Close to Home – Place and Practice

Craig Ashton | Chloe-Jane Bonney | Elizabeth Braid | Katelyn Geard | Zoe Grey | Loralee Jade | Jan Larcombe | Emma Magnusson-Reid | Isaac Muir | Hope Smith | Molly Turner

Saturday 25 October – Sunday 7 February 2026

Curated by Dr Troy Ruffels

Every artistic practice begins somewhere. Often, it begins close to home. Not simply within the walls of a house, but in the landscapes we return to, the communities that shape us, the histories and knowledge we inherit, and the everyday moments that quietly command our attention. Long before artists establish careers or gain recognition, they develop ways of seeing. They observe, question, revisit, collect, experiment and begin again. Practice takes shape through sustained curiosity and commitment, through encounters with people and place, and through the accumulated experience of making.

Close to Home brings together artists with strong connections to the North West and West Coasts of Tasmania. Their varied practices reveal some of the many pathways through which artists enter and contribute to cultural life. These pathways are rarely direct. They emerge through education, mentorship, community, experimentation, persistence, and an ongoing dialogue with the places and experiences that shape us. Each artist follows a distinct course, yet together they reveal something of the rich and interconnected creative ecology of this region.

Close to Home also considers what it means for an artistic practice to emerge from a particular place. North West Tasmania has long sustained creative communities shaped by distinctive landscapes, histories, industries, relationships and forms of knowledge. The perspectives that emerge here are both particular and outward looking, grounded in lived experience while participating in wider cultural conversations.

To be close to home, then, is not necessarily to remain there. It is to recognise the places, relationships and experiences from which a practice begins, and from which it continues to grow.