Lisa Kelly is a Vietnamese/Australian harpist (Lake Kelly) and artist (The Moon Gallery) based in Meanjin, Brisbane Australia. Lisa has a focus on creating reflective and immersive art projects that explore human relationships with nature, themselves and others. Through the exploration of alchemical art practices Lisa seeks to create emotionally resonant works that explore experiences of our internal worlds, using materials including graphite, gouache and gold leaf.
In her music practice, she spent a week at a harp maker’s workshop in 2021 building her 36-string lever harp; a challenging and meditative process that connected her to the heart of the harp’s voice; the material, wood, and foundation for the creation of its sound. Throughout her journey of discovering the harp, Kelly has treated the instrument as a playable sculpture piece, embellishing her harps with 22-carat gold leaf artwork featuring fish, stars, suns, and moons symbolising the instrument’s intrinsic connection to nature and storytelling. Lake Kelly uses vintage pedals to create live soundscapes and loops, alongside field recordings from travels to forests, lakes, or seasides. Her music takes inspiration from the feeling of dream-like ambiance found in memory and natural spaces. Drawn to the beauty of impermanence, Kelly seeks to express these themes through harp song embedded with feeling and reflection.
In her visual arts practice she has delivered murals for Brisbane Street Art Festival, Brisbane Canvas, Brisbane City Council, exhibited studio work throughout Australia and curated numerous charity art events. As a harpist shas played at The Calile, Goma, Brisbane Quarter in solo arrangements and has played at QPAC, The Powerhouse and multiple other showcases as the harpist in Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra. Kelly has also played as a session musician for local bands and featured in recordings and commercial work.
Sinclair Cole is a multidisciplinary Australian artist hailing from Meanjin/Brisbane, whose practice originates from within the traditional landscape of still-life and portraiture. Having trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the formative years of his practice, Cole cultivated his technique in oils, print and ink-based mediums, as well as the construction of the handmade canvases on which he often works.
His current direction strives to explore and subvert the boundaries of beauty in the otherwise stagnant or mundane, as well the internal emotional experience everyday and unglamorous objects can reflect. In recent works, Cole has broadened into the incorporation of more contemporary mediums such as wax, where emboldening sculptural elements and the ritual of creation can be extended and enjoyed.
Time at Cove Park will provide a unique opportunity to sit within a space of self, while amongst others as living subject to inform Cole’s work. From a recent study surrounding interior isolation, the change to open and immersive landscape will prove an invigorating shift, bound to encourage a fresh perspective with the hope of propelling an entirely new body of work.
Featured image provided by Lisa Kelly.
