Louise Paramor says, “I just love colour and playing around with it, it makes me feel good. I get a kick out of harmonising colour in conjunction with form. I think if there was more finely tuned colour in the world it would be a better place. There exists a lot of untamed colour in the everyday and to me this is often creates a feeling that is the opposite of uplifting.” In this work, Paramor creates a utopian building from collaged pieces of paper, which have been painted in planes of coloured enamel. Often these collages become sculptures, for which Paramor is mainly known. Andy Gomez writes of Boomtown, “Louise Paramor invites us into her own fabricated domain, where colours are coherent and vivid, buildings are unique and non-conformist, where public sculpture exists for the sake of form, colour, line, and levity. There is an inherent optimism at work here, exalting the accomplishments and ingenuity of the urban sprawl and the enforced participation of a shared culture and experience that offers.”

Hoda Afshar's 2018 body of work, "Remain," offers a forthright and unapologetic political commentary on Australia's border protection policy, shedding light on its impact on human rights. This collection comprises a film and a series of photographic portraits that chronicle the stories of stateless men who chose to stay on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, even after the closure of the immigration detention centre in October 2017. In the accompanying film, the experiences of these men are conveyed through episodic fragments, narrated with a mix of lyrical and brutal voiceovers. Some express themselves through poetry, others through song, while some recall the riots and suicides. Set against the backdrop of a picturesque landscape featuring lush foliage and crystal-clear water—a stark contrast to the harsh realities described—the emotional impact of the work is intensified. It creates a simultaneous sense of beauty and horror. The photographic portraits of the same individuals are equally compelling. Positioned prominently against a dark backdrop, these subjects assert their presence, emphasizing their right to be seen. The deliberate simplicity of these portraits serves as a powerful political statement, countering the invisibility imposed by the act of detention. Afshar metaphorically acknowledges the struggles faced by these men, depicting them contending with the elements—fire, water, and earth—yet never questioning their inherent humanity. Here we see Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian writer whose memoir ‘No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from the Manus Prison’ won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Literature and the Prize for Non-Fiction in 2019. Boochani was held in detention on Manus Island from 2013 until the centre’s closure in 2017 and was forced to remain on the island in a stateless condition.

Donated by the artist

Primarily working across painting and digital art, Lazzaro’s artworks are characterised by figures of wrestlers, vampires, zombies, toys and subjects from imaginary worlds. Often using gouache, acrylic and paint pen, Lazzaro’s imagery blends sinister interpretations with a quirky sense of humour. Lazzarro’s works usually depict historical figures, pop-culture icons or people he has met or seen. This work depicts two women holding hands. Lazzaro has been a regular studio artist at Arts Project Australia since 2004. Arts Project Australia supports artists with intellectual disabilities through their studio and gallery, promoting artists’ work and advocating for their inclusion in contemporary art practice.

Dorothy Berry paints and draws with great energy, using vibrant colours and thick, gestural strokes of paint and pastel. Her work is usually a form of portraiture, often depicting women or birds. In this portrait, Berry has depicted the late American jazz singer Billie Holiday. Berry has been a regular studio artist at Arts Project Australia since 1985. Arts Project Australia supports artists with intellectual disabilities through their studio and gallery, promoting artists’ work and advocating for their inclusion in contemporary art practice.

Peta Clancy is a descendent of the Bangerang people from South-Eastern Australia. She explores hidden histories of colonisation in Australia. Through manipulating photographic prints, she reconstructs these hidden histories in a contemporary setting. In 2018, Clancy was awarded the inaugural Fostering Koorie Art and Culture grant from the Koorie Heritage Trust. The grant enabled her to collaborate with the Dja Dja Wurrung community to create a body of work investigating massacre sites on Dja Dja Wurrung country. The exhibition Undercurrent at the Koorie Heritage Trust focussed on a massacre site submerged under water. Clancy says of the exhibition and this work: ‘I explored this site as a metaphor for the hidden history of many massacres throughout Australia and the denial of this aspect of our history and the trauma these sites evoke’.

Donated by the artist

Sha Sarwari is a multidisciplinary artist who works in sculpture, installation, photography, and performance. A Moth to a Flame is a commentary on the often-tragic dilemma that refugees encounter when escaping their country of origin to seek asylum. This piece comes from a series of works, also titled A Moth to a Flame, where this metaphor is used to show how the hopefulness of a new life can result in a dangerous, sometimes fatal illusion. In this work, Sawari aims to give a voice to the refugee experience, to reconcile cultural identity, new belonging and resilience in the face of trauma.

Donated by the artist

Donation by the artist

Jazmina Cininas’ printmaking practice is best known for its technically demanding reduction linocuts. A two-legged dingo stole Lindy’s tears draws on the complex mythologies and rhetoric that have become embedded in the protracted Lindy Chamberlain saga. The work is a critique of the media’s unfair treatment of Chamberlain when the case broke in the 1980s. This is a key work from Cininas' Girlie Werewolf Project, which explores how female 'otherness' has been depicted through history. Donation by the artist

Born in Tehran before moving to Australia in 1985, Nostograph 1 is part of Hootan Heydari’s enquiry into ideas of displacement, memory and disruption. Nostograph 1 is a key work from Hootan Heydari’s solo exhibition Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood, which was held at the Counihan Gallery in 2022. ‘Yeki bood, yeki nabood’ means ‘one was there, one was absent’ in Farsi. It’s a phrase used to begin a story, similar to ‘once upon a time’. Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood explored the compulsion to return to the past; to process trauma, but also to resist historical and cultural erasure. Yet memory is slippery; repeated exposure to images of the past blur and conflate with the artist’s memory. In Nostograph 1, Heydari attempts to remember and outline rooms and spaces from his childhood, as described by delicate strips of gold leaf. The gold leaf overlays an archival photograph of a crowd gathered during a mass demonstration during the 1979 Islamic revolution. In Nostograph 1, personal and public histories intersect.

Raafat Ishak is a Melbourne-based artist working across painting, installation and site-specific drawing. His work delves into the exploration of identity and the challenges of navigating life between two cultures, particularly influenced by his teenage emigration from Cairo, Egypt. Ishak employs a graphic visual language in his art, drawing inspiration from both architecture and his Arabic heritage. His artistic practice is situated at the crossroads of the personal and the political, delving into themes of utopia through the use of romanticised imagery. Through his work, Ishak seeks to scrutinize and interpret the complexities of cross-cultural dialogue.

noombapee is an etching and lithograph by Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong artist Vicki Couzens. Couzens is a multi-disciplinary artist focused on strengthening her language and culture through research and creative projects. noombapee was created during a 2018 Collie Print Trust Printmaking Fellowship at the Australian Print Workshop. The work is an example of Couzens’ reclamation and celebration of Indigenous languages. The title is a Gunditjmara term which approximately translates to ‘have mercy’ or ‘forgiveness’. The word ‘noombapee’ appears multiple times in the lower right corner of the composition. The left side of the work includes a letter to the editor of the Warnambool Standard, dated 3 April 1940 and authored by Vicki’s ngapoon (paternal grandfather), Nicholas Couzens. Couzens explains that ‘he was an activist and advocate for our rights living on the Framlingham mission.’

Jenna Lee dissects and reconstructs colonial 'Indigenous dictionaries' and embeds the works with new cultural meaning. Long obsessed with the duality of the destructive and healing properties that fire can yield, this element has been applied to the paper in the forms of burning and mark-making. In Without Us, Lee uses charcoal to conceal the text on the page, viewing this process as a ritualistic act of reclaiming and honouring Indigenous heritage while challenging the oppressive legacies of colonialism. Lee explains in Art Guide (2022), ‘These books in particular [used to create the proposed works] are Aboriginal language dictionaries—but there’s no such thing as “Aboriginal language”. There are hundreds of languages. The dictionary just presents words, with no reference to where they came from. It was specifically published by collating compendiums from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, with the purpose to give [non-Indigenous] people pleasant sounding Aboriginal words to name children, houses and boats. And yet the first things that were taken from us was our language, children, land and water. And the reason our words were so widely written down was because [white Australians] were trying to eradicate us. They thought we were going extinct. The deeper you get into it, the darker it gets. But the purpose of my work is to take those horrible things and cast them as something beautiful.’Framed artwork

Luke King’s mixed media artwork Portrait (2023) was shown in the group exhibition Fever’Dreams at the Counihan Gallery in 2023. The group exhibition explored the slippery boundaries between abstract and figurative artwork, showcasing local artists with a strong connection to Merri-bek’s arts community. King uses portraiture to highlight the importance of gesture and facial expression in personal storytelling. Exhibition curator of Fever’Dreams, Mitchel Brannan, writes of King’s work: ‘King explores the profound capacity of the human face to convey emotions within the context of constraint. Through his art, King invites viewers to reflect on the complexities of human expression and the underlying dynamics of restraint within society.’

Time is an abstraction, a filing system used to arrange events and memories into a logical system of cause and effect. This new print was created with images arranged from drawings made while sitting by paths near nature, creeks and overlapping streets. I am a local artist and illustrator with a history of drawing, painting and printmaking.10Press brings together a diverse group of creatives who were invited to make a new artwork inspired by the theme of ‘Moreland: its creative future, its past or other hidden stories’. Artists were invited to respond to the prompt ‘Moreland’, using only one or two colours. This body of work was created in 2022 during a significant time in local history, which saw Council’s name change from ‘Moreland’ to ‘Merri-bek’. The printed bellyband of the folio highlights this transition, with the word ‘Moreland’ crossed out and replaced with Woiwurrung language name ‘Merri-bek’. Commoners Press is a Coburg-based print studio that works with artists and designers in Australia and abroad on short run projects. Established by Jan Brueggemeier, Rob Eales and Neal Haslem in 2017, Commoners Press focus on projects that are community-centred, experimental and sustainable. Donated by Commoners Press Letterpress print