Zoe Tweedale
Since completing her honours degree in painting at the National Art School Sydney in 2011, 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 group exhibition For the Love of Dog at Manning Regional Art Gallery in 2022. Zoe has been represented by Robin Gibson Gallery since 2012
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Artist statement for Zoe’s solo exhibition
Blackbirds
21 November – 16 December 2020
Blackbirds is an examination of the diversity and beauty of Australia’s birds and an elegy for the year that was, a shadow of grief in particular for the catastrophic bushfires which killed billions of animals and destroyed so much precious habitat
As part of my ongoing interrogation of subject and space, colour and mood, abstraction and figuration – which harkens to studio photography, still-life and the activated non-place of the theatrical stage – my blackbirds live in spaces where their natural context is in the process of being stripped away or changed to something unnatural and alien, relics of a vanishing world, an intimation of a future where the threats of climate change and habitat destruction are not taken seriously. But not all is bleakness, because these blackbirds cannot help but be wild, wondrous and beautiful: singing, enquiring and flocking together
Blackbirds was painted on Awabakal country
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
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