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Joy McDonald

Joy McDonald

Joy (Economos) McDonald

Contact Joy

Joy is a multi-disciplinary artist with works in puppetry, painting, ceramics, printmaking, digital imagery, and traditional icon painting.
Her work explores the patterns, rhythms, and marks of nature in painted and printed forms and more recently from coffee cup ‘reading’ pattern imagery.

In her painted works, she abstracts the natural forms to a series of graphic units of strokes and lines. With these units she uses a technically simple form of printmaking and painting to build complex layers of colour, depth, and movement. Moving away from representing the natural world in natural pictorial form, she deconstructs imagery using repetition of marks to create moving surfaces of colour which allude to energy fields, wave systems and other unseen patterns within the natural world.

Joy (Economos) McDonald studied Fine Arts at Sydney University (1970s) and graduated at the Australian National University in Visual Arts in 1997 after teaching for several years in NSW. Now residing in Melbourne Joy has continued her art career in abstract imagery both digital and on canvas.

Her work is in several collections both overseas and in Australia, in the collection of the Canberra Museum and Gallery and in corporate collections. She spent time in Canberra on the Board of ANCA (Australian National Capital Artists) was a member of Craft ACT where she often exhibited as an APM, (Aust. Professional Member) her last solo there being in 2013.

She was a finalist in the Fleurieu Biennale SA in 2008, and again in three categories with two high commendations in 2011. She received a Rosalie Gascoigne Award from the Capital Arts Patrons Organization (CAPO) Canberra and a recipient of two grants from artsACT 2011 and 2012 for a Centenary puppet stage production and children’s book in 2013 titled, The Very Sad Fishlady, which was performed at THE STREET THEATRE. This story, and its subsequent production, was inspired by her Greek heritage with connections to Kastellorizo, in the Dodecanese Islands of Greece.

In her early artistic career, Joy began as a puppeteer with Peter Scriven’s Marionette Theatre, The Tintookies which toured Australia’s country towns. Here she worked with Michael Salmon, the well-known Melbourne children’s author. Joy has had over sixty exhibitions (ceramic, painting, and prints) and several solo exhibitions in Canberra and Sydney. She lives with her Husband James McDonald, PhD, who is an academic and a historian, specialising in Classical Greek and Canberra history.

News & Media

Melbourne Artist Mastering Multidisciplinary Art Forms, The Greek Herald, 30 August 2023

Katrina Ginis

Katrina Ginis

Katrina Ginis

Contact Katrina

M 0497 828 784

 

Katrina Ginis is a visual artist currently residing in Melbourne. With a parental background from both the Peloponese and Mytilene, her original heritage stems from Asia Minor.

Painting, drawing and the visual arts in their many and varied manifestations have been a source of fascination and an integral part of Katrina’s identity. Her personal aesthetic is predominantly figurative and representational and her practice largely centres around painting and drawing, working with oil, acrylic, watercolour, pencil and pastel.

She regards her creative practice as a means of self-expression which enables her to engage with and explore the beauty and complexity of existence. Her creative work is informed by her cultural heritage and her research as a scholar of Psychology. She finds great inspiration in Greek art, iconography, history, philosophy, literature, and mythology.

In 2012, Katrina was shortlisted for Top Arts and attained a perfect score of 50 and a Premier’s Award for her secondary school studies in Art.
She was a finalist in the 2015 Manning Art Prize, finalist in the 2020 National Capital Art Prize and awarded the Tolarno Hotel’s annual acquisitive prize for 2015.

Katrina has presented at visual art related conferences at Melbourne’s Monash University and at The Unviversity of Melboune’s ‘Women, Art and Feminism in Australia since 1970 Symposium’. She has completed private commissions for original works, portraits and freelance illustrative projects and has exhibited works at various galleries including The Manning Regional Gallery, Gallery Voltaire, The Black Cat Gallery and Linden Gallery.

News & Media

Crossing the realms of art and psychology, The Greek Herald, 15 March 2024

Masonik

Masonik

Masonik Arts

Contact Masonik

M 0409 314 343

Masonik is an Australian multi-disciplinary arts collective, who have performed, nationally and internationally since 2006.

Masonik’s immersive experience creates electronica / jazz-fusion / neo-classical and soundscapes layered with video projections. As Visual Artists, Masonik generates artworks based in graphic design, film, photography, sculpture, installation & theatre.

Masonik were regular contributors for the ABC Radio National show, ‘Sound Quality’ & were invited to record in the ABC studios in Sydney. Masonik has also created long form exhibitions and performances titled ‘Altar’d Lament’. These have been presented across Australia & Athens.

‘Altar’d Lament’ is a multi-disciplinary art installation and performance project. Though the critical locus of the project is the destruction of the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna in 1922, ‘Altar’d Lament’ is a pantheon for Neo-rebetes.

Masonik embarked on a pilgrimage to Piraeus and Athens to confront ‘rebetiko’, a cultural form that can be simultaneously fragile and resilient, both comforting and threatening. Refuge for the exiled, the tradition altered creating a narrative to an open-ended underworld. So was created this Unorthodox Amanes Altar.

Masonik: Perth-based innovators of multidisciplinary arts, The Greek Herald, 9 June 2023

Stella Grammenos-Dimadis

Stella Grammenos-Dimadis

Stella Grammenos-Dimadis

Contact Stella

M 0414 339 536

Stella Grammenos-Dimadis is an award winning writer, director and producer at Medea Films, with a passion for cinematic, provocative and compelling storytelling. Her film work is complemented by her art practice which is figurative and expressive in style. She was awarded her Masters in Film at Deakin University in 2012, after completing two B.A’s, 1988 (La Trobe University), 1991 (Phillip Institute of Technology)- (Fine Art) and a Diploma in Education, 1992 (The University of Melbourne). Her filmography encompasses both drama and documentary which thematically revolves around societal issues, covering themes such as ageing, migration, end of life choices and the healing power of art. She is a member of the Australian Director’s Guild and malvern Artist’s Society.

“There is never a quiet moment in my mind. It is always thinking of ways to move forward with the many societal mishaps that humans are faced with; with this comes a culmination of art that challenges the questions, Have I done enough? Will it ever be enough?”

Recently she has been able to dedicate equal time to both her film work and art practice which has been conducive to her creativity. She has been on the multicultural advisory board of Channel 31, Vice President for Women in Film and Television, Victoria, and in 2018 was the recipient for the Community History Awards by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and the Public Records Office of Victoria for her online series, ‘Migrant Stories’.

Her art work revolves around four different themes; nature, separated into animals and flowers, fashion with the impacts of consumerism, and consequently the many uniforms that women wear without knowing, as well as an ode to her Greek background.

Inherently the images that she creates at first seem child like and playful, bursting forth with confident brightness, but on closer observation the works are thought out, constructed with images taken from the Western world that she’s inherited. Gold leaf is placed as a means of enlightenment, drawing the viewer to that which is of importance in some way, embellishing the motifs that are used.

Her works show a glimpse of her identity as a woman, mother, wife, friend, artist, filmmaker, business owner, and her navigation of these roles in a Western society that is brandished with brands that consumers, the planet, are constantly exposed to. Whilst she references the world, it is only a reference from her inner responses to it. She is influenced by Jung, revelling in the collective consciousness; the symbols, her dreams, as well as the German expressionists, borrowing the explosive emotions adapted into her art.

When she is not immersed in her film work and art, she is busy with her four adult children, teaching, attempting to turn traditional patisserie creations to a vegan mix, travelling and dancing, the latter for her is an absolute non negotiable in life.

To view more of Stella’s artwork visit https://bastet-galleries.myshopify.com

News & Media

Stella Grammenos-Dimadis: In the world of film and art, The Greek Herald, 10 November 2023

Thalia Andrews

Thalia Andrews

Thalia Andrews

Contact Thalia

M 0414 352 226

     

 

Thalia put her career and love of art on hold to raise her family, but now she pursues her true passion as an expressionist artist.

Most of her work is inspired by nature- landscapes, seascapes and underwater life. ‘Beauty is hidden in the colours, textures and shapes found in our natural surrounds, parks, mountains and forever-flowing seas’. She hopes people view her work as both vibrant and exciting with the colours, textures and strokes applied, reflecting the depth, meaning and unique quality of each of her paintings.

Thalia has a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting), is both a long serving committee member of the Greek Australian Cultural League and member of C.A.S (Contemporary Art Society, Victoria).