Material Exchange: Collaboration, Experimentation, and Community Engagement
By Fiona Morgan & Kate Stewart
Material Exchange is a year-long collaborative project between Melbourne-based artist Kate Stewart and regional Victorian artist Fiona Morgan. Meeting fortnightly at either Stewart’s Sandringham studio or Morgan’s Durham Lead studio.
The project seeks to foster an ongoing creative dialogue that extends the scope of both artists’ practices, while foregrounding the reuse of found and recycled materials. Alongside studio-based collaboration, Stewart and Morgan will further research and develop a domestic Artspace model that combines experimental practice with public programming, including provisional exhibitions, workshops and experimentation exchanges, and small scale community engagement activities.
Funding will support artists’ fees, travel between Ballarat and Sandringham, materials for experimentation, and further development of the Artspace model.
kate stewart / CV
Born Sydney. Based in Melbourne/Naarm
education
2024 / Master of Fine Arts, RMIT
2013 / Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honours, Monash University
2012 / Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting, VCA, Melbourne
2009 / Graduate Certificate in Visual Arts, VCA, Melbourne
solo shows
2012 Great Expectations, Bower Gallery, Ripponlea, Melbourne
2013 Strange Truths in Undiscovered Lands, Pro-merging Artspace, Sorrento
2014 TRACE, Pro-merging Artspace, Sorrento
2022 Lost and Found, RED Gallery, Brunswick
2024 The Murmuring, Rubicon Ari, North Melbourne
2025 Intermission, Five Walls Projects, Footscray
group shows
2013 / Honey is Flowing in all Directions, Monash School of Art
2019 / Bayside Local, Bayside Gallery, Brighton Town Hall
2019 / Knox Immerse Festival, Knox City Civic Centre Atrium
2020 / Bayside Local, Bayside Gallery, Brighton Town Hall
2021 / Bayside Local, Bayside Gallery, Brighton Town Hall
2021 / COMPACT, Alternating Current Artspace, Prahran
2021 / Of Colour and Light, West End Art Space, Melbourne
2021/22/23 / Linden Postcard Show, Linden New Art, St Kilda
2022 / Art and Gender, Jahm Housemuseum, Prahran
2022 / RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Archives of Feeling, Nurses and Mid-wives Exchange
2024 / La Salle School of Art Gallery, The Weather, Tropical Lab, Singapore
2024 / RMIT Grad Show, Site Eight Gallery, RMIT
2025 / HAIR ARI, Kill Your Darlings Group Show
2025 / LON Gallery, Missing and Longing Group Show
awards and prizes
2012 / The Fiona Myer Award for Painting, VCA Grad Show
2017 / Finalist and Highly Commended, Ravenswood Art Prize
2017 / Finalist, Fischer’s Ghost Art Prize
2021 / Finalist, Castlemaine Experimental Print Prize
2021 / Winner, The Henry Award for Abstract Painting, Linden Postcard Prize
2022 / Finalist, TACIT Gallery Print Prize
2024 / Winner, The Five Walls Gallery, RMIT Graduate Award
2024/ RMIT Vice Chancellor’s List for Academic Excellence, 2024
residencies
2024 / Tropical Lab, La Salle School of Art, Singapore
Bio
Kate Stewart is a Naarm/Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist
working across material experimentation, expanded painting, and
installation. Her practice explores ideas of destabilisation,
dissonance, and disruption, reconfiguring the formal language of
Minimalism through a New Materialist, diffractive lens. She holds a
Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts and a
Master of Fine Arts from RMIT University.
Recent exhibitions include Intermission (2025) at Five Walls Gallery,
The Murmuring (2024), a solo show at Rubicon ARI; the RMIT MFA Graduate
Exhibition, where she was awarded the Five Walls Graduate Prize; and
The Weather, part of the Tropical Lab international residency at La
Salle College of the Arts, Singapore (2024). Her work has also featured
in group exhibitions at Lon Gallery and HAIR ARI, Melbourne.
Stewart’s work has received several awards, including the Fiona Myer
Award for Painting (VCA) and the Linden New Art Henry Award for
Abstraction (2021). She has been a finalist in national prizes
including the Ravenswood Art Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, and the
Castlemaine Experimental Print Prize.
Fiona Morgan CV
Education
2022 – current Masters Fine Art, RMIT University
2008-2010 Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), Victorian College of the Arts, (The
University of Melbourne)
Solo shows
2022 – Pause, Five Walls, Footscray
2019 – Without Fail, Incinerator Gallery, Moonee Ponds
2015 – Fold, 5 Walls, Footscray
2012 – 82, TRI, SNO, Marrickville
2011 – Irregular Manor, TCB art Inc, Melbourne
Mind your Manners, Techno Park studios, Williamstown
2010 – Fiona Morgan, Blindside, Melbourne
Group shows
2024 – RMIT Masters Fine Art, Graduate Exhibition, Melbourne
2018 – Buxton Contemporary Inaugural Exhibition, (commissioned wall painting,) Buxton
Contemporary South Bank
2014 – Group Show, Kings ARI, Melbourne
Shapes through the moon, The Alderman, East Brunswick
2013 – Can’t Quite Pin it down, TCB ART INC, Melbourne
painting / sculpture / floor work / wall work, Stockroom, Kyneton
93, SNO, Marrickville
Repeat Offender, The Gallery @ Bayside Arts & Cultural Centre, Brighton
Bio
Fiona Morgan is a multidisciplinary artist based in regional Victoria, on Wadawurrung Country. Her practice spans painting and installation, focusing on abstraction, materiality, and space. Morgan’s work employs strategies of formalism and provisional painting; drawing from both natural and architectural environments, she constructs abstract works that are suggestive of form and place. Central to her practice is reclaimed materials, including furniture and disused building materials, which she reimagines through spontaneous, experimental processes.
I have undertaken arts education with both a Bachelor of Fine Arts at VCA and, more recently, a Master of Fine Arts at RMIT. I have shown across different sectors of the art industry, from Artist Run Initiatives, including Blindside, TCB Art Inc., and SNO. I have shown in independent galleries like Five Walls, Footscray. I have also shown in institutional and local government facilities, such as a wall-based installation at the Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, for their inaugural show, and an installation at the Incinerator Gallery, Moonee Valley.
https://fiona-morgan.com.au/
https://www.instagram.com/fiona.e.m/