fabris is an active multidisciplinary creativity practitioner. Her creativity extends to painting, sculpture and glasswork as a first-generation West Australian born on Whadjuk Noongar country of Venetian heritage with a Bachelor of Contemporary Art and Environmental spatial Design.
Fabris has used art for over two decades as a medium to express her cultural heritage, life experiences and contemporary environment - whether it be observational or emotional offering diverse representations of her artistic intent through research, social, cultural, or environmental. She speaks of her Venetian family who for generations have been designers, artists, and makers; that art for them was a way of life, a part of life. Fabris reflects on how she loves our Australian landscape nature flora and native bush. The bright colours, deep textures, lurking and nestling settling spirits offers diverse representation, imparting a clear manifestation of her experience in the Western Australian Outback. Her practice explores a wide range of fluid and flexible mediums, according to the fundamental nature and complexities evolving each work.
Having started her career in commercial enterprises has led to curating and facilitating numerous creative projects, undertaking a series of solo exhibitions, including an 'artist in residence' and various collaborative art projects and exhibitions.
Photo credit: Jessica Wyld Photography.