Zoe Tweedale
In Newcastle where the Hunter River meets the ocean, coal terminals and bulk carrier ships dominate the entire northern half of the harbour. An industrial landscape that feeds the world’s insatiable demand for coal. But in this same channel you will see cormorants and darters fishing alongside the towering ships, and then later drying their wings the next lamp-post over from the osprey’s perch at the Cowrie Hole. Pelicans and gulls cluster on the sand, herons stalk the rockpools, and to the north within view of the hulking coal loaders; migratory shorebirds return in summer from their breeding season in the arctic tundra. Precious habitats cling on, precarious but full of avian life.
Tideland is about these tenacious birds of the rock pools, shorelines, estuaries and salt marshes; the transitional environments between the land and the ocean. All can be found within the surrounds of Newcastle where they hunt for fish or pick the tidal sands for worms. Some familiar and others furtive, together they are fascinating in their shared diversity, which in turn is but a small slice of the whole. Collectively they trace a shadow of a place: a landscape either absent or shown as strange and fragmentary: somewhere at once maritime and alien.
Though this perspective of the fractured landscape’s avian inhabitants, Tideland meditates on ecology and place in world that is in flux.
(Artist statement from 2024 solo exhibiton Tideland held at Robin Gibson Gallery)
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Newcastle based artist Zoe Tweedale has been shortlisted for the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship, acquired by both the Macquarie Group and Artbank collections, and was inlcuded in the exhibition For the Love of Dog at Manning Regional Art Gallery in 2022.
Zoe has been represented by Robin Gibson Gallery since 2012
Zoe Tweedale
born 1988 Newcastle. Lives & works in Newcastle
Education
2011 Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) National Art School, Sydney
2010 Bachelor of Fine Art, University of Newcastle, NSW
2009 Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts, Newcastle Art School (TAFE) Hunter Institute Newcastle, NSW
Solo Exhibitions
2024 Tideland Robin Gibson Gallery
2022 Paradise Robin Gibson Gallery
2020 Blackbirds Robin Gibson Gallery
2018 Wild Suburbia Robin Gibson Gallery
2017 Animalia Robin Gibson Gallery
2015 The Birds Robin Gibson Gallery
2013 Bestiary Robin Gibson Gallery
Group Exhibitions
since 2012 numerous groups shows Robin Gibson Gallery
2022 For the Love of dog Manning Regional Art Gallery
2016 Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship Finalist Exhibition, Brett Whiteley Studio, AGNSW
2012 New Talent | Recent Graduates Robin Gibson Gallery
2011 Postgraduate Show Honours graduate exhibition, National Art School Gallery , Sydney
Prizes
2016 Finalist Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship, Brett Whiteley Studio, AGNSW
2011 Maries Art Award
2011 Robin Gibson Gallery Award
2011 William Fletcher foundation Grant
2010 Hunter TAFE Industry Award (Arts and Media)
2009 Newcastle Emerging Artist Prize overall winner
2009 Ford award in recognition of outstanding aptitude
2008 Carol Duval memorial award for painting
Bibliography
2015 “The Birds”, Visual Art, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 8 August
2015 Ace Bourke’s Blog, July 31
2015 Daily Imprint, 17 August
2013 Open Gallery, Visual Art, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald 28-29 September
Collections
Artbank, Sydney
Macquarie Group, Sydney