List of Exhibiting Artists

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Edward Dyas






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Edward Dyas was born in Launceston in 1956. Since he was old enough to hold a pencil, art has played a driving force in his life.

Creating artworks in miniature, Edward has achieved a photo realist quality in graphite, pastel and oil for which he has won many national and international awards. These include the coveted Gold Memorial Bowl at the 2001 Royal Society for Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers. Other awards include Best of Show at the Miniature Art Society of Florida's annual international exhibition in 2002 and again, his versatility won him the Best of Show award at the inaugural international exhibition of the Canadian Miniature Society in 2001.

Edward is a member of the Australian Miniature Society (ASMA, Qld) and won his fifth consecutive Best of Show at their international exhibition in 2004. He is a four-time winner of the Faber-Castell Award for Drawing Excellence in Miniature Art, twice at national level and twice at international level

As an overview to Edward's work with miniatures he states: "I began working in miniatures because of my interest in detail and photo realism. It seemed daunting to do large paintings and drawings incorporating these interests. It was also a convenient size to ship to competitions and exhibitions. Many people imagine little old ladies creating miniatures in carefree, spare time: a dab here and there and not an anxious moment. Miniatures are actually incredibly exhausting apart from the obvious strain on the eyes. I don't use a magnifying glass and I abhor viewers using one to scrutinize the finished product as it has not been done to enlarge. Trying to keep a stress-free mind while remaining bodily motionless is not easy. Absolute concentration is needed at all times."

As well as his proficiency with miniatures, Edward shows great talent with larger works.

The Thistle Gallery is pleased to have the exclusive rights in Tasmania to represent such a fine artist.

Commissions are welcomed. Prices start at $750 unframed.

At the commencement of the commission, a 50% non-refundable deposit is required together with two clear photographs of the subject.

For further details please discuss with Helena and Debra at the gallery.

Paul Becker

Paul Becker was born in Launceston and first studied painting in oils with Greg Waddle. Paul is also a self taught watercolour artist who began experimenting in soft pastels in 2000. He has especially enjoyed the ability to combine the two mediums which has since become his passion.

In 2003 Paul's work evolved once again and now depicts a more contemporary style while still portraying images of Tasmanian scenery. This style has seen Paul receive awards from prominent art shows.

Paul finds equal inspiration between the beauty of the midlands landscape and the tranquility of water scenes. He really enjoys the aesthetics that come from living in Tasmania and is always inspired to paint the beauty of what he sees.

David Bentley

Born in 1986 in Wollongong NSW, David Bentley has lived in Tasmania since the early 1990's.

David has had an interest in art from an early age, first appearing in a joint exhibition at the age of 16. In 2004 he won the Mural Fest art prize in Sheffield, Tasmania, followed by the Greg Waddle's People's Choice award at the John Glover Exhibition (Evandale, Tas) in 2005 and a finalist in the same exhibition in 2007.

David completed his Bachelor of Contemporary Arts at the University of Tasmania, Launceston Campus in 2006 .

David's aim through his painting is to communicate his love and relationship with the Tasmanian landscape and it's wild nature. His desire is to speak this place's romance, both it's feral and gentle natures through texture, light, movement and energy in the medium of oil paint. He believes this a concept he shares with the likes of Turner, Friedrich and more recently Wolfhagen together with the photographer, Dombrovskis.

Teresa Bentley

Born in 1956 in Nowra NSW, Teresa Bentley graduated with a diploma of teaching in 1977. After moving to Tasmania in the early 1990's, Teresa has continued this career and now teaches secondary school art in Sheffield. In 2004 Teresa began a Bachelor of Contemporary Art degree at the University of Tasmania, Launceston Campus.

Teresa's oil paintings are visions of beauty perceived while gazing at the Tamar River. Subtle shadows and shining colours filter through delicate halos of light and depth, transporting us to share in her experience.

Over the past 5 years, Teresa has been involved in many group exhibitions across Tasmania. In 2004-5 she was a finalist in the prestigious John Glover Art Prize (Evandale, Tas).

Telfer Dennis

Telfer Dennis was born in South Australia and from childhood lived in Tasmania. She attended Friends School and the Hobart Technical College, where she studied and was influenced by Dorothy Stoner, Stephen Walker and particularly Jack Carington Smith. Telfer says he taught her that poetry, observation, mystery and draughtsmanship are the important factors in art - his influence still moulds her artistic philosophy.

Telfer worked as a commercial artist with The Mercury newspaper early in her career . Later she married and raised her family on the sheep property "Fairfield" near Cressy, Tasmania - at the same time turning to fine art practise.

In her creative life, Telfer continues to exhibit with numerous solo shows to her credit, in Tasmania and nationally. Her work has been collected by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Hobart), the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (Launceston), Artbank (Sydney) and the Launceston General Hospital collection. She has work in many private collections, locally and interstate.

Peter Glover

Born in Lindisfarne, Tasmania in 1952. Peter Glover developed a curiosity for landscapes from an early age, endeavouring to express this interest on canvas.
A career as a painter began around 1980, interpreting the landscape from the Heidelberg school painting mode. It was at this point that Peter developed his unique interpretive visions of landscapes, using more free flowing brushstrokes and higher colour tones. This technique has gained him a reputation for boldness, energy and vitality which is evident in his works.

Arthur Hamblin

Arthur Hamblin was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1933 and now resides in Queensland. As a painter he owes much to the experiences and characters he has seen in the Australian Outback. Country life, stockmen, horses, cattle and bird life are his subjects. His paintings show the heat, vastness, space and colour of the Outback. You can feel the searing heat of the sun, the thick, dry dust, the smallness of man against the endless countryside.
Arthur's first paintings were produced at the age of sixteen, but it was not until his mid thirties that he began to paint full time. Following his first solo exhibition in Frankston, Victoria, Arthur has continued to enjoy success with regular exhibitions in Australia and overseas.

Cheryl Hodges

Cheryl Hodges was raised on a property on the outskirts of Canberra and developed a love of nature and art at an early age. Over the years she has undertaken studies in drawing, oils, calligraphy and photography. In 2000 Cheryl discovered her passion; botanical watercolour painting. She continues to develop her artistic skills, now painting on a regular basis and attending occasional master classes.

Cheryl's style of painting has evolved over the years, and involves building up the colour in many layers of soft washes, creating an almost translucent effect. She intensifies the final painting with some darker washes and dry brush work. She particularly enjoys painting natives especially eucalypts and has completed many fruit studies over the years.

Cheryl's works have been displayed and sold in various galleries and exhibitions and she has completed numerous commissions. Her works are held in private collections in Australia, UK Switzerland, USA and Canada. In 2003 she and several other artists initiated Canberra Botanical, an annual exhibition featuring works of local artists. In 2005 and 2007 she had paintings accepted into the renowned Botanica exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, all of which sold. In 2006 Cheryl was a finalist in The Australian Art magazine art challenge, and in the same year one of her paintings was selected to be the signature painting for Canberra Botanical 2006. She is a member of the Botanical Art Society of Australia (BASA), Artists Society of Canberra (ASOC), and is a committee member and website manager for Wildlife and Botanical Artists Inc (WABA)

Joan Humble

Born in Birmingham, UK, in 1938, Joan Humble started her painting career in London in 1972 studying under Frank Walter, an excellent teacher who has influenced her present teaching methods. She has traveled extensively, visiting many public and private galleries in Australia and overseas, absorbing the best of the artists in her own field, at the same time developing her own unique style.

Joan delights in truly portraying the moods and beauty of Tasmania, both in the wilderness and in populated areas. Her source of inspiration is nature and her work is the result of close observation and many field trips. She has a particular interest in water in all its forms, including seascapes. She took part in two circumnavigations of Tasmania and has sailed to Port Davey nine times.

While miniature landscapes down to 10 cm x 5 cm are a most important part of her work she also paints successfully in much larger sizes, up to 180 cm.

Kerry Martin

Kerry Martin lives in the high country near Cradle Mountain. It is this environment that provides her inspiration for landscape painting. Alternatively, inclement winter weather makes landscape painting less conducive and gives her an opportunity to turn to more thematic or figurative ideas.

Obie

Obie spent his childhood in Victoria, moving to Tasmania in the late 1970's. He specializes in naive art and is constantly experimenting with different mediums for new effects in his highly uplifting paintings of whimsical figures dancing in the air.

Over the past two years at The Thistle Gallery, Obie has held two very successful exhibitions, the second as a sell-out. His works appeal to a wide group of people as the paintings have a magical ability to draw the viewer into their dream-like world, helping them to forget their worries and feel happy! We look forward to his next exhibition at the gallery in January 2008!

Wal Sutherland

Born in Calcutta, India in 1936, Wal Sutherland now resides near Launceston Tasmania.

Wal is a long standing, respected artist who has exhibited widely across the state of Tasmania. Through his paintings his aim is to share the experience of the idea, the thought expressed, the artistic process, the making of it, the feelings encountered, the enjoyment felt, so there is both creation and communication.

Wal states "...My childhood years in India for example contributed a love of strong primary colour and design... Tasmania where I now live, is charming with its rise and fall of landscape, old buildings and barns, river views and its great variety of pictorial impressions- what artist could not fail to find stimulus here?"

Wal likes to reveal to others a personal glimpse of the private life within, which the viewer can either identify in themselves a similar experience or have the opportunity to encounter a new one. He says "personally, I like the art I create and the statements I express through it. If someone else enjoys what I do my art cycle is complete."

Peter Waddle

Peter Waddle, a Launceston artist and musician enjoys working with pen and ink, oils and acrylics as well as (he likes to say) "Creating strange contraptions out of paper mache, bits of wood, string and assorted rubbish"
Peter has a wonderful sense of humour which is translated in his works. A finalist in two Glover Prizes exhibitions, much of his work also reflects his love for the Northern Midlands where he spent his childhood.

Janine Hainsworth

Born in Burnie, Tasmania in 1963, Janine Hainsworth embarked on her journey into painting and print making in 1992. Over the following years, Janine has been involved in group and solo exhibitions, her last at The Thistle Gallery in October 2006.

Janine's etchings and lithographs convey the mood of the chosen subject brilliantly. In Janine's words she says-

"My interest is with expressing the fundamental essence behind a person; their inner world of emotions.

People are an endless source of inspiration to me and continually surface in my work. Often, faces or figures begin their life through spontaneous and intuitive drawings that are taken from memory or personal experience.

The concept of a narrative is an important part of my work and by interposing symbols or hidden metaphors, a deeper meaning can be applied."

Judith-Rose Thomas

Judith-Rose Thomas was born in Launceston, of Aboriginal parents and has resided in this area most of her life.
In 2004 Judith-Rose graduated from the University of Tasmania with a degree in Master of Fine Art and Design.

In Judith-Rose's words "...a descendent of Manalargenna Chief of the Cape Portland tribe, the works drew deeply on my aboriginal heritage and refer to symbolism, spiritualism and mythology within the Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, showing a relationship between the landscape and the Tasmanian Aboriginal People. The work consists of Tasmanian Aboriginal petroglyphs, carved by the Aboriginal ancestors into rock in specific areas around Tasmania. The paintings are viewed as a visual language and by using different shapes depict the geometrically constructed contemporary world in which the aboriginal people now exist ."

The combination of ancient Tasmanian Aboriginal petroglyphs with the textured medium created in a contemporary format by Judith-Rose stands her work apart from other indigenous artists. They are truly unique and an inspiration to all who view them and consequently learn more about her Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage.

We look forward to welcoming Judith-Rose back to the Gallery in October 2007 when her new body of paintings will be exhibited with works by new-comers to the gallery, Ronnie and Dianne Summers.

Mary Serfass

Pen and ink artist, Mary Serfass was born in New York City and grew up in Palmerton, Pennsylvania. She received a BA in Fine Art from Penn. State University, concentrating on painting and printmaking. For a number of years, she worked in oil, watercolour, stone lithography and etching. However, she has always been partial to pen and ink and has been working almost exclusively in that medium since 1978.

Her formula is simple: an image is rendered in black and white, using the finest pen points available. Colour is sometimes added with coloured pencil and/or watercolour. Some drawings are enhanced with 23karat gold, palladium or copper leaf. Mary's signature style includes extending parts of the image onto the surrounding mat. A single drawing can take hundreds of hours to complete.

Her works have been described as elegant and uplifting and are included in many collections, both private and public, throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Australia.

Mary lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with her husband Doug and son David. Together with her husband she runs The Snow Goose; a fine art gallery and frame shop located in the heart of historic Bethlehem

Zhang Dawo

Born in 1943, Chinese/Australian calligrapher and visual artist, Zhang Dawo is known for his many facets of art including photography. His work is represented in many national and international public, corporate and private collections.
Dawo's artistic nature is deeply rooted in the ancient culture of Jin-Shi (artistic etching and engraving of symbols and writing on metal and stone- 4000bc), at the same time he has a fiery ambition of pushing the frontier of contemporary art. After 1990 Dawo's work has crossed the boundary of modern calligraphy into modern art with the ink medium. "Dawo Black in White Miaomo", his own exclusive artwork has completely moved away from the recognizable characters. It is a form of unique eastern abstract art with unsurpassable quality; the style is free and fluid, graceful and vivid: a forceful expression of romanticism and mysticism of the oriental.

Edna Broad PhD

Broad

Edna Broad is an accomplished artist in various mediums. Her earthenware ceramic works are inspired by intricate floral textile designs and crochet work. Their shape and irregular formations are derived from Neolithic and Celtic pottery artifacts. Some pieces such as curved platters are functional, while others such as boxes and tall vessels are purely decorative.

Fenwick Makepeace

Fenwick Makepeace has lived in Tasmania since 1993. His interest began with sculpting native timbers and has now developed into ceramics which he finds has provided him with freedom of expression well beyond that which he achieved using wood.

The textures and lines incorporated into his work embody the movement and rhythm associated with nature. His designs are predominantly sculptural and occasionally functional.

Geoff Cadogan-Cowper

Geoff Cadogan-Cowper was born in Victoria and moved to Tasmania in 2003. Art glass has become his passion and as he says-

"In the way a sculptor works with stone, glass works with light to produce its own art. The glass artist seeks ways to intrude upon this relationship and direct it to other visions.

Working with glass is a privilege and a frustration: A privilege because light is one - sometimes the most significant - carrier of beauty to us; frustration because the medium requires high temperatures and involves complex chemistry. This distances the artist from the process at critical times."

As will be evident from this quote, Geoff is always pushing boundaries and no two works are the same.

The work "Spring Thaw" was produced by soaking a sycamore leaf in copper chloride and fusing it inside a sandwich of glass. Embedded in investment during the firing, the leaf shows the effects of limited oxygen in the kiln - part of the leaf has turned to elemental copper whilst part has oxidized to blue-green. The fired sandwich is mirror-backed and mounted in a hand carved piece of local sandstone.

Rozlyn De Bussey

Rozlyn De Bussey began her quest with glass in 1979. Ten years later, she completed a degree of Bachelor of Visual Arts, Canberra Institute of the Arts, ANU. Since then Rozlyn has been working full time in glass on various private commissions, collections and exhibitions.

In Rozlyn's words "I believe it is important to employ a variety of technical processes in giving from to my creative ideas, rather than being restricted to one genre. My themes are primarily environmental. In expressing these I produce multi-faceted works combining the use of lustres, engraving and carving."

"Architectural Series No 1 - 1989 which is available through the gallery is inspired by Le Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel, France. Le Corbusier based his work on a Nun's Habit. This piece's twin is held in Kamenicky Senov, Czech Republic - The world's oldest glass museum. To create the work, several layers of clear bullseye glass have been hand-painted several times using enamels. These layers are then fused together. The edges are then ground and polished. It is then slumped and assembled into its final form.

The work took approximately 2 and a half months to complete.

Peter Minson

Peter Minson, a third generation glass blower from Binalong NSW, has followed a path from scientific glass blowing to functional and fun art glass work. All glass work is made from Pyrex which is designed to withstand boiling water. As each piece is individually crafted, every tea pot has its own character. The wine glasses have a wonderful feel and balance, all are individually free hand blown.

Shaun Kaye

Shaun Kaye was born at Hobart and has lived much of his life in Tasmania. As a young pilot he transported bush walkers into the remote areas of South West Tasmania and was captivated by the natural beauty of that region.

Later Shaun was fortunate to experience the diversity of the Papua New Guinean culture and landscapes whilst living and working there in many locations over a 3 year period. On his return to Tasmania, he once again pursued his interest in photography; an interest that started in his twenties.

He has the ability to produce artworks that capture not only the natural beauty of Tasmanian landscapes but also the charm of the many historic buildings located here.

Peter Hjort

Peter Hjort was born in Malmo, Sweden in 1944. He emigrated to Australia with his family in 1972 and moved to Tasmania in 1978.

A sea change to Tasmania saw Peter move from a corporate life to studying sculpture at various educational institutions in the early 1980's. In Peter's words, "Although I am working in various styles and media, it cannot be over emphasized that I am consistently working towards developing my contemporary abstract skills. There lies my great love." Many awards that Peter has won to date are examples of that.

Peter has also completed many commissions for public and private spaces throughout Australia and overseas.

Mark Hoban

Mark Hoban moved to Tasmania from South Australia in 1989. He graduated from University of Tasmania, Launceston with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) in 1997 and has continued to develop his art while sharing his skills with the community in the form of urban projects that recognize Tasmania's diverse cultural heritage.

Pauline Delaney

Black and Gold Acid Etched Glass Necklace

Pauline Delaney has a rich background in glass. She started as a glassblower in 1980 and "found" glass beads in 1993. Currently her time is managed between teaching lamp worked beads and blowing glass in her Victorian studio to working for other institutions, making glass jewellery for galleries and private commissions.

Her work is exhibited nationally and overseas and is represented in many private and public collections. A credit to Pauline is the honour of being the first Australian to have works selected for collection by the Corning Museum of Glass, New York USA.

We are pleased to be the sole gallery in Tasmania to stock Pauline's exquisite jewellery.

Nicola DeRooy

Nicola DeRooy began creating beaded jewellery in 1993. Her work reflects the two major influences on her life - her Romany (gypsy) heritage and the native flora of the Tasmanian bush. In Nicola's words-

"As a teenager I would search for diminutive native orchids; today the native bush land at Mengha in Tasmania's far northwest, offers a profusion of indigenous flora and fauna whose colour and form are evident in my work.

I have studied the technique of beading from other cultures but have tended to develop my own . . .my latest 3D sculptures made up of delica beads and semi-precious gems have been inspired from the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape; with particular focus on native flowers."

Lindsay McDonald

Lindsay McDonald is a proficient creator of glass-beaded jewellery. In conjunction with her partner, Peter Minson she runs Southern Cross Glass from their workshop and cafe/showroom in the quaint village of Binalong, NSW.