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.

Travelling Through is an exhibition of new and recent works by Coffs Harbour artist Rowena Post and Port Macquarie artist Tony Williams, where both abstract and surrealist visions are bought onto the canvas.

Borne of a chance encounter on a train to Sydney, Travelling Through details a shared vision for the capture of light and moments, of storytelling through the raw beauty of the Australian bush, and glimpses of an inner world within us all. 

Travelling Through embodies dual concepts of travelling in time and physically travelling from place to place. This is what we are all doing in this world, in this life.

Now, more than ever, we have good reason to be acutely aware and appreciative of the beauty and vibrating pulse of the natural world. This exhibition is a distillation of Rowena and Tony’s impressions of that beauty and the effect it has on each of us.

Rowena Post and Tony Williams are both practicing artists, inspired by creatives such as Elizabeth Cummings, John Gleeson, Ross Laurie and Angus Nivison.

Rowena Post:

‘For me this exhibition is all about finding the light and bringing that into people’s lives. It is about rejoicing, relishing and valuing each precious moment. It is about giving. It is about being brave and making our way through the world along unexplored tracks where beauty and unexpected vistas are revealed if you are prepared to seek them out.

The world can be a dark place but to me there seems to always be a flipside.

And yet, underneath all of this, we know we must do this alone. We can describe, we can paint, but the experience of each viewer is a deeply unique and personal one and one that cannot be fully shared or known.’

Tony Williams:

‘I have had a love affair with the Aussie bush all my life since I was a kid growing up in the wild Colo region north-west of Sydney. I’m constantly filled with wonder and amazement at the rocks, trees, scrub, colours, mountains and gullies of the coastal fringe, the Dividing Range, and the vast interior. I call my style ‘abstract landscape’. My current work is a distillation of ideas, colours and images, gleaned over the years of living and travelling across Australia. Currently I am fascinated by the trees, especially the majestic eucalypts. The paintings are my response to this beautiful and fragile land.’

Artist websites:

https://tonywilliamsartist.com/

https://www.rowenapost.com/

https://www.facebook.com/share/1EPk1WaViw/

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

Exhibition runs from 19^th September-27^th 2025

Gallery Hours: Sat & Sun, 10am-3pm or view by appointment.

The post Travelling Through appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

This July, Tortuga Studios is host to THE CALL OF FIRE. This multidisciplinary show is the work of a collective of artists who are exploring the enduring spirit of fire. Rooted in reverence, this show weaves together the voices and ancestral wisdom from Latin America and Australia. As Elders sing to the flames, we are invited into a dreamlike space shaped by its warmth and light.

Tortuga Studios
Opening Night: Thursday 10^th July, 5.30-9pm | BYO
Friday 11th-Sunday 13th, by appointment

The post The Call of Fire appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

In For You, artist and illustrator Samuel James presents his community with reflections on canvas, a personal homage to an intimate group. The images in For You depict both the artist warehouses of Marrickville and the people who bring them to life. They celebrate the DIY moments that make up the beating heart of the Marrickville creative community, honouring these spaces and the people that enable a community and creativity to flourish.

As artist warehouses are increasingly lost to redevelopment and gentrification, For You pays tribute to these creative spaces, hidden gatherings, and the people that keep this culture alive. Visitors are invited to contribute their own recollections to a collaborative work which will be recorded and archived alongside the artworks.

Bio
Samuel James is a live caricaturist who has performed at corporate events and weddings for the last twelve years. But this is not who he is.
Samuel James’ personal artistic output is inspired by his community. His friends. His previous exhibition After the After Party paid homage to the Warespaces of Marrickville; this current exhibition For You pays homage to the people who animate these spaces.

Opening Night: Thursday May 22 2025
Exhibition run till closing night Friday 29 May 2025

The post For You – Art by Samuel James appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

It’s back! The greatest exhibition idea ever… challenge a group of incredible artists to come up with a completely different practice. Think writers making jewellery, videographers throwing clay, painters writing code – and beyond.

Featuring the work of:
E.A
Elano Baptiste
Kate Brown
Eliza de Collage
Lucy Sky Diamond
Sage Fury
Emma Louise Hayman
Elissa James
Be Jones
Owen Lewis
Nyssa Miller
H Morgan-Harris
Jess Pickford
Willa Pratt
Lois Waters

Opening night: Friday 15 November 6-10pm
Show runs Saturday 15-Saturday 23 November

The post NEW TRICKS appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Join artists Melita Rowston and Justine Wahlin as they infiltrate the fractured windows of nostalgia to explore the heartache, swampy regret, and fragile sweetness of our vanished pasts.

THE DISHONESTY OF NOSTALGIA will be exhibited between October 18 and 27 and open for viewing at three special events
(Viewing by appointment can also be arranged).

Friday Oct 18 – Opening night, 6 – 10pm
6.30pm: opening speech by Melissa Holmes – CEO of Stepping Out
Live performances from 7pm:
Singer/songwriter: Willie Wahlin
Singer/songwriter: Matt Thomson
Singer/songwriter: Hiske Weijers

Thursday Oct 24 – mid-show event: “The Shadows We Walk With” 6 – 8pm
Solo & duo musical and poetry performances amongst the art.
Singer/songwriter: Justine Wahlin
Singer/songwriter: Mickijoy (Micaela Ellis)
Duo: King Dickerson
MC/poetry: Melita Rowston
(BYO)

Sunday Oct 27 – Closing night, 4-7pm
A relaxed final viewing (BYO)

All events are FREE.

From the Greek ‘nóstos’ and ‘álgos,’ nostalgia combines notions of
‘homecoming’ and ‘pain’. Once described as a form of medical
melancholy, nostalgia is a haunting, a wistful memory for long-gone moments, places, people or possibilities. It’s an acute psychic state that, individually and in community, connects us to who we are.

Nostalgia can also be a trick of the mind, a too-rosy retrospection for a ‘glorious past’, a false security blanket that’s grasped when the future is perceived as intolerably bleak…

The post The Dishonesty of Nostalgia appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

So much greater than the sum of their parts, creative spaces are amorphous beings, patterned with bright clouds of talent that bloom within them and powered by a do-it-yourself energy that sees rooves plumbed and roller doors fixed in the middle of the night.  

11am-4pm, Saturday 2 November: Exhibition and market stalls | Midjuburi Creative Trails

11am-6pm, Sunday 3 November: Exhibition and market stalls | Midjuburi Creative Trails; entertainment | 2044 Street Takeover

The post It’s Complicated 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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Extensive market research conducted by top scientists indicate that this exhibition could be well worth looking at. But hurry. The end is coming. Everything MUST GO. Believe it or not, it’s true, indeed.

Christie and Keef have a long history of creative collaboration spanning almost two decades, exhibiting together on Monsters Ink at China Heights Gallery (2006) and MASK at Pine Street Gallery (2009).

Christie Torrington is a multidisciplinary artist living and working on Bidjigal land. Her collage works utilise fragments of paper material, salvaged from spaces of personal significance. In repurposing these discarded memories, she creates dystopian narratives exploring themes of delusion, nostalgia and decay, loaded with a sense of foreboding and apprehension. This is a place where advanced civilizations clash with desolation, highlighting the fragility and futility of utopian dreams. Within these post-apocalyptic dreamscapes, a poignant intersection emerges, delicately navigating the balance between a cherished past and an impossible future.
@christietorrington_art
https://www.instagram.com/christietorrington_art/
@the_direction_of_tears
https://www.instagram.com/the_direction_of_tears/

Keef McTwist is an artist who lives and works on Gadigal land. With a background in painting, he has recently turned to hand-cut paper collage. The change has been a vastly different and rewarding process. The hunt for images, before combining, composing and culling, can often result in pieces evolving in real time to form something quite different from the original idea. The works explore a range of themes, including sci-fi, retro-futures and everyone’s favourite, ‘cosmic-surf-goth’. Geometric shapes, colours and textures combine to create snapshots from alternate universes. Viewers are invited to create their own interpretations of the stories contained within.
@keefmctwist
https://www.instagram.com/keefmctwist/

We invite you to join the artists for opening night drinks on Friday 15 March, from 6-10pm. The exhibition runs until Saturday 23 March 2024.

Gallery Hours: Fri: 1pm-6pm, Sat & Sun: 11am-6pm, Mon-Thurs: by appointment only, ph: 0405308151

We acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the Gadigal land on which Tortuga is built and operates.

WHERE: Tortuga Studios
WHEN: Friday March 15^th 2024
AT: 6pm-10pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/1623053731596158/

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