Blog Archives

Strange Adventures

Strange Adventures features the work of four emerging cartoonists and illustrators working from DADAA studios: Amber Star Clark, Ben Hollingsworth, Liam Hubbard, and Joshua Kirschbaum-Mau. Through comics, illustration, and animation these artists present unique characters, multifaceted worlds, and lively storytelling.

Presented by Perth Comic Arts Festival 2022 in partnership with DADAA.

The artists:

Amber Star Clark

Amber produces cartoons and drawings using digital mediums. Originally working with traditional drawing materials, Amber discovered Microsoft paint and began creating her work digitally. Amber now works on Medibang Paint Pro, digital painting and comic creation software originally built for manga artists. ​Since moving into digital Amber has been exploring narrative forms, such as web series and comics. Amber studied a Certificate III in Digital Screen and Media at TAFE.

Ben Hollingsworth

Ben has been working at DADAA Fremantle studios since 2020. He is currently studying animation, video games, and visual effects at TAFE. Ben is a storyteller: using black ball-point pen on paper, digital drawing and animation to create unique worlds, plotlines, and characters. In 2021 Ben created the animations for Adam Kelly’s ARCO (presented by the WA Youth Theatre Company in collaboration with DADAA) and is now touring regional WA.

Liam Hubbard

Liam explores storytelling by creating drawings on paper and digital animations. He includes references to his interests, such as favourite movies, sample sounds, and voiceovers. He works in watercolour, coloured pencils, digital drawing, animation, plasticine, and mixed media. In 2017 Liam was included in the Big Draw Festival at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and in 2018 his stop motion movie, Liam and Steph, was screened at The Other Film Festival. Liam began working as an artist with the DADAA Fremantle studio program in 2018, After participating in DADAA’s Artlink program for children and young people, 

Joshua Kirschbaum-Mau

Joshua is a storyteller and concept artist who creates intricate science fiction/fantasy worlds, creatures, and characters. His illustrations are rendered in colour pencil and digital drawing created using a stylus pen, computer tablet, and graphic design software. These drawings contribute to building Joshua’s fictional worlds, which in the future, he hopes to bring to life using hand-drawn, frame by frame 2D animation. Joshua’s stories and characters reflect his experience of growing up with Asperger’s and how he perceives the world. 

image: Ben Hollingsworth, Salt Trader, 2021, digital illustration

The Bowling Alley

Charlie Paganin, Trinity Williams, Declan White

The Bowling Alley brings together three early career artists, Charlie Paganin, Trinity Williams and Declan White in a showcase of new directions and practices from DADAA’s next generation of artists.

Moving worlds, unique figuration, intensive patterning and brilliant colour set these artists apart. At times abstract and deeply personal, this collection of works offers a momentary glimpse into the dynamic, confident and energetic practices of artists working from DADAA’s studios.

More information here

DADAA Gallery
92 Adelaide St, Fremantle

Gallery hours Tuesday – Friday | 10am – 4pm

Image: Declan White, The Bowling Alley, 2018, ink on paper, 56 x 76.5 cm. Courtesy the artist.

The Bowling Alley | Opening Event

The Bowling Alley brings together three early career artists, Charlie Paganin, Trinity Williams and Declan White in a exhibition and showcase of new directions and practices from DADAA’s next gen of artists.

Moving worlds, unique figuration, intensive patterning and brilliant colour set these artists apart. At times abstract and deeply personal, this collection of works offers a momentary glimpse into the dynamic, confident and energetic practices of artists working from DADAA’s studios.

RSVP Essential | Register here

Fair Isle | Artist Workshop with Darcy Palladino

Join Darcy Palladino in a workshop interweaving traditional crafting techniques of textile dyeing and quilting with natural materials and local flora gathered from the Perth region.

Darcy Palladino is a local emerging artist, focusing primarily on natural dyeing, patchwork, and quilting. With over a decade of traditional quilting experience, Palladino has spent the last year investigating local flora as a source of textile dye. Through this form of making, she is implored to build on the knowledge possessed by her wider community. Primarily self-taught, Palladino’s practice focusses on knowledge sharing and creating communities of slow-crafters.  

This workshop is presented by DADAA in association with the Fair Isle exhibition. 

FREE | Registration essential | BOOK TICKETS HERE

All equipment and materials provided.

Image: Courtesy Darcy Palladino. 

Fair Isle | Frames of Reference

Frames of Reference is a project about how creative work grows from initial ideas and personal practices, into collectives, groups, and projects larger than were originally imagined.

As a part of the Fair Isle exhibition at DADAA, Semaphore editors Kelly Fliedner and Melissa McGrath will conduct a range of interviews and conversations regarding processes for supporting arts practice in Western Australia. They will record these exchanges and publish the reflections to share the process of ‘thinking through making’ and document local histories and knowledge.

Semaphore is an emerging arts publishing project in the process of reflection and planning for the future. This project focuses on the role that writing plays in the presentation and consideration of artworks and art practices from Western Australia.

This time is intended for any members of the community who would like to come and contribute to the Frames of Reference conversation.

Register your interest via the Facebook event. 

Fair Isle is presented by Perth Festival and DADAA.

Image: Semaphore, Frames of Reference, 2021. Courtesy Kelly Fliedner and Melissa McGrath.

Fair Isle | Tactile & Audio-Described Tours

Fri 26 Mar, 11am (Tactile focussed)

Experience the Fair Isle exhibition at the DADAA Gallery through touch, sound and conversation in an intimate Tactile & Audio-Described Tour led by an experienced DADAA guide and curator Katherine Wilkinson.

FREE | This is a free event made available to people with disability, who are blind or vision impaired, their friends, families and care networks. These tours are intimate experiences and numbers are limited per tour. Bookings essential.

For information and bookings | contact Jacqueline Homer on 0400 111 018 or jacqueline@dadaa.org.au  

Image: Artworks by Clare Peake, Intermediate Pots, 2015 – ongoing, ceramics, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Pixel Poetry. 

Fair Isle | Workshop, I imagine the world in stitches

Artist workshop with Emma Buswell and Mei Swan Lim

Practices of knitting, weaving and sewing have long intertwined the creation of functional objects with gathering and making together. The relevance of these processes endures, through a new generation of makers who continue to come together, using these practices as forms of political commentary and protest, and as a way to renew social and cultural traditions.

Continuing in the maternal hand-craft practices and techniques gifted to them, artists Emma Buswell and Mei Swan Lim use the attentive and slow motions of knitting and weaving to reflect, record and to create steadiness in times of uncertainty. Join the artists in a morning of knitting, weaving and sound, as they talk about their making processes and the significance of place within their work.

This workshop is presented by Perth Festival in association with DADAA as a part of the Fair Isle exhibition.

Emma Buswell is an artist, curator and designer fascinated with systems of government, economies and culture particularly in relation to constructs of place, identity and community. Her current work takes its inspiration from the maternal hand craft and knitting techniques passed down from her grandmother and mother as well as a contemplative investigation into the nature of kitsch, ephemera and national identities. Emma has previously run a variety of artist-run spaces across Perth and Fremantle and has exhibited and curated exhibitions across Australia.

Mei Swan Lim is a practicing sound and visual artist whose work centres on the environmental, emotional and spiritual importance of place, interdisciplinary investigation and cultural storytelling. Her works have appeared at Proximity Festival, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth Festival and Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

$10 | BOOK TICKETS HERE

All equipment, materials and light refreshments provided.

Image: Emma Buswell, In July we Resisted, 2020, knitted jumper. Courtesy the artist.

Fair Isle | Tactile & Audio-Described Tours

*NEW DATES ANNOUNCED*

Fri 19 Feb 10.30am and 11.30am (Tactile focussed)

Sat 20 Feb 11am and 12.00pm (Audio-Description & Tactile-focussed)

Experience the Fair Isle exhibition at the DADAA Gallery through touch, sound and conversation in an intimate Tactile & Audio-Described Tour led by an experienced DADAA guide and curator Katherine Wilkinson.

FREE | This is a free event made available to people with disability, who are blind or vision impaired, their friends, families and care networks. These tours are intimate experiences and numbers are limited per tour. Bookings essential.

For information and bookings | contact Jacqueline Homer on 0400 111 018 or jacqueline@dadaa.org.au  

Image: Artworks by Clare Peake, Intermediate Pots, 2015 – ongoing, ceramics, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Pixel Poetry. 

Fair Isle | Artist Talks *postponed*

In response to the Western Australian Government’s COVID-19 announcement on January 31 and the five day lockdown, this event has been postponed. We look forward to advising you of the new date as soon as possible.

Fair Isle honours the quiet activism of a group of West Australian artists whose practices offer space to reflect, resist, and to share their knowledge and relationships to craft, culture and place. Reflecting on a year when attention has been re-focussed on creativity at home, join the Fair Isle artists and curator in a conversation on their making processes, the practices they have revived and the communities they celebrate.

Artists: Emma Buswell, Mei Swan Lim, Angelina Karadada Boona, Joanne Hayward, Bo Wong and Rose Megirian (Wong + Megirian), Melissa McGrath and Kelly Fliedner (Semaphore).

This event will be Auslan Interpreted. 

Presented by Perth Festival in association with DADAA. 

FREE | Registration essential via Eventbrite here.

Image: Wong + Megirian x Liam Kennedy, 2020

Tactile & Audio-Described Tour | In Record Time

Join us at the DADAA Fremantle Gallery for a Tactile & Audio-Described Tour for the latest exhibition In record time.

In record time brings together the practices of five Australian artists in a conversation on art, labour and circumstance. Considering how artists record, mark and structure their daily labour, this exhibition, includes new commissions and past works in ceramics, drawing, installation and kinetic sculpture.

Join exhibiting artists and curator Katherine Wilkinson, alongside an experienced DADAA guide, to share insights into the exhibition and the making of each artwork. 

This is a free event made available to people who are blind or vision impaired, their friends, families and support networks. This event offers a new way to experience this exhibition, orientated through touch, sound and conversation. 

For information and bookings | contact Jacqueline Homer on 0400 111 018 or jacqueline@dadaa.org.au  

Image: Roch Dziewialtowski-Gintowt, Untitled (year unknown), pencil on paper. Photo: Pixel Poetry.