Di Mauro’s organic forms have been painstakingly created from thousands of woven strands of neoprene (wet suite material). The ultramarine and black neoprene shimmers like tentacles being moving by currents or light refracted off water. At times the works are enchanting whilst at other times they appear menacing like many sea creatures that have poison venom or spikes. However these artworks beg the viewer to touch and caress them. The material is soft and the uneven texture massages the hand as it moves across the surface..

Since 1987, Sebastian Di Mauro has held over 35 solo exhibitions and has been included in over 90 group exhibitions in Australia and abroad. His sculptures, installations, paintings and artists books are featured in the collections of many key institutions including the Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park Victoria, Museum of Brisbane and Artbank. He has been awarded numerous prizes and awards and has been a finalist in major sculpture prizes in Australia including the National Sculpture Prize (2001), The McClelland Survey and Award, Victoria (2003) and the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award (2003 & 2005). In 2002 he received a residency at the British School, Rome, through the Australia Council. .

Hell and High Water by Kate Shaw continues her fascination with the extremes of natural and material upheaval. These large paintings invite the viewer into a world in transformation: volcanic lava flows, shattering glaciers, and barren deserts. The works are a combination of alchemical paint reactions, intuitive associations and controlled compositions. Shaw expands the limits of painting, representations of landscape and the application of paint with her densely layered, marbleized paint pours encased in resin..

Shaw’s work can be read simultaneously as a mountain range reflected in a lake or as an abstract composition resembling a Rorschach blot. However, on closer inspection the illusion of landscape collapses and gives way to the primary recognition of the material: poured paint. After being encased in resin, the smooth and seamless surfaces of her work questions the validity of singular authorship embodied in the gestural brush mark or an abstract pour. This both glorifies and denies its immediate materiality. This makes explicit Painting’s history of duplicity and challenges the viewer to reflexively consider the loaded representational ideology that is latent in contemporary painting..