MITCHELL KELLY
29 December 2005 - 29 January 2006

Mitchell Kelly completed a Bachelor of Art Education (Visual Arts) at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW in 2003. As an emerging artist, Mitchell seeks to strengthen his knowledge and understanding of the painting process through the Australian landscape. As a 'translator for the immediate environment', Mitchell creates a visual language of mark-making representing the natural conditions of the landscape such as sounds, textures and lines. In Hill End, Mitchell will escape the restrictions of metropolitan Sydney and immerse himself in the 'Explorer Country' landscape of Hill End. He also plans to use Hill End as the primary motif for his exhibition Exploring Country to be held at Richard Martin Art, Woollahra in February in 2006.

JOHN CALDWELL & JAN ASHBY
30 January - 20 February

John Caldwell has worked as a full time artist since 1977, and has had more than forty solo exhibitions as well as many group exhibitions. The primary focus of his work is the natural landscape, although his paintings, drawings and printmaking also encompass portraiture, figurative and still life subjects. Jan Ashby works in a number of mediums including painting, drawing, decorative ceramic forms and hand built jewellery.

John and Jan have travelled widely throughout Australia and overseas and have visited Hill End several times; both have been inspired by its potential as subject matter for their work. For John, the architectural qualities of Hill End, as well as its mining landscape, are of primary interest. Jan is interested in the natural and exotic flora of the region.

BARBARA McKAY
8 March - 5 April

Barbara McKay made her first visit to Hill End as a young art student in the late 1950s. The drama of the landscape and Hill Ends' eerie isolation has stayed in her imagination ever since. During her time at Hill End Barbara plans to experience the landscape in all its moods and to create a series of new works in a place which played an important role in her early development as an artist.

During her career, Barbara has lived and worked in London and New York and travelled extensively throughout Europe, the United States and Indonesia. She has worked as a Lecturer and guest Lecturer in a number of Australian Universities and educational institutions. Barbara has exhibited her work in many selected group and solo exhibitions since 1974, including a 30 year survey exhibition at Gosford Regional Gallery in 2002.

RICHARD GOODWIN
10 April - 8 May (NSW Ministry for the Arts funded resident)

Richard Goodwin participated in the pilot of Hill End Artist in Residence program in 1994 and was included in the Artists of Hill End exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1995. For Goodwin, Hill End at that time represented the antithesis of romantic notions of landscape; the end of the road, a site of infinite suffering and death, a place of empty shacks and eerie desolation. Richard returns to Hill End, still sceptical, but ready to investigate the changed nature of the township brought about by the influx of artists and the revival of its architecture. In a continuation of his architectural 'parasite' projects, Goodwin plans to create a prosthetic attachment "on the back" of an existing structure.

AMANDA PENROSE HART
12 May - 9 June

Amanda Penrose Hart has been a practicing artist for the past 20 years and has exhibited widely in Australia.. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Art, Griffith University, Brisbane in 1991. Her work is held in many corporate and public collections, including Macquarie Bank and the Australian National Maritime Museum. Since 1994, Amanda's work has focussed on the Australian landscape. For the past four years, Amanda has made regular visits to Hill End, Sofala, Wattle Flat and the surrounding area. This landscape has become a significant part of her continuing artistic practice and provides a wealth of inspiration. While in Hill End, Amanda will work on completing a series of Hill End and Sofala works commissioned by Macquarie Bank, and work towards her next exhibition in Sydney in 2007.

JOANNE SEARLE
12 June - 10 July (Bathurst Regional Art Gallery funded resident)

Joanne Searle completed a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) with first class honours at the Australian National University School of Art in 1999, where she is currently Associate Lecturer in the School of Art Ceramics Department. Joanne has won numerous ceramics awards and her work has been exhibited throughout Australia, and in Taiwan, Italy, Croatia and Germany. To date, Joanne's ceramic practice has largely focussed on collecting natural forms and transferring their images onto the ceramic surface - what Joanne describes as a "macro reading of the surface". In Hill End, Joanne plans to investigate a broader section of the landscape and to record, map and draw its sounds in order to explore the correlation between sound and visual patterns. Joanne aims to produce a series of ceramic drawings using clays sourced from the Hill End area.

PAUL WILLIAMS & CHRISTOPHER DOLMAN
14 July - 7 August

Paul Williams and Christopher Dolman met while studying Fine Arts at Southern City Art School and immediately formed a creative alliance that has seen them travel to various destinations in order to experience and document new landscapes. Each has participated individually in the Hill End Artists in Residence Program, and they return together in order to consolidate their ideas and make new works for a forthcoming two man show exploring the relationship between the man-made environment and the natural landscape of Hill End.

Paul Williams has participated in outback painting tours, been awarded The Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Scholarship (2005), and the Gruner Prize by the Art Gallery of New South Wales (1998). He has participated in numerous group shows since 1997 and exhibited his Hill End works in a solo show at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2001. Christopher Dolman has travelled extensively through Asia and has held a number of group and solo exhibitions in Australia, including an exhibition of works based on his 2001 Hill End residency at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2003.

LEAH TESHENDORFF
25 August - 22 September

Melbourne based jeweller Leah Teshendorff completed an Honours degree in Fine Art Gold and Silversmithing, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1997. Leah has exhibited widely, and in 2000 won the National Contemporary Jewellery Award. Leah's practice utilises traditional and non traditional techniques such as photo etching, galvanising, fabrication and casting. She uses a variety of materials including mild steel, zinc, bronze, silver and gold. In Hill End, Leah will work towards her first exhibition Florilegium at Craft Victoria in 2007. This body of work will investigate botanical imagery and the impact of plants on the landscape.

MIA NG
25 September - 23 October (NSW Ministry for the Arts funded resident)

Mia Ng graduated completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (painting) at the National Art School, Sydney in 2003. As a young, emerging urban artist, Mia aims to broaden her experience of the Australian landscape and to draw on Hill End's gold mining and artistic history. A curiosity about the spirit and charm of the village also attracts Mia, as she is interested in capturing the visual poetry of the terrain.

Her Hill End residency will give Mia the time and space to concentrate on her explorations of the Australian landscape and to document and experiment with various possibilities in painting.

ANTHONY MRAVICIC
27 October - 21 November (NSW Ministry for the Arts funded resident)

Using the persona (late)[ant mrav], Sydney based photographer and sculptor Anthony Mravicic majored in photography at the National Art School and in 2005 was awarded the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship for sculpture. The judging panel remarked that Mravicic's work so far has revealed him as one of the most intriguing of a new generation of Australian sculptors. In Hill End, Anthony intends to fossick for specific narratives to be transcribed into Braille and to create a Hill End inspired entry for the Broken Hill Works on Paper Prize, as well as pursue a photographic project.

RACHEL ELLIS
25 September - 23 October (Country Energy funded resident)

Rachel Ellis was born in Adelaide and later grew in Forbes in Central Western NSW and has been based in Bathurst since 2001. She studied at the City Art Institute in Sydney and completed a Master of Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales majoring in drawing in 1993. She has exhibited widely, and has been included in both the Dobell Drawing Prize and Blake Prize for Religious Art on several occasions. Awards include the Blake Prize for Religious Art (1996), the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship for painting (1997), and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Denise Hickey Studio Residency, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (1998).

During her time in Hill End, Rachel plans to immerse herself and her work in the historical architecture and landscape of the area. Hill End will provide Rachel with rich material to explore the notion of 'suspended time' through the use of light in painting.