Chris Lego returns from Bundjalung Country after a crisp decade after leaving Gadigal land to show ‘n’ tell a gallery full of cheap magic and Mostly Stolen Property. He was gonna go study to be a teacher, but moving to the rainbow region to fit into a box was wildly optimistic – proving that you shouldn’t snort lines of Lismore flood silt residue as you make art to exorcize your demons like a body double for the Butthole Surfers. This Queercore agent of spicy chaos has a showbag that includes zines, screenprinted treasure and deliciously subversive art: think ominous postcards, a series of paintings that scaffold deep secrets, to lightboxes that deftly illuminate the blinding horizon of Australia’s housing crisis…

https://www.facebook.com/share/1C1Zj6ssvN/

Tortuga Studios
Opening Friday 19^th December 2025, 6-9pm

Gallery Hours: view by appointment.

The post Chris Lego presents Mostly Stolen Property: a solo show appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Storytelling by the artist from 7pm

Artist, storyteller, art alchemist, Yoanna Symbiosis uses art as a transformational
tool, drawing inspiration from nature, it’s flows, ornaments and textures, as well as
her dreams and intuitive insights. Exploring connection, communication and the
natural world, Yoanna considers the subtle dimensions, the ‘roots’ of what it means to be a human being, each symbol and motif building to a larger story.

Yoanna returns to Sydney after time spent living and working with First Nations
artists on Warumungu and Arrernte lands in Central Australia to tell the story of how she is learning from nature and the rich multidimensional life that exists between earth and cosmos.

Join us for a one-off exhibition of this powerful body of work and join Yoanna as she takes the time to tell the stories encoded in her art.

yoannasymbiosis.wixsite.com/blog

instagram/fb/yt : yoanna symbiosis

https://fb.me/e/c9pemcQOS

Tortuga Studios
Opening Friday 28^th November 2025, 6-9pm

Exhibition For one night only – with Artist Yoanna storytelling session at 7pm.

Gallery Hours: view by appointment.

The post Roots and patterns between the Earth and Cosmos appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

FRIDAY, 12^th April 2024 6pm-10pm

at
Tortuga Studios

Tractor snarls on the highways of Europe, pandemics, Palestine shattered into dust – dis\ruption shocks the system. It can create cataclysmic change, or whimper into obscurity, but it always elicits a reaction.

From turmoil to disarray, interruption, obstruction, and Kendall Jenner ending police brutality with a Pepsi, dis\ruption has an impact. To some it is ‘marketing innovation’; to others, it is the catalyst for solidarity and a call to arms. To many, it simply requires a hurried apology for ‘the inconvenience’. More often than not, it is a challenge to the status quo, a demand that you sit up and take note…

Featuring the work of over 20 artists, dis\ruption is a group show at Tortuga Studios for which you should expect to be challenged.

Bring your reactions…

WHERE: 31 Princess Hwy St Peters

WHEN: Friday 12^th April 2024
AT: 6:00pm-10:00pm

https://fb.me/e/4qflWfs9g

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KALEIDOSCOPIC: an exhibition for strange times

It is a reaction, a visceral response to COVID-19, its devastating impact around the globe, and, more locally, the evisceration of Sydney’s arts quarter, the Inner West.

A rolling display of creative practice, KALEIDOSCOPIC is both greater than the sum of its parts and a tiny fragment of who we are as a creative community. A weekly rotation of artwork proudly installed in towering warehouse windows, overlooking Sydney Park, this exhibition is about finding tiny signs of beauty in a fractured world and nurturing the connection that we are missing.

It is our way of connecting artists and their audiences, of presenting work in isolation. You might glimpse it from a speeding window, read about it on social media or hear of it from a friend who wandered by, and while it might not be as tech savvy as a Zoom meeting, however you experience it, we hope KALEIDOSCOPIC entertains you.

https://anexhibitionforstrangetimes.org/

The post KALEIDOSCOPIC: an exhibition for strange times 2020-2021-2022 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Can you remember how you were before the world told you how to be?

We live in an era of troubled thinking. A state of extreme restlessness and confusion. Like an animal peering out of a forest on fire, we’re putting very little trust in tomorrow.

The artists in Carpe Delirium seek to embrace the insanity of these days by seizing a moment in time and exploring its fragility, heartache and impermanence.

The voices in used things.

Landscapes of nudes, dancers, animals, and birds influenced by acute psychic states.

The transitory nature of demolition derbies, horse auctions and a brutal regional Australia now destroyed by fire.

The secluded bedrooms and bathrooms of Australia’s oldest homes in which women withdraw into themselves to reflect and dream.

The sad glory of streetscapes and abandoned buildings facing destruction.

The daily chaos of children, toys and mental noise in which a female body quietly declines…

Carpe Delirium invites you to enter through the broken windows of the lost, neglected and abandoned to discover the beautiful, haunting and erotic.

Join artists Jasmine Anderson, Renee Falez, Philip Ricketson, Melita Rowston, Jo Shand and Hiske Weijers in the back streets of St Peters among the towering warehouse walls of Tortuga Studios to celebrate the end of the world as we know it.

Embrace the chaos, seize your delirium, fuck the system!

Opening night – Friday 20 March, 2020, 6pm – 9pm

Vintage LP beats by DJ Anthony Allstarr
Live animated haiku projections by Jim Griffiths
Music from 7pm:
Peter Fenwick
Suburban Bukowskis Solo (AKA Benito Di Fonzo)
Huknee Puknee

Tortuga Studios
31 Princes Highway, St Peters, NSW
FREE

Gallery hours:
Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 March: 1-5pm
Friday 27 March: 3-7pm
Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 March: 1-5pm
Saturday 28 March event: ‘Stories that never get told.’ An eve of performance poetry amongst the paintings, 6-8pm.
Sunday 29 March, Closing night informal drinks 5-7pm

www.tortugastudios.org.au

Our artists:

Jasmine Anderson

“My work is a collection of visual poetry that expresses introspection and the realms of fantasy. Narratives are derived from my own life experience: fragility, heartache, feminism, madness, and self-growth. The naive, dream-like and imaginative qualities of my work are often combined with a dark edge of erotica. My work is sentimental and raw – a dichotomy of confidence and vulnerability, an expression of grunge purity. I seek to explore the transitory nature of life, loss and impermanence yet I still desire to make a mark that lasts.”

Jasmine is a recent graduate of the National Art School. She works across multiple mediums including ceramics, painting, video, performance, and photography. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Redfern Community Art Show’, 2015, ‘Moonlight Feminist Wine Club Group Show’, 2018, ‘National Art School Graduate Show’, 2018, ‘Gaffa Crimson Wave Group Show’, 2019, ‘Alpha House Solo Show’, 2019, ‘Zed Gallery Group Show’, 2019, ‘Freda’s Down Under Space Erythrophobia’, 2019.

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/jasmine_velvet__
@jasmine_velvet__

Tumblr:
jasminevelvetconcetta.tumblr.com

Renee Falez

“Stains. Memories. Erased. Scuffs. Tears. Dirt. Objects. Shadows. Linearity. Loss. Photocopies. Ideas. Words. Lyrics. Scraps.

I’m living between worlds, not always able to project a clear path. I write/make music/make art. Sometimes this comes from disparate cultural spaces including, punk/post punk music, catharsis, poetry, journaling, parenting, and the experience of daily functions suffering sometimes.

There are voices in used things. I’m interested in the cultural signifiers carried in objects and garments. Remnants, sounds, colours, and how these piece together to form a whole – like an imprint left on the psyche after a dream.

I revere the old, imperfect and damaged. Irregularities in machine made commodities may be objects in rebellion. I like it when wallpaper is stained. It feels like the end of the world sometimes. My art is my inventory of these interactions.”

Renee graduated from the National Art School in 2009 with Honours in Printmaking.
Recent exhibitions include: ‘Philip Ricketson, Renee Falez’, Alpha Gallery, 2018, ‘Dirty Slutz’, The Old Sign Shop, 2013, ‘Thee Arbitrarium of Disappointed Things’, INDEXspace, 2011, ‘Surface to Space’, Sheffer Gallery, 2010,

Facebook:
facebook.com/yellowagainstthegrey/

Philip Ricketson

“My paintings are about layers of meaning being revealed in the doing of them. I don’t know what my work is about until l paint it. I paint people occupied by their environment. Usually their space is shared with animals or birds and a psychic event. Gradually, over years, new things appear, like a black bird maybe. I try to fit everything in.”

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/ricketsonphilip
@ricketsonphilip

Melita Rowston

“The house even more than the landscape is a psychic state” Gaston Bachelard.

In 2019, I became intrigued with the strangely preserved and very feminine spaces of Australia’s oldest ‘living museum’ homes.

As I tiptoed through these gentile Colonial relics: Elizabeth Farm, Ripponlea House, Ayers House, (among others), I wondered about the women who once lived within these domestic spheres. Exiled over the oceans from very far away, how did they make sense of a hostile landscape, ripped from its true custodians, to which they knew they couldn’t belong?

Stepping into these women’s most intimate spaces, I felt compelled to paint the mirrors in these rooms and to reflect back real women I know. In many ways we are them and they are us.

Standing on the shoulders of Edouard Vuillard and Grace Cossington Smith, this series explores loss, memory, the conflation of woman/landscape/culture, and general white anxiety about identity and place.

Melita is a writer, director, performer, and painter. She holds a Grad Cert, Art and Design, Swinburne, BFA – Painting, VCA, Grad Dip – Directing, NIDA, MA – Creative Writing, UTS.

She held her first solo exhibition at The George Paton Gallery, Melbourne at the age of 21. In 1998, she put down the brush to follow her passion for theatre. In 2018, she picked it up again. Recent exhibition: Modern Nostalgia, Tortuga Studios, 2018.

melitarowston.com

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/melitarowston
@melitarowston

Jo Shand

Jo Shand explores themes of transition, loss and regeneration.

For over twenty years, Jo has shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions in independent and regional Australian galleries. Selected for many shows, including North Sydney Art Prize, Mosman Art Prize and S.H. Ervin Gallery’s Salon de Refuses, Jo was a finalist in the City of Sydney’s City of Villages Art Prize (where her work was shown throughout the city in large scale reproductions) and she won the St Stephens Newtown Art Award. A graduate of National Art School, she is currently based in Newcastle, NSW.

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/jo_shand_art
@jo_shand_art

Hiske Weijers

“I feel increasingly desperate about being ignored by this relentless tunnel-vision government. Since 2007, my studio has been based in St Peters. I have painted the character and beautiful colours of old walls and buildings in the surrounding streets –
abstract versions of houses and telegraph wires. I’ve then watched these places be destroyed for freeways, more cars…

In Berlin, I love to explore the sad old glory of abandoned buildings. My recent focus has been an abandoned ballroom in Grunau. I entered through a broken window to discover this derelict, rotting ballroom, its antechambers and dark cellars. The amazing beauty of the light shining on the grand piano as I played. They have now started to take it down…

My work comes from a connection I feel with the subject. Capturing these moments before destruction makes time stop. I seek that simple impression.”

Hiske Weijers lives between Sydney and Berlin. She was born in the Netherlands. She studied Fine Art at TAFE SA then returned to Amsterdam to study modern dance. Back in Australia, she graduated from COFA with a BA- Fine Art in 2001. During this time, she helped run Kilo Studios in Regent Street, Redfern. She then moved to the artist-run Mekanarky Studios in Turrella where she managed and curated their gallery space before basing herself in St Peters.

hiskeweijers.com

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/hiskeweijers
@hiskeweijers

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/HiskeWeijers/

https://www.facebook.com/events/3067087753342496/

Opening night – Friday 20 March, 2020, 6pm – 9pm

Tortuga Studios
31 Princes Highway, St Peters, NSW
FREE

Gallery hours:
Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 March: 1-5pm
Friday 27 March: 3-7pm
Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 March: 1-5pm
Saturday 28 March event: ‘Stories that never get told.’ An eve of performance poetry amongst the paintings, 6-8pm.
Sunday 29 March, Closing night informal drinks 5-7pm

The post Carpe Delirium – group exhibition – 20.3.20 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Exhibition continues on the weekend Saturday and Sunday , 11am – 4pm.
Guided tours and talks to be announced.

Featuring 66 finalists from 23 countries. Countries represented include Australia, Canada, Croatia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands and USA.

The Stencil Art Prize is a touring exhibition of the world’s biggest, best and most daring artists who use the technique of cutting stencil layers, and painting a design.

This grassroots art form has undergone a resurgence in recent decades and is now thriving on the streets in every country around the globe. Influenced by the ephemeral nature of street art, these stencil-based works blend pop-culture imagery and global politics to highlight the growing concerns of a socially engaged generation of artists.

After the Sydney Exhibition, the show travels to Southern Buoy Studios in Mornington (57Km outside of Melbourne), Gympie Regional Gallery in QLD and Port Macquarie in NSW.

cover image:
by 2019 Finalist RenNL

*
https://www.facebook.com/events/2264960190409782/
Friday, September 13th, 2019 at 6 PM – 9 PM

31 Princes Highway, St Peters, Sydney, Australia 2044

(02) 9558 9959

tortugastudiosinc@gmail.com

*
image:
Artwork by 2019 Finalist Moz

The post Stencil Art Prize Launch 13.09.19 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Set to roar into life as the sun slinks over the horizon on Saturday 10th August, the garden will feature the work of over 40 artists, fire-based installations, interactive works, sculptures, projections, live music, DJs, campfires, food trucks and more beneath the jet trails at Sydenham Green.

“Fire’s real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences” Farenheit 451

— See you in The Fire Garden —

The post The Fire Garden – at Sydenham Green – 10.08.19 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

LET’S EAT CAKE.
Photography exhibition opening as part of the 2019 Sydney Mardi Gras festival.

Come along to celebrate!

About the Exhibition:

“It’s personal. I have always marched and have felt it important to document our journey, our fight for equality. I am thrilled and proud that this has happened in my (our) lifetime…”

The importance for the legalities of the recognition of equal rights for marriage is that the LGBTQIA+ communities see this as a step forward for communities and families for the equal respect, acceptance and acknowledgement of loving relationships between people. A human right to be acknowledged equally.

For more than fourteen years, Australians have been taking to the streets to protest for equal rights for gay marriage in Australia. Hunt’s photographic series documents the Sydney and Melbourne LGBTQIA+ communities, as well as our straight allies, marching together to acknowledge gay marriages as equal to straight marriages.

This exhibition is a celebration of our first year of equal marriage rights in Australia, coupled with an exlcusive book launch of LET’S EAT CAKE, with copies available on the night.

Maylei Hunt is a local social documentary photographer who is now based in Melbourne.

Artist Talk:

Sat 23 Feb at 2pm, at Tortuga Studios
Bookings via:

Mardi Gras Info Link: http://www.mardigras.org.au/events/lets-eat-cake

The post LET’S EAT CAKE. – by Maylei Hunt – 16.02.19 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Auroras bleed fire across the firmament, dancing lights that flare in the night sky, the science abandoned to their mesmerising beauty. Random columns of fluorescence or tag-along shimmers that lure the unsuspecting to their end, the dark comes alive with light, much of it unexplained.

The Night Garden that blooms but once a year and only at night in the back streets of St Peters is aflame with this flickering fire. Light sculptures, installations and projections burnish the inky darkness, creating a sensory, evocative world that tingles with electromagnetic charge and the shiver of the unknown.

From the Min Min lights to Area 51, from will o’ the wisps to the supernatural orbs of chhir batti, ghost lights are phenomena that pluck your eyes to the heavens. They live in the rich realm of phantasmagoria, superstition and conspiracy leaking from every sparkling angle.

On Friday 21st September, in association with Trolley’d, Arcade Screenprinting, Percy Jacks – and in memory of The Forge –Tortuga Studios is proud to present some of Sydney’s most intriguing artists as they tend to their garden beneath the aurora.

Follow the fire in the sky into a world that wears the paranormal like a tight-fitting shirt, bulging with suspense and shiny lustre.

The night garden blooms at Tortuga Studios, its light trails aflame in the sultry dusk of Applebee and Hutchinson Streets in St Peters.

Corner Applebee and Hutchinson Streets
St Peters
Friday 21st September 2018 6.30-10pm
FREE

https://www.facebook.com/events/364169324123458/

https://www.facebook.com/pg/RHPhotoDesign/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2194755113881770

The post IN THE NIGHT GARDEN // AURORA – 21.09.2018 appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Into the lucid translucency of the Night Garden stomps the carnie, pie juice and fag ash smeared indelicately through his aura. Beneath gossamer skeins of light, bathed in iridescence, the candy butcher picks his teeth with a rusted safety pin before contemplating and consuming his juicy find…

Burnishing the inky darkness for just one night the Night Garden is diaphanous, a light exhibition that fills the back alleys of St Peters. But this year it is held hostage by the dark carnival of the mud circus – sliding in sideways and splayed with satire – adorning a darker shawl, woven with ruinous hedonism and lit with the glint from the ringmaster’s silver snarl.

On Friday September 25th, join us for a stroll through the garden of light that blooms just once a year and only at night; bathe in the milky splay of the projectors as they fill the cracks of our industrial space; or sit in the stillness of the shadows as they shift and slink in guilty pleasure.

But beware the carnies in for the haul, the twisted clanging of fire and metal and tar, lot lice on the loose high on burnt sugar, and the cackling dirge of demented clowns…

In association with Arcade Screenprinting, Dirty Kitsch, The Forge, The Velvet Garage, Little Flowers and Trolly’d, for the fifth year running, Tortuga Studios is proud to present some of Sydney’s most intriguing artists as they tend to their garden beneath the shadows of the night.

Follow the carnie’s bawl as it echoes along Mays Lane, a tirade of frolicking filth sullying the night garden that blooms at Tortuga Studios, its tendrils lighting the sultry dusk of Applebee and Hutchinson Streets from 6.30-9.30pm on Friday September 25th 2015.

https://www.facebook.com/events/547957842022469/

Image credit: Garth Knight ‘Ava’

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