John Kelly

Born 1962 in Armadale, Australia
Lives in Kempsey / Dunghutti, Australia Dunghutti

Rena Shein

Born 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa
Lives in Sydney / Gadigal, Australia

John Kelly is a Dunghutti Elder from Kempsey, Australia. He is an artist, cultural adviser, and teacher.  His painting The Bunyip hangs in Parliament House of NSW and a series of charcoal drawings were exhibited as part of a tribute to Nelson Mandela. He has exhibited at Washhouse Gallery and Boomalli Galleries and created the first Aboriginal Art design for the Deadly Awards.  Kelly’s art imparts his strong sense of culture and traditional knowledge through which he teaches young children, mentors young men in traditional practices and engages community in the preservation and celebration of culture.

Rena Shein’s practice seeks strength-based approaches between Western healing psychotherapeutic modalities, Aboriginal knowledge systems and practices and contemporary art. As an artist with an inheritance of migration and cultural displacement, her multidisciplinary practice takes place at the juncture of relationship to people and place, engaging with notions of materiality, memory and healing.