A SATURATED LIFE
Steve Tomlin, Rozalie Sherwood & Pinal Maniar
14-29 November 2025
Meet the artists
Photo by Fiona Bowring
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Steve Tomlin is a painter who has lived and worked in Canberra since the 1980s. Originally from the Isle of Wight in England, his work frequently draws connections with both places: the vast informality of the Australian landscape versus the saturated colours and structure of the English countryside.
In this show, through a carefully chosen palette of largely saturated colour, Steve’s work examines landscape and place both outside and at home. Rather than accurately depicting a specific place, each painting is imagined or constructed from multiple photographs drawn from personal experience.
These works focus on his felt responses to his immediate environment, translated into a personal landscape of experience and memory.
“My work explores the themes of strength, stability, constancy, and stillness in unpredictable times and in a landscape defined by the challenges and pressures of nature. These paintings seek to calm the spirit, address anxiety, and find satisfaction in simple pleasures, particularly home, garden and landscape.”
Music played a major role in the creation of these works. It fills Steve’s studio environment. The titles of these works are drawn from his lengthy playlist.
Steve has exhibited extensively since 2013 in Canberra, Queanbeyan and Melbourne. His work is in private collections in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Photo by Fiona Bowring
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Rozalie Sherwood worked in the fashion industry as a practitioner and then teacher, before studying in the textiles workshop at the Australian National University School of Art & Design.
She has now refined her use of textiles and exploits her familiarity with cloth, fibres and the tools of the textile trade in innovative ways to reflect her experiences and convey her ideas.
Based in Canberra, her work has revolved around inks and acrylics on linen fabric, which she enjoys because the materials refuse to be tightly controlled.
After drawing with the ink and/or acrylics, she often uses a sewing machine needle as if it were a pen or pencil - with a technique that allows movement in any direction - to create variations in tone and depth. The stitching holds, contains and supports the story being told.
“My ideal days start with drawing and end with handstitching, which I view as drawing in thread. In my work, I try to capture the emotion generated by a story or an experience. I think of each work as a container for a story…. I prefer intuitive line-making to precision, responding to colour and line as work progresses, and I embrace and highlight the accidental. I see this as a challenge to overcome my perfectionism, and an antidote to the precision I needed in the fashion industry,” she says.
Rozalie has exhibited regularly in recent years, in several Australian states and overseas. Highlights have been inclusion in the Surface and Depth exhibition as part of 2021 Rome Art Week in Italy, and winning First Prize in the 2021 Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Art Prize.
Photo by Fiona Bowring
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Pinal Maniar is a contemporary textile artist whose work explores cultural identity, memory, and place through natural materials and traditional craft processes.
Drawing inspiration from natural landscapes, she combines natural dyeing, embroidery, and weaving to reimagine ancient techniques within a contemporary context.
Her tactile works bridge personal memory with collective histories, evoking themes of belonging, transformation, and environmental connection. Through her textile-based pieces and installations, Pinal invites viewers to slow down and reflect on the stories embedded within fibre—honouring ancestral knowledge while engaging with the present moment.