At a Glance

Fiona Barrett-Clark + Bettina Willner + Indivi Sutton

11 – 22 October 2023

This October, Saint Cloche is proud to present ‘AT A GLANCE’, a pas de trois threading together three of Saint Cloche’s premier artists, Bettina Willner, Fiona Barrett-Clark and Indivi Sutton to reveal a collective of ephemeral unity.

The artists come together draw from their vis vitalis and embrace vaporous moments in time, to distill and express their layered reflections from their inner-most world. Each capturing the flickering of life’s breath, the elements that are enduring and the inner and outer harmony of being present.

At one glance, I love you with a thousand hearts.’ 
– Mihri Hatun, Ottoman poet

“I have immense admiration for Bettina’s, Fiona’s and Indivi’s innate ability to draw from their inner strength to be open, to be aware and their breath of vision to tether from varied experiences, environments. Their creations together in the exhibition seek to illuminate and remind us to savour rare moments in time, evoking our essence of being, prompting us to connect, to feel.”

– Kitty Clark, Curator

‘At a Glance’, is a treasure trove to immerse and reflect on created form, a place of deep intimacy, shared to inspire, empower and enlighten.

At a Glance

"I draw inspiration from the natural world to shape my ceramic sculptures and drawings. Walks in nature along the Gippsland coast bring forth layers of curls, twists, and coils into my hand-built sculptures.

Time and the helical nature of ideas and experience also underpin my work, entwined lines like the snakes in Medusa’s hair wrap and twist around each other.

Memory and my subjective relationship to ancient cities, architecture, both organic and of human design are also present in the development of my creative ideas and forms.

Glistening bronze, deep ocean blues, stipples of black and red, pastel pink and sand-like glazes coat clay drawings, reflecting the deep thought and connection I have to the aura of time and nature."

– Bettina Willner

"For me, the world is at its most beautiful and varied at the day’s end, and this collection of works explore the velvety skies of that magic hour between late afternoon and early evening. This is part of a larger group of works, where I am documenting this favourite time of day by doing a painting a week right throughout 2023.

Most of us live in the suburbs which hug the rim of our major cities, a land of bricks and glass, surrounded by hot grids of black asphalt. Come the end of the day, the light begins to fade, and nature regains the upper hand. The imperfections of suburbia are hidden in dark shadows and amplify the show going on in the sky.

These works invite the viewer to consider more consciously their own relationship with the world around them and remind them to look up and see what is just outside the window."

– Fiona Barrett-Clark

"My connection to art is cellular, it is only when I begin a painting, and I deeply feel it, that I am then able to go further. But that is also how my life and practice has been so far… layers of discovery. In painting, I try to immerse myself completely into my viscera of a place, a person, an object or a mood and I connect to what I receive through colour. I explore the emotions of what it is to live within a colour. The use of pigment powders through their translucent qualities are almost unreal and dreamlike. Enabling an in-depth study of a particular colour through the process of layering of the pigment to create mood.

My process is a journey to give each piece a life force, an energy that gives to the viewer a place, to not only connect with the piece as a unique expression of my own connection but lose themselves to a place within that the painting that invites them to explore. I know a piece is finished when the resonance of memory is one which gives healing and ultimately transformation. My Inspiration comes from a library of experiences that I hold within, then express through my painting."

– Indivi Sutton

About Bettina Willner

Bettina Willner is an artist working between Naarm (Melbourne) and Gunaikurnai (South Gippsland). Practicing over two decades, ornamentation is ever present in Bettina’s work drawing on Baroque aesthetics and art history. Like the helical columns of Bernini’s baldachin, Bettina celebrates an ornamentation that desires complexity, metaphysical connection, and multiplicity.

Bettina studied at Monash University completing a Bachelor of Fine Art (1988-1991), and Wangaratta TAFE completing a Certificate in Design (1987). She has exhibited widely in Melbourne and Sydney at; Gippsland Art Gallery, Gippsland, Sydney Contemporary, Sydney, Metro Gallery, Melbourne, Caves, Melbourne, Saint Cloche, Sydney, Daine Singer, Melbourne, C3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne and Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne.

Bettina has also exhibited in design and art events in Melbourne and Sydney including Spring 1883, Melbourne, NGV Design Fair, Melbourne, Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne and Art Fair Sydney Contemporary presents, Sydney. Bettina’s work is in private collections, throughout Australia, USA, United Kingdom, and Indonesia.

About Fiona Barrett-Clark

Fiona Barrett-Clark is a painter creating distinctively Australian, contemporary landscape paintings, which capture the ever-changing mood of the sky, sea, and land, in an attempt to awaken people to the magnificence that passes us by every day.

Her paintings reflect the beauty of an uncomplicated, understated, Australian landscape, void of people, but not always human presence. Her focus is often on the sky, its kaleidoscope of colours, the clouds formations and the transformative effect it has on the land and sea.

She describes dusk as a time as when ‘everything is exhaling’. She paints the sky and clouds as they run through every colour; blue, white, yellow, orange, pink, lavender, indigo and then to black. These colours are heightened against everything else that is beginning to lose detail into the shadows as the sun sets. Telegraph poles and rooftops become graphic shapes. Nature meets the urban environment, and they enhance one another, but the moment is fleeting.

Fiona has been featured in publications including the Sydney Morning Herald and House and Garden. Most recently Fiona was featured in ‘A Painted Landscape’ by Amber Creswell Bell, published by Thames & Hudson.

About Indivi Sutton

Indivi (b.2000, New York, USA) lives in Sydney. Currently studying Art History and French at Sydney University, Indivi holds a minor in Visual Art from Sydney College of the Arts. Beginning her education at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City where she was introduced an enchantment to colour and has been the foundation of a deep desire to explore its interpretation and evocativeness in her painting. Indivi studied with Paton Miller, an American contemporary painter and studied colour theory and painting at Rhode Island School of Design. The tenor of Indivi’s work explores the nuance of emotional interdependence, the relationship between painting and memory.

Indivi made her debut at Sydney Contemporary 2022 in a group show with Saint Cloche where she received much media attention. She has been featured in House Magazine in the US, Belle and Vogue Living Magazines in Australia and interviewed for Rudolf Steiner Sydney H.Q. monthly EDM. Indivi was featured in T Mag Australia and Instyle where was interviewed about a recent trip to Verona sourcing raw pigment powders from the Dolci Colori, a family-owned pigment firm founded over 100 years ago by Aturo Dolci.

Most recently, Indivi’s works were translated to diaphanous silk fabrics and clothing when she collaborated with Australian fashion designer Bianca Spender. For her Spring Summer Collection 2023, Bianca wanted to capture the essence of softness, looking for a moment of respite in a world full of tensions. She was drawn to the deeply transformable nature of Indivi’s translucent pigment on linen works.

Indivi is currently living in NYC for a year and working on her first exhibition, Eurythmy, which will be at Ki Smith Gallery, 170 Forsyth St, New York and opens October 21st 2023 – November 26th 2023.