Artists

Belinda Conibeer is a Melbourne-based mosaic artist working from her studio in Gembrook in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. Through Beliana Mosaics she creates detailed glass, ceramic and mixed-media works inspired by nature, particularly birds, botanicals and the Australian landscape. Alongside her studio practice, Belinda creates private and community commissions and has extensive experience leading collaborative mosaic projects. She also teaches adult workshops in her home studio, sharing traditional mosaic techniques and encouraging others to explore creativity through tile, glass and found materials.

My name is Debra Ferry. I am an emerging artist based in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria.

Over the years my chosen medium has become acrylic on canvas and my love of nature has now become the subject of my art. Creating individual pieces inspired by bold colours, the beauty of nature and the vibrant energy of animals, has led to the development of my own individual style. 

My contemporary abstract style invites viewers to think, look and see beyond the surface, discovering hidden meanings and images within my paintings. Through my work, I hope to evoke a sense of wonder for the world around us, encouraging my audience to connect with themselves and appreciate our life here on earth. My paintings are a reflection of my passion and my journey in life.

Julie Skipsey is a hills based artist who specialises in vibrant, often nature-inspired works using acrylics, watercolours, and mixed media. 

Julie paints intuitively and is inspired by both her surrounds and the people in her life, she has been creating since childhood but only in the last few years has she taken her passion for art seriously by embarking on a learning journey to explore all forms of mark making.

See Julie’s Work at Gemco 19 Kilvington Drive every day from 11 – 18 April.

Kim Oakes is an artist who studied drawing at Victoria College in the 1980s and printmaking at RMIT in the 1990s.

She lives in Clematis and has been developing her printmaking practice at the Emerald Arts Society since 2000.

I’ve been exploring my paternal ancestry through a series of prints and drawings about Cornwall since my first visit in 1983. I felt an immediate connection to the landscape and inhabitants, which led to research and further visits in 2023 and 2025.

My prints and drawings are influenced by images and colours that speak of this special part of the world – the sea, land and people of my ancestral line.

My work is painted acrylic on canvas, my process is very simple, I listen to feeling and paint it. No plan, just presence. The work I do comes from the heart, an extension of my life experience. Brutally Beautiful, chaotic, confronting, divine – raw in all its beauty and movement.

I’ve loved painting for as long as I can remember, from 2018 I understood it to be my purpose.

Colour is my greatest medicine. The place where the internal is liberated, where what can’t be spoken finally gets to breathe. Brush in hand, my heart pours and I simply

Leticia’s work will be on display at Fernlea Community House throughout the festival.

My name is Minjarra Dye I am a 18 year old Aboriginal artist my mob is Wemba-Wemba. I’ve been painting since I was 14, developing my own style through dot painting 

I use symbols, colour, and patterns to represent journeys, spirit, and community. Art is a way for me to express myself 

Through my art, I aim to keep culture strong while sharing my journey as a young Aboriginal artist.

Minjarra’s art will be available for viewing and purchase at Emerald FunFest on Sunday 12th April, 10-3pm around Gemco car park and Primary School.

Retirement from a life in education provided me with the time to scratch the itch of painting. It had been building up for decades.

The Australian landscape is my constant source of beauty and inspiration. A recent trip to Arizona’s red soil country immediately felt at home and provided more vistas begging to be translated into paint. The light and the colour entrance me. When I look at trees I see so many variations of green. Clouds contain barely perceptible rainbows.

Although landscapes have been my focus, I also love the challenge of finding accuracy in the painting of the human figure.

My work has been exhibited in exhibitions in Australia and the USA.

Melbourne based artist Ray Besserdin is world acclaimed for his uniquely innovated artworks sculptured in paper.

His works hang in both private and corporate collections in Manhattan, Tokyo, London, Munich, Copenhagen, Monaco, New Zealand and throughout Australia.

He has been recognised with over 35 awards and prizes both internationally and nationally. He has been a gallery owner, artist in residence, adjudicator and taught his techniques both in Australia and overseas to professional artists.

Ray began his creativity at a very early age under the encouragement of his artist parents who were both active members of the distinguished Victorian Artist Society. In Ray’s own words, “As a child I looked at a blank piece of paper and saw a world of creative opportunity. Nothing has changed”.

He terms his signature style “Impressionist Sculptured Paper” which is much like painting using a palette of torn papers in bas-relief form, to capture an impression and feeling of life without needing realism, like the painting style of that namesake.

The one condition is that the nature of the medium, the paper, must always be evidenced: highlighted for the viewers to appreciate. Since innovating his technique over 37 years ago, Ray has pushed the possibilities with his beloved medium from miniature to gigantic works exceeding 6m x 4m like the Federation sculptures for NT Government; from ultra-realistic to freestyle abstract, from wall mounted to cable suspended and freestanding.

While nature is his favourite subject, he loves portraiture, technically demanding pieces and compositions that express things meaningful such as his gold award winning 2m x 3m triptych called Flowing Synthesis commissioned by Macquarie Bank, or the 3m x 4m Mother’s Heart for Water Gardens Shopping Centre on behalf of Queensland Investment Corporation.

Some recent achievements include commissions by Hartmann’s Jewellers, Copenhagen for Qantas Magazine; two works for the head offices of Spicers Paper /KPP in Australia and Tokyo; an exhibition at Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, by invitation of Mona Youseff Gallery, Canada; one gold, two silver and a bronze medal at the Professional Artist Concours of Mondial Art Academia, France; a double finalist selection in the Stanthorpe Art Prize and winning the People’s Choice Award in the National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.

ray@papersculptureartist.com for more information. www.papersculptureartist.com

Born in Germany in a refugee camp in 1947, John Krzywokulski came to Australia when he was 3 years old with his Russian mother Alexandra, Polish father Peter and brother Tadek, a family of displaced people. John’s life in Australia started at the Bonegilla migrant camp in Northern Victoria.

The family was fortunate enough to be taken in by the Irving sisters who ran the Mount Waverley Riding School, a premier establishment covering all aspects of horsemanship and eventually gaining an international reputation. Life with the Irving sisters enriched the family immensely. Surrounded by beautiful country, animals, art and sculpture, the Krzywokulski family was able to experience a lifestyle and culture presumed impossible for a refugee family at that time.

Throughout John’s school life his main interests were art and theatre. His high school art teacher Peter Ralph (Dandenong High School) was a profound influence, with art exhibitions and performing arts becoming regular extra curricular activities which introduced John to the real art world. Following high school, John studied at Caulfield Institue of Technology (now Monash).

During his second year in 1967, he was approached by Sweeney Reed who saw John’s work at a student exhibition. At this time Sweeney was directing the gallery Strines, one of the most progressive and avante garde galleries in Melbourne. Sweeney introduced John to the John and Sunday Reed circle at Heide. John K’s first ever sale was made to John Reed, John and Sunday’s passion for his work sustained a friendship and patronage that lasted until their deaths.

John Reed wrote about John K’s work, probably the longest article on a single artist ever written by John Reed. This article was published in Art In Australia with the added coup that John’s work was reproduced on the front cover. The Reed collection eventually held over two dozen pieces of John’s artwork. However, a large portion of the collection was dispersed prior to their deaths, leaving a core of only nine examples. With the deaths of Sweeney and John and Sunday Reed, an extraordinarily enriching personal, professional and historical era ended.

John K. has continued to pursue his personal visions in relative isolation from the general art world. Difficult to label and associate with any particular contemporary movement; he has remained a maverick. His homage to both the spatial concepts and the enigmatic concepts of Surrealism are clearly evident, but John has extended these into a very personal idiom.

Tracey Roberts is an established visual artist, graphic designer, singer-songwriter and jazz-folk musician based in Melbourne’s  Dandenong Ranges.  She uses her gift of music-colour synesthesia  to express colours, shapes and textures inspired by multiple aspects of music.

Her pencil hand-drawn illustrations are digitally embellished into rich, vibrant artworks which reflect how she synesthetically interprets music, in both figurative and abstract forms, and withinnatural landscapes. Her works invite the viewer to gain a glimpse into the mind of a music-colour synesthete – to “see what they hear” and to “hear what they see”.

She is an award-winning artist who has had several successful art  exhibitions and over 20 years experience producing a variety of illustrations and fine art commissions for corporate and private clients, authors of children’s books, musicians and educational institutions.  

All pieces are limited edition fine art prints, printed with archival pigment inks on archival canvas or cotton-based stock.   These prints are also available in different sizes and can be ordered via her website. Please contact  tracey@traceyroberts.com  for more information. www.traceyroberts.com

Tracey’s artwork will be on display at Emersleigh Estate Winery during the festival. She will also be performing at the Hive Wine Bar on Friday 17th April, 8pm.

Ulla Taylor has been painting Emerald footpaths at PAVED Festival for over 10 years.

Murals, pavement art, street painting, 3d illusions, chalk art workshops, scenic painting- Fine Art by Australian artist Ulla Taylor.
Ulla’s original street art has been enjoyed by thousands of people on city sidewalks, around the globe, for over 30 years…
Based in Melbourne, Australia, Ulla tours extensively as a live painting, performing artist.

Her 3D pavement art is as interactive as it is intriguing and stands for months as a reminder of the fun and colour of Emerald FunFest.

See Ulla’s past work at PAVED here