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.

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.

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

The post dis\ruption appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Unsettling, eclectic and writhing with supernatural suggestion, SIDESHOW hoves into town from the margin, dragging misconception, disbelief and congenital wariness in the dirt it trails. Featuring the work of over 30 industrial artists cast in metal and fire, performers trailing light and sound, painted faces, brocade collars and the feisty stomp of animals’ hooves, it’s a menagerie of the beautiful and bizarre.

WHERE: Sydenham Green Skatepark
WHEN: Saturday August 19th 2023
AT: 5:30pm-8:30pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/1465969047570829

The post SIDESHOW appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

Remembrance can be the act of showing respect for the dead: rosemary sprigs for the ANZACs; Day-of-the-Dead ceremonies to honour the spirits, a riot of candy-coloured skulls atop candle-strewn altars, and mesmeric death masks adorned with flowers and insects; warnings that Indigenous images, voices and names might be present.

But it is the simple act of remembering, too, as richly patterned as it is leveraged, causing jolts of recognition, or that warm glow of a happy childhood memory. It can be a flash of understanding between strangers, or hazy flecks of last-night’s fun, a shiver of déjà vu, or Pavlov’s-dog salivation in anticipation of the sharp tang of taste.

The smell of oil paint and cedar redolent of the warm wood of a grandmother’s studio, rich in endeavour and love; an old hurt bubbling to the surface like acid; the pride we feel in the face of valour – be it shadowed nostalgia or visceral recollection, remembrance is defined by its perspective and contextualised by experience.

It is unique.

In a show designed to evoke powerful emotion, over 20 artists exhibit what remembrance means to them. It will feature the work of Will Coles, Dillon MacEwan, Jasmine Poole, Andrea Davies, Christie Torrington, Pierre Cavalan, Terry Archer, Onur Ka, Azelia Maynard, Robert Maxwell, Chris Lego, Paul Irving, BUNKWAA, Gemma Lark, Andrew Jones, Nikki McLennan, Lu Campbell-Smith, Sasha Wild, Alli Sebastian Wolf, Victoria Waghorn, H Morgan-Harris and more to be announced.

Opening Night: 6pm 25th November 2022

[image credit: Seven Sisters Songline 1994, Josephine Mick, Ninuku Arts]

The post REMEMBRANCE: a TORTUGA STUDIOS GROUP SHOW appeared first on Tortuga Studios.

A haunted playground with fractured light, warped sound and a distinctly maniacal bent, this glitching kiddie corral is as far from soft fall, plastic swings and the bubblegum scent of fun as you can get. An eerie playfulness hangs suspended in the air, a pall of excitement smeared across dark shadows. You almost feel as if you could climb aboard and go for a whirl, but only the most foolish dare…

GLITCH channels a vaguely occult vibe, as if Satan had lost his income and spent the last twelve months clinging to the wreckage of his industry, too., and is a painfully playful commentary on the impact of COVID, gentrification and the loss of industrial space in the inner city.

Presented by Tortuga Studios in association with EDGE Sydenham, GLITCH is a multidisciplinary outdoor event that features the works of some of Sydney’s leading industrial artists, including Alien Proof Construction, Dillon MacEwan, Paul Francis, Jasmine Poole, Rod Nash, Rudy Grakk, Finton Mahoney, Justin Harvey, Brendan Pierce, H Morgan-Harris, Rhiannon Hopley, Lu Campbell Smith, Circusworks and more to be announced.

[This is a family-friendly show and scary only in terms of the prospects of the creative arts sector. Kids are encouraged to come and meet the sad clown.]

Roll up. We dare you… 

on:

Saturday August 20^th 4-8.30pm

Sydenham Green

Roll on up…..

The post GLITCH: a playground of the apocalypse 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.