Staff

Director:  Phip Murray is a Melbourne-based artist and writer. Her previous employment includes lecturing in contemporary art history and theory, and working for the Next Wave Festival for which she helped create the artist-run initiative exhibition Containers Village (2006) as well as the interdisciplinary Nightclub projects (2008). Phip has completed a Masters degree through RMIT’s Media Arts department and also studied Arts/Law at the University of Melbourne. She is a Board member of the independent contemporary art journal un Magazine. Phip writes often about art, with recent projects including texts to accompany exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, a series of articles for Photofile, and editing the current issue of un Magazine. Recent art projects include a video work exploring B-grade horror motifs for Sleeper, a public art video project installed at disused train stations in the city of greater Dandenong, curated by Ian Haig.

Program Coordinator: Kelly Fliedner graduated with Honors in Art History from the University of Melbourne in 2008. The focus of her research has been the introduction of postmodern theory into Australian (in particular Melbourne) art, focusing on journals such as Art & Text, Tension, Vox, On the Beach and Lip. Currently Kelly is completing a Masters in Research, also at the University of Melbourne, considering the interdisciplinary practices of artists from the Melbourne Clifton Hill group during the 80s. Kelly is the Program Coordinator of a regionally-based live art organisation called Punctum and is also Magazine Coordinator for un Magazine, Melbourne’s leading independent, contemporary visual arts magazine. She has been a Program Committee member of West Space since 2007 and writes regularly for contemporary art journals based all over Australia.  

Program Coordinator - The West Wing: Melody Ellis is a writer, curator and academic based in Melbourne. She graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 2001 and is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Media and Communications at RMIT University.  Melody was a founding director of Gallery WREN and has exhibited extensively in Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne. In 2007 she worked as Project Manager of the 1st Athens Biennial Destroy Athens. She is Administrator of un Projects, and was recently appointed as Coordinator of The West Wing at West Space.

Special projects intern: Cherie Schweitzer has a background in architecture and is currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Art History at the University of Melbourne. She started with West Space as a volunteer in 2009 but will intern 2-days per week to enable her to get broad art-based experience. Cherie will assist the Director and the Program Coordinators in the general operations of West Space and will undertake the role of A4 Art Coordinator.

Board

Dominic Redfern (Chair) is a video artist based in Melbourne where he is a senior lecturer in video art at RMIT University. Coming up in 2010 his work will be seen in the Perth International Arts Festival, a solo show in regional Victoria, as well as group shows and screenings in Sydney, Melbourne and abroad. In 2009 he has a major solo exhibition at PICA as well, a public art project in Melbourne, a multi-disciplinary collaborative work in regional Victoria and work in a touring exhibition that was seen at venues including the Tate Modern. Working primarily at the intersection of site and identity he has exhibited widely at home and abroad including venues in the UK, US, Germany, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Finland. The Australia Council, Arts Victoria, and Asialink have funded Dominic for the creation of work as well as for residencies in Asia, America and Europe. He is actively involved in his community undertaking committee work for West Space Artist-Run organisation as well as on selection panels for Gertrude Contemporary Art Space, Arts Victoria, and Next Wave.

Patrick Pound (Deputy Chair) is a Melbourne based artist. His work is held in the collections of the NGV, the National Gallery in Canberra, Auckland Art Gallery, the Museum of New Zealand, the Christchurch City Art Gallery and many other corporate and private collections. He has held over 50 solo exhibitions and been in numerous curated shows in New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Italy, Malaysia and so on. He is represented by GRANTPIRRIE gallery in Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington, NZ, and Anna Bibby Gallery in Auckland NZ. In 2002 he was featured in the Cambridge edition of The International Who's Who of Intellectuals. In 1995 he featured in the American Biographical Institute's book of Five Hundred Leaders of Influence (Third Edition). He is presently undertaking a doctorate in Art History at Melbourne University, for fun.

Evan Lowenstein (Treasurer) is Director of Lowensteins Arts Management a company that for many years has specialised in offering accounting and economic advice for artists, arts businesses and organisations. 

Terri Bird is an artist and lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts at Monash University. Her practice investigates materiality, as a way of re-thinking of the relations of matter outside the customary binaries of form, meaning and content, to reconfigure the production of sites and situations differently. Her works have been included in the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, 1994, Signs of Life, 1999, and Skinned, 2004. Since 2003 Terri has worked collaboratively with Bianca Hester and Scott Mitchell as OSW, winners of the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture in 2005. In 2009 OSW instigated the west Brunswick Sculpture Triennial, a multifaceted event exploring the interrelated potential that connects the generation and presentation of art practices. An interest in experimenting with the conditions of art’s production and presentation motivates her involvement in artist-initiated activities such as CLUBSproject, of which she was a founding member in 2002.  In 2007 Terri completed a PhD through the Center for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at Monash University on art’s relation to materiality. She has published catalogue essays on the works of Ardi Gunawan and Bianca Hester, and has an essay forthcoming in Angelaki on the work of Fiona Abicare.  

Stuart Geddes runs communication design studio Chase & Galley, and teaches at Monash and RMIT Universities. Previously Stuart was art director of Monument magazine, co-founded design practice Studio Anybody, and co-founded/co-designed Is Not Magazine, which won the Premier's Design Award for Communication Design in 2006, and was nominated for the Design Museum's Designs of the year award in 2009. He was also a councillor for AGDA Victoria for two years, and in 2008 was an international judge on the London D&AD awards in the Newspaper and Magazine design jury. www.chaseandgalley.com

Bill Gilles is a barrister in private practice. 

Brad Haylock is an artist, designer and writer who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. He is a Lecturer in Visual Communication at Monash University. He holds an Honours Degree in Visual Communication from Monash University and a PhD from RMIT University. He is a member of the Program Committee and the Board of West Space, and the Editorial Committee of un magazine.

Program committee

Brad Haylock (convenor) - as above.

Jeremy Bakker is a Melbourne-based visual artist who works across drawing, sculpture and installation methodologies with the aim of establishing a poetic connection between small, material gestures and the impersonal processes that shape the world at large. Bakker’s recent exhibitions include Resonate, West Space (2009) and Alone Together, RMIT School of Art Gallery (2009). Bakker completed a Master of Art from RMIT University in 2009 and was a recipient of the Siemens/RMIT Art Award in 2008 and Jenny Birt Award in 2006.  

Ross Coulter completed his Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts with honours in 2007. He has exhibited numerous times in a variety of public spaces including the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Tweed River Regional Art Gallery, Federation Square Melbourne, Te Tuhi, (New Zealand) as well as other local artist-run initiatives. He has recently been engaged by Lucy Guerin Inc as a contemporary dancer in her production of Untrained which toured to the Adelaide Festival and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. In 2007 his short film, When Your Feet Don’t Touch The Ground, premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Ross has received several awards and grants, including the City of Melbourne Arts Project grant 2009, the Janet Holmes a Court Artist NAVA Grant 2009, the 2007 Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship, the Alliance Française Award (2007), the National Gallery of Victoria Trustees Award in 2006, the Stella Dilger Encouragement Award in 2005.

Kelly Fliedner - as above.

Veronica Kent is a Melbourne-based artist who is best known for her ongoing collaborative work The Telepathy Project. Telepathy serves as an extended metaphor and a working methodology through which she and her partner in telepathy, Sean Peoples, explore other possible ways of being, communicating, imagining and collaborating. Her private practice continues these concerns in a more discreet format that focuses on a type of imaginary way of knowing that she has coined ParaNoir Knowledge. Her work has been exhibited and performed throughout Australia and in the USA, Greece and France in university galleries, artist-run initiatives, festivals and public galleries as performances, drawings, photographs, collages, telepathically curated exhibitions, videos and group happenings. She has been the recipient of grants, scholarships and residencies from The Australia Council For the Arts, Arts Victoria, City of Melbourne, the Bundanon Trust and The University Graduate Award.

Alasdair McLuckie graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in 2007. Solo Exhibition include: The Highest Mountain Peaks, Right before Dawn, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, 2009; Laelia and the Seasons, West Space Gallery, Melbourne, 2008; and The Hill Dwellers, TCB art inc., Melbourne, 2008. Group Exhibitions include: Preview 10, Murray White Room, Melbourne, 2010; Leper / Messiah, Neon Parc, Melbourne, 2009; Melbourne Connection, Museum of Leon, Mexico, 2009; The Devolution Project, West Space Gallery, Melbourne and The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, 2008; Rookie, Deloitte, Sydney, 2008; and Brothers and Sisters of the Pale Forest, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2008. McLuckie has received two grants from the Melbourne City Council, a Young Artist Grant in 2008 and an Arts Project Grant in 2010.

Sanné Mestrom's  recent exhibitions include The Nothing, West Space (Melbourne, 2010); Things Fall Down. Sometimes We Look Up (Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney, 2009), Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, curated by Olivia Polini (Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, 2009); An ideal for living, curated by Simon Gregg (Linden Gallery, Melbourne, 2008); A history of space is the history of wars (Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington, 2007); ‘I'm travellin’ light’...‘No, no, you don’t travel light’, (Tindersticks self-titled album 95), curated by Deborah Ostrow (Spacement Gallery, Melbourne, 2005); A man’s name (TCB Inc. Melbourne, 2005); At the Foot of Justice (Conical Inc., Melbourne, 2005). Mestrom exhibits with Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney, and is currently a Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces studio resident.

Phip Murray - as above.

Lillian O'Neil is a Melbourne-based artist and one third of art group Safari Team who formed whilst studying their BA in Fine Art at Monash University in 2007. Working collaboratively across a broad range of mediums selected exhibitions/performances include, Evolution, 2010 Next Wave Festival; Safari Team Dig to China Part I, Group Group Show, 2008 Margaret Laurence Gallery, Melbourne, Safari Team Dig to China Part II at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne and the Safari Team Dig to China Part III at West Space, Melbourne; Molto Morte, TCB art inc, WLTWSAETLV, Montreal, Canada and First Draft, Sydney. This year Lillian will be in residence at the First Draft Studios in Sydney.

Dominic Redfern - as above.

Utako Shindo was born in Tokyo in 1980. She completed her Master of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008 and has been exhibiting and participating in residency programs in both Japan and Australia. She creates site-specific installations with images, sound or text to express bodily sensations that oscillate between memory, anticipation, time and place. Her latest curatorial project Immanent Landscape features eight rising artists from Japan and Australia, and will be exhibited at West Space this August and in Tokyo next year.

Tai Snaith has a multifaceted practice working as an independent artist, curator, producer and writer. Honesty, absurdity and animism heavily influence her artwork and ideas alongside a recurring focus on collaboration and experimentation. Using collage and drawing Snaith often explores the inner thoughts, spiritual beliefs and apocalyptic visions of the greater animal kingdom. Graduating with Honours from the VCA in 2002, Tai has recently exhibited her site-specific illustration, sculpture and collage at a range of various commercial and artist run spaces including West Space, Kings, TCB, Bus, Brunswick Bound Gallery, Helen Gory Gallerie, Greenwood Gallery, No Vacancy Gallery, Hosier Lane and VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Tai has also worked as a Visual Arts Producer for the Next Wave Festival (06-08), Emerging Writers Festival (07) and the Melbourne Fringe (05). Tai has also worked as a curator for project spaces at the Rotterdam Project (OR) Art Fair (08) and the Melbourne Art Fair (08). Tai was recently awarded the Australian Council Tokyo residency and in the past her collaborative projects have been the recipient of the Australia Council Skills and development grant (05), City of Melbourne Arts project grant (06) and Arts Victoria Presentation grants (06,09). Tai regularly conducts a critical arts review on 102.7 Triple R FM and writes for a variety of publications including Artichoke and un Magazine. Tai is also one half of performance collaboration Hit&Miss (www.hitandmiss.me)

Kieran Stewart is a Melbourne-based visual artist who works across the mediums of video, image making and sculptural installation. His practice revolves around the themes of labour, systems of commercial promotion and gross capital production. Over the past six years he has shown nationally in both artist-run initiatives and public institutions.

Kellie Wells is a Melbourne-based artist working with video performance, drawing and painting. In her videos she positions herself as the subject in careful constructions that explore a multitude of ideas around the creation of self. Her practice analyses the motivations and potential transformation of the ‘latent’ to ‘manifest’ self, set against the backdrop of a contemporary civilization where human gesture is divorced from a natural or innate response. Wells endeavours to reconcile such anomalies via an engagement with the intellectual, spiritual and physical rigour of the rituals and practices of our individual and collective past: revising and adapting these symbols and teachings to keep with our continuing ‘evolution’.

Other committees

After Hours Committee:
Philip Samartzis (convenor), Eamon Sprod, Camilla Hannan, Marco Cher-GIbard, Que Nguyen, Phip Murray.

Relocation Committee:
Patrick Pound (convenor), Suzie Attiwill, Geoffrey Emmett (external consultant, Partner at Deacons), Brad Haylock, Phip Murray, John Wardle (external consultant, Principle at John Wardle Architects).

Staffing Committee:
Brad Haylock, Stuart Geddes, Patrick Pound.

Volunteers

Marika Nilsen and Melissa Osborn.

A list of past Committee & Board of Management members.