News & Stories

Tasmanian artists bound for heart of Paris

Study | Research | Newsroom

Six Tasmanian artists will jet off to Paris in 2023 where they will immerse themselves in the creative arts after being selected for a unique opportunity, offered by the University of Tasmania - Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency.

Emerging artist and puppet designer Fran Bow and visual artist, writer and creator Julie Gough have received scholarships to attend the Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency in the Cité Internationale des Arts complex in the heart of Paris.

The University of Tasmania’s artists’ studio is a townhouse at the beautiful eighteenth century Cité Internationale des Arts, which is a block from the river and a short walk to the Louvre, is one of 300 art studios owned by universities and art organisations from around the world.

Rosamond McCulloch residency launch
The 2023 Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency recipients Fran Bow (front), Tony Flowers, 2022 recipient Michaye Boulter, Maggie Jeffries and Yvette Watt. Absent Julie Gough and Victor Medrano.

Fran, who is an Honours student in the University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts, has been granted the Rosamond McCulloch Funded Residency and Mary Maxwell Travel Scholarship in Creative Arts and Media to extend her creative techniques within the medium of puppetry.

Julie is the recipient of the Rosamond McCulloch Residency and Wayne Brookes Visual Art Travel Prize and will research, plan and develop a Tasmanian garden which can serve as a creative arts cross cultural history project with the Jardin de Plantes, Paris.

As well as the two scholarships, the committee also awarded four self-funded residencies to take place in 2023. These went to painter Yvette Watt, curator Victor Medrano, illustrator Tony Flowers and emerging oil painter Maggie Jeffries.

Executive Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Arts, Law and Education Professor Kate Darian-Smith said the University was honoured to be able to facilitate such a unique residency opportunity for emerging and highly regarded artists with the assistance of donors and benefactors.

“Since 1991, the Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency has given more than 100 Tasmanian visual artists, musicians, performers and writers the chance to live and work at the Studio, in the heart of Paris,” Professor Darian-Smith said.

2023 Rosamond McCulloch Funded Residency and Mary Maxwell Travel Scholarship:  Fran Bow

Fran Bow puppet head
Fran Bow, derien, puppet head, 2022
Felted Marino fibers, wooden beads, acrylic paint, L15cm W13cm D10cm

Fran Bow is a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours student in the medium of puppetry.

She hopes to develop her puppetry design to include animating characters, developing an understanding of limb mechanics and control at puppet-making workshops.

Fran plans on taking part in the Marionnettes du Champ de Mars (The World Festival of Puppet Theatres) which is regarded as the largest gathering of international artists, creators, professional and amateur puppeteers.

The residency will culminate in the development of animated characters for a performance piece.

Before her residency, Fran will open her graduating exhibition at the Plimsoll Gallery at the Hunter Street Centre for the Arts in Hobart. The exhibition opens on Friday, November 4.

2023 Rosamond McCulloch Residency and Wayne Brookes Visual Arts Prize:  Julie Gough

Julie Gough is a Nipaluna/Hobart-based visual artist, writer, curator who uses mediums that interrogate the colonial past and the ongoing impact and intersections, implications and potentials of that legacy, particularly for First Peoples and colonists’ descendants.

Julie Gough art

A PhD graduate from the University of Tasmania School of Art, she is the curator of First People’s Art and Culture at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) in Hobart and is currently developing the arts and cultural project Taypani Milaythina-tu – Return to Country, which opens at four galleries at TMAG through to February 2023.

During her time in Paris, Julie is proposing a Lutruwita garden for the Jardin de Plantes, Paris, that nurtures key Tasmanian weaving plants to enable Tasmanian Aboriginal visitors to France to weave baskets. These plants include White flag iris, Tasman flax lily, Blue flax lily, Pale rush, Tall rush, Three-square bullrush and Currajong.

She also plans to visit Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural objects held in institutions in Europe including at Leipzig, Vienna, Manchester, London and Dublin.

2023 Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency:

Yvette Watt art
Yvette Watt. Duck Lake Project, 2016. Socially engaged project at Moulting Lagoon at the opening of duck shooting season.​ Image: Michelle Powell

Yvette Watt

Yvette is an artist and an animal rights activist who obtained her PhD in Fine Art from the University of Tasmania in 2009. She will engage in the production of a creative response to the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (The Museum of Hunting and Nature).

Crossroads, 2017 installation view of exhibition.

Victor Medrano

Victor Medrano is an emerging independent curator who has a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from the University of Tasmania. He will explore experiences, practices and challenges faced by local curators and artists of culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds in the Paris art scene.

Tony Flowers
This Old Thing: faded photo, 2021, watercolour, ink and pencil​. Published: 2022, Scholastic Australia​

Tony Flowers

Tony is a Tasmanian illustrator of more than 60 published books. He obtained a Master of Visual Communication, Illustration, from the University of Tasmania in 2009 and is a current Teaching Fellow. During his residency, Tony plans to further develop a new book concept for ‘Oliver’, the first in a series set in Paris and the Louvre.

Maggie Jeffries artwork
Vanessa 2020, Oil on linen, 152 x 120 cm.

Maggie Jeffries

Emerging artist Maggie Jeffries has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Psychology and Painting from the University of Tasmania. She is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours at the University. In Paris she will create a series of botanical oil paintings to pay homage to Claude Monet and the garden that inspired some of his most inspirational paintings.