WINTER EXHIBITION1 June – 31 July 2014

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Rob Billington

Born in England in 1954, Robert Billington moved to Australia from the U.K. at the age of 18 with a Nikon F2 Camera as a method of recording his new life. Inspired by Mirella Ricciardos’ book Vanishing Africa, Robert set about becoming a professional photographer.

Working for the Elton Ward Photographic Studio (1980), Robert studied portraiture and the art of wedding photography. In 1994, Robert won Australian Photographer of the Year by the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers (AIPP). He then continued on to win over 100 medals in both Australia and England, winning the prestigious Hasselblad Masters Award twice (1988, 1992).

Whilst working professionally Robert continued to photograph personal fine art photographs, steering towards Black & White quirky street shots and the Australian landscape. Now some 25 years later the results of his photographic journals and art are now viewed on this website.

With his young family in tow, Robert moved to Arcadia, North of Sydney in 1988. Robert started shooting images for his first book, Rustic Paradise. These shots captured a unique part of Australia.

Arcadia was then a community largely untouched by the hustle and bustle of city life, and the images Robert created were humorous, emotional, quirky, and very Australian. Max Dupain hailed the book "a classic". His list of publications has now grown to include nine books, some of those titles being Balmoral, every man and his dog, The Bridge, This is Australia, Australianimal, Billington’s Sydney and his most recent Bondi – The sound of tumbling waves.

The images were quickly collected by the Australian National Gallery, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery and the Museum of Sydney. In 2000 and 2001, the Museum of Sydney recognized his unique photographs with two exhibitions. Robert’s work has also been widely published and exhibited in New York, London, throughout Europe and included in the worldwide M.I.L.K exhibition.

Recently Robert exhibited with Tourism Australia in Hong Kong and South East Asia, Sydney Life Exhibition, Hyde Park with his image, The Last Tanners of Sydney and was the feature artist and representative for Sydney in a French television weekly show called Thalassa.

WINTER EXHIBITION1 June – 31 July 2014

Please see Front Counter staff for purchases

James King

Born (1972) in Sydney, Australia James lives with his wife and daughter in Mittagong, NSW. James has been a practicing artist exhibiting paintings for the last fifteen years and working part time in the Photography Department of the Australian Museum.

Photographs that James has taken over the years from countless family holidays and road trips with another artist have so often found their way into many of his paintings. The freedom of picking up a camera and wandering aimlessly looking for that perfect image is one of the greatest joys in his life.

I am constantly drawn towards cloud filled skies, visionary if often quirky architectural statements and humans doing the strangest of things.

Antonio Ramos

Antonio has settled in the Southern Highlands about 7 years ago. Since then he has found in the surrounding natural environment an inspiring force. This inspiration has made him engaged more seriously with his camera. Through the lens Antonio finds a world that cannot be seen the same way at naked eye.Antonio admits that he cannot paint or draw but it is by photographing colours and textures that he finds the way to express his admiration for the beauty of natural life. His most liked challenge is to capture images as they are, that is without modifying the images with software. However, he is now ready to embrace this possibility and has started to explore it.Antonio has done studies in Biological Sciences and Environmental Science, hence the bias to work with nature. For the past 9 years he has been working in the organic food industry, trading and engaged projects with farming communities in South America.A keen gardener and lover of nature he is now ready to share is photographic works.

William Wolfenden

Although born in Sydney Wolfenden was lucky enough to spend much of his life from early childhood in the NSW Southern Tablelands. Growing up with an awareness of the environmental beauty around him, Wolfenden is still drawn to landscape and wildlife photography with an emphasis on natural light and form.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Wolfenden’s passion for photography can be traced back to extraterrestrial intervention. Inspired by just having seen the 1977 Sci-Fi blockbuster Star Wars, Wolfenden busied himself taking shots of his own Star Wars models with an old Pentax 35mm - then developing them in a makeshift darkroom in his parents’ east Sydney home.

WINTER EXHIBITION1 June – 31 July 2014

Please see Front Counter staff for purchases

Wolfenden started SCUBA diving in 1993 and later became a PADI SCUBA Instructor. Frustrated with his verbal attempts to describe these new found underwater wonders across the oceans, Wolfenden bought his first video camera, a Sony TRV 900, along with an underwater housing and lighting system. Thus begun his new narrative via the digital video medium.

Fast-forward to the present, and Wolfenden is now a Director of Seawolf Productions, an independent video, multimedia and photography company servicing clients from the private sector to national documentary production. Although based in the Southern Highlands his work, thankfully, takes him all places with new images, people and stories.

Wolfenden have always had a fascination with photography and creating images that grab the viewer’s attention and imagination. His photographic work today reflects that love of nature, its landscapes and atmospheric changes.

Michael Yabsley – Wombat Hollow Lamps

Wombat Hollow Lamps are unique creations made from carefully selected industrial and historic artefacts, bespoke shades, and sympathetically adapted electrical fittings.

Each lamp is creatively designed by Michael Yabsley to give new life to items as eclectic as shoe lasts, oil cans, surveyors’ tri pods and blow torches – things that Michael describes as 'orphan artefacts'.

The term is inspired by the vintage pieces that have previously been neglected but are now given a new life as lamps, emphasising the integrity of the design of the ‘orphan artefacts’ and the quality of the materials from which they are made.

Wombat Hollow Lamps represent recycling or 'adaptive re-use' in practice!

Each artefact has been cleaned and repaired but remains essentially in original condition. The blemishes are left to tell the story of time.Shades are designed and made to complement each base with natural materials ranging from pleated silk and pig skin through to porcupine quills and Spanish hessian. Special attention is paid to the proportion between the base and shade and the contrast between old and contemporary materials.

Each lamp is masterfully wired with traditional cotton covered leads and authentic certified electrical fittings.

The result is a lamp that respects the integrity and quirkiness of beautiful old artefacts enhanced by stunning, sometimes avant-garde shades. Wombat Hollow Lamps are the antithesis of the modern production line. They come from a cottage industry workshop where each component is a 'one off' in every sense of the term.