Patrizia Tonello was born in Perth, Western Australia to Italian migrant parents. Unable to reconcile herself with reality's lack of imagination, she enrolled in a two-year experimental arts course at the WA College of Advanced Education (now Edith Cowan University), which offered a range of diverse classes covering creative writing, poetry, painting, ceramics, photography, film and television production, and theatre design.
She went on to do a Fine Art degree at Curtin University, graduating in 1986, and has been exhibiting her work since 1989.
Known mainly for her paintings of surreal architectural scapes, her more recent work concentrates on sculptural forms. Having had six solo shows and participated in numerous group exhibitions in WA, NSW and Canberra, her work is represented in various corporate and private collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Edith Cowan University, and the Parliament House collection in Canberra.
Patrizia's involvement in the Underpass Motel in 2008 - 2009 was her first film project. Following that, she used her new-found editing skills in co-assembling a short documentary about WA artist David Gregson entitled A Desire to Relate. Having received funding from the West Australian Department for Culture and the Arts for The Hollow City Chronicles, Patrizia has spent a large portion of 2010 in front of a computer screen trying to marry art and technology while still maintaining her sanity. Her dream is to establish The Hollow City Chronicles website as an on-going platform for WA artists to showcase their art in film format.
Visit Patrizia Tonello's website
Graham Taylor was born in England and immigrated to Western Australia as a young child. After leaving school, he worked in Perth as a Building Project Manager for ten years.
Inspired by the graphics and imagery of computer games and the technical wizardry of movie special effects, he set about teaching himself 3D animation, web design and programming.
His first project in 2007, assisted the Perth Observatory's successful funding application by creating a fly-through animation of the proposed Lowell telescope enclosure.
In 2008 - 2009 he was a major participant in the Underpass Motel film project, not only contributing in a technical capacity, but an artistic one as well. 2009 also saw him involved in the production of a short documentary about WA artist David Gregson titled A Desire to Relate , for Art on the Move.
Having designed numerous websites including the Underpass Motel and The Hollow City Chronicles, his enthusiasm for creating interactive art for dissemination over the Internet has prompted him to set up a production company with his partner Patrizia Tonello under the name of abandoned suitcase which will house numerous creative endeavours under the one banner.
His artistic contribution to The Hollow City Chronicles project entitled Siren Song , is his first solo short film.
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Born in Midland, Western Australia, Stuart Elliott studied Fine Art at Claremont School of Art and Curtin University.
Elliott has had 17 solo exhibitions and numerous group shows - including 'Silver' (PICA, 2008), 'Cross Currents' (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007), 'Perspecta' (S.H. Irvin Gallery, Sydney, 1997), 'Bravo 469' (Singapore National Museum, 1992), 'First Sculpture Triennial' (National Gallery of Victoria, 1984) and numerous surveys and related events. His work is represented in most major collections in Western Australia, including the Art Gallery of WA.
Stuart Elliott has lectured at a number of institutions (currently at Swan College), curated, undertaken art residencies and conducted major public and private commissions.
A major monograph about his work written by Dr David Bromfield, was published in 2004 under the title Fakeology: The Work of Stuart Elliott 1964 -2004.
While originally known as a sculptor, Elliott has tended to work in more open-ended ways in terms of material and format, experimenting with digital/photographic/collage and text-based works over the last 5 years as a means of investigating the core study of Fakeology.
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Born in Warrnambool, Victoria, Peter received his Diploma in Fine Art from Claremont School of Art in 1985. Since then, he has participated in over 80 group exhibitions, state (Western Australia) and nationally. International shows include 'Small Scale Sculpture Show' Budapest, Hungary, 'Bravo 469' (Singapore National Museum,) and 'Tugmaan: Ties That Bind' Australian-Filipino Exchange, Salustiana Towers, Makati MM, Philippines.
He has had 6 solo shows (one in Melbourne in 2006), acted as curator for numerous exhibitions in and around WA, and has undertaken numerous public art commissions, some as collaborations.
Awards include Australian Institute of Landscape Architects National Projects Award-category: 'Special Initiatives' (Landcorp, Hames Sharley and Peter Dailey). His work is represented in many public and corporate collections including The Art Gallery of Western Australia, the University of Western Australia and the Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria.
Peter is currently a part-time lecturer at Polytechnic West's Midland Campus. While working on the Hollow City Chronicles project, Peter is constructing 10 life size figurative works for the 'Syndicate' project. This body of work is loosely based on food and it's consumption.
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Amanda Williams was born in England, her family immigrating to Perth when she was a pre-schooler. That first move was the beginning of a meandering lifestyle which involved 22 different schools before finally landing at UWA to study mathematics.
Fascinated by computers which could draw, she abandoned her studies to work with the first 3D CAD software deployed in the WA mining industry, initially mapping underground ore deposits and later process control and electrical drafting. It took five years for the novelty of CAD to wear off. Keen to draw something other than maps and machinery she left the mining industry in 1989 to start her own business in computer-based art for printing, working with the then-emerging technology of postscript graphic imaging in WA.
It took until 2005 to come to the realisation that designing business cards wasn't really art either and enrolled at TAFE to study Environmental Art and Design.
She has won awards for her sculpture at the City of Melville in 2007 and Mindarie 2008 exhibitions.
She is currently completing a Bachelor of Art (Fine Arts) at Curtin University while actively pursuing a late, but better than never, second career as an artist in traditional media.
She is still fascinated by computers that can draw.
Visit Amanda William's website
After completing the Special Arts Program at Applecross Senior High in Perth, Richard's work appeared in two prestigious young artist's exhibitions mounted at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, 'Year 12 Perspectives' and 'Young Originals' in 1992.
He completed a diploma in Fine Art from Claremont School of Art followed by a degree in Arts Design at Curtin University of Technology, and had his work included in the 1998 'Hatched' exhibition at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2000, Richard participated in 'Little Rippers: Australian Fringe Pop' at the Outré Gallery in Melbourne.
Richard spent two years working as a free-lance illustrator, and as a storyboard artist for a short film titled Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, and the SBS animated TV series Quads as well as numerous television commercials.
He's worked for an online business developer doing design, illustration and animation for educational computer games.
His decision to become a live-in carer at a drug-rehabilitation facility in Northam, Western Australia, interrupted his art-centric M.O. for the next six years.
His participation in The Underpass Motel project hailed a return to the pursuit of his art career. He also has a bit-part role in the short film, Perth's Housing Crisis. The short is currently being prepared for entry in Sydney's Trop-Fest short-film festival in February.
Merrick Belyea is a practicing artist who has been exhibiting regularly in Western Australia and overseas since graduating from Claremont School of Art in 1991. He is represented in numerous collections including Royal Perth Hospital, Edith Cowan University Collection, Artbank, Holmes a Court Collection and private collections.
Merrick's work has been critically acclaimed in national publications, having been named as one of 'Australia's Most Collectable Artists' in Art Collector magazine in 2004 and 2005. Merrick is represented in Perth by Gallery East, in Melbourne by Dickerson Galleries and in Sydney by Stella Downer Fine Arts.
Merrick has contributed extensively in the arts in Western Australia, having held the position of Chairman of the Artsource Board for five years, and being a regular contributor to various arts projects and forums. Merrick's next exhibition is at Gallery East in April 2011
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