Five Walls Projects

Opening this Friday from 6-9pm in Project Space 3 is Artworks & Bookworks by Steven Tonkin: In my artwork I draw a creative lineage from the radical experiments with the book form that characterised early 20th century Modernism, specifically Constructivism and Bauhaus graphic design and typography. As a curator and writer, I also have a specific interest in Conceptual art of the 1960s and Australian Post-Object practice in the 1970s as theoretical reference points within global conceptualism. Artist’s books are a key focus of my creative practice, while more broadly I find inspiration in the intersections of geometric abstraction with text, graphics, posters and signage. I try to explore tensions between the textual and pictorial, conceptual and material, functional and sculptural, so as to address both art historical and current perspectives. Last year I undertook a residency in Berlin, which gave me the opportunity to visit the Bauhaus, Masters’ Houses and new Museum in Dessau. This experience has provided the impetus for my recent approach, in which I endeavour to adapt some of the basic principles from Kandinsky’s ‘Point and Line to Plane’ (1926) into my own work. In my ‘multiple’ bookworks there is an implicit duality that binds the mechanical with the handmade. I start by making a hand-painted template, which is then scanned, photocopied or commercially printed, with each copy then finally hand-cut and manually folded to complete the edition. Critical to my thinking are the ideals and ethics of ‘democratic multiple’ artists’ books, which I advocate for their ongoing relevance in contemporary practice. Steven Tonkin 2026

Opening this Friday from 6-9pm in Project Space 4 is “Solaris” by George Huon: These small works were developed intuitively over an extended period, emerging through a process of accumulation, revision, and abandonment. Many began as still life paintings before shifting into more ambiguous, suggestive forms that sit on the surface, baring traces of earlier, unresolved compositions beneath. As fragments of a larger, ongoing project, they operate both as a means of addressing and deferring an underlying anxiety about subject matter. They are, in part, paintings/objects about the manifestation of psychological states—about mood, pattern-making, chance, and the unstable relationship between figure and ground. These works attempt to reconcile the world as both field and a collection of discrete objects. There is a tentative ambition for each piece to hold something expansive—if not a totality, then an small fragment of a floating world. They explore the “thingness” of things: objects emerging from and dissolving back into a kind of sentient, fluid continuum. Through visual metonymy, familiar forms double and migrate, accumulating meaning through association, innuendo, and repetition. Materially and formally, the works embrace an ad hoc, handmade quality. Found elements, exposed fixings, and layered surfaces emphasize their constructed nature, paintings as objects that resist purity or formal clarity, yet have presence. Anthropomorphic associations, scraps of epigrammatic logic, and a self-effacing, sometimes awkward sensibility coexist within a loose yet intimate cosmology. These paintings remain resolutely figurative, operating somewhere between abstraction and representation, where objects and their ghosts continuously shift and recombine. George Huon 2026

Last days to see these three incredible exhibitions: Project Space 1 & 2 Mark Misic Transient Luminous Events – Diamond Paintings @mark_misic_artist Project Space 3 Claire Mooney Sun Path @clairemooneyart Project Space 4 Chris May MetroScape @chrismay17 All exhibitions conclude this Saturday at 5pm. Catalogues of available works for each of the exhibition can be viewed on our website.

Continuing today is Transient Luminous Events- Diamond Paintings by Mark Misic: Transient Luminous Events brings together Misic’s instinctive use of gesture, texture and colour in a new series of diamond-shaped paintings that continue his exploration of the intersection between human experience, primordial landscape and universal phenomena. The exhibition takes its title from naturally occurring upper-atmospheric phenomena—fleeting electrical storms visible only through high-speed photography. Known as TLEs, these events are named by scientists in whimsical terms such as sprites, elves, pixies, trolls, gnomes and ghosts. Misic is drawn to this merging of scientific language and myth, reflecting his broader interest in folklore, spirituality, personal encounters with nature and the paranormal. The exhibition comprises three groups of works. The TLE diamond paintings are named after spirits drawn from both science and folklore. Eight Directions is a series of small mandala paintings referencing the eight mythical Charnel Grounds of Buddhist cosmology. The third group presents a large tessellated pattern based on a mutating swastika motif that transforms into a labyrinth, suggesting instability and transformation. The rotated square format allows each painting to function as both portrait and mandala. Composed of two intersecting triangles, they form symbolic portals: the upward-pointing triangle represents the masculine principle, Shiva; the downward-pointing triangle signifies the feminine principle, Shakti—key elements in Tantric philosophy. Silver is layered throughout the works as a personal and transcendental motif. Both reflective and immersive, it conjures and mirrors the surrounding world, referencing the gilded surfaces of Tibetan Buddhist Thangka paintings. Misic’s interest in abstraction began in his youth while hang gliding in Bright, Victoria, and encountering the work of British painter Peter Lanyon, whose embodied experience of flight informed his gestural mark-making. As part of his yoga teacher training in 2017, Misic travelled to Bhutan, where he visited temples and the National Art School in the capital, Thimphu. @mark_misic_artist

Continuing in Project Space 3 is “Sun Path” by Claire Mooney: A sun path traces the journey of the sun as it moves across the sky. As seasons pass, this arc shifts, and intersections between light and material objects change. This path marks cycles of time and light; mapping and informing our orientation to ourselves and our lives. The new paintings and textiles in Sun Path map a period of continuing and evolving trajectories. The works in this exhibition explore recurring concepts and themes of practice; the interplay of geometric pattern and colour, and how a process of fragmentation, layering and interweaving can allow forms to merge and emerge. Within this, there is a new shift towards the materiality of the surface, and an investigation into the varying densities and luminosities of colour that can be generated by paint, thread and textiles. Hard-edge sensibilities are retained, yet an amplified textural and optical language is embraced in the layered mark-making of brushstrokes and stitches. Colours and forms can reveal more of their histories and the traces of their making, and sequences of decisions remain visible, both dissolving and defining form. Through this insistent physicality, colour as an embodiment of light is felt as much as it is seen. The colours in these works started from personal experiences of sun and light; an extraordinary journey travelling north, inhabiting a different place and seeing in a different way; to the more prosaic routine of cycling to work in the early mornings, riding head on into the sunrise, face stunned by gold light. Together, these artworks begin to explore visual and conceptual resonances between the material practices of painting and textiles, and reflect a renewed, embodied awareness of space, time, colour and light in nature. A catalogue of available works is now available on our website at .au @clairemooneyart Artworks details in comments.

Continuing this week in Project Space 4 is “MetroScape” by Chris May: Cities worldwide never tire of structural change as they aspire to become monuments to human progress. Melbourne is no exception—its skyline dominated by contemporary architecture and expanding infrastructure. Yet, with this transformation comes disruption, a paradoxical space where creation and destruction coexist, leaving a trail of upheaval in its wake — The price of change. MetroScape reflects this paradox as seen through a series of works which grapple with the relationship between construction, infrastructure and the city environment. Within these transitional sites of construction, Chris May explores the ‘unfinished’—spaces that, for him, reveal far more than the completed structure. Exposing the unseen, the ephemeral, and the shifting nature of urban change. His works are multi layered, revealing areas of site construction and road infrastructure punctuated by industrial fluro colours that dominate the inner-city landscape. Machinery, steel, timber and heavy-duty materials are also combined—expressing the underlying layers of a city in a constant state of organise chaos. These are urban areas of a different kind, MetroScapes, far removed from the romantic notions of the pastoral and the sublime. This project deepened through his research into early 20th-century modernist thinking, particularly in the 1930s during the establishment of the Bauhaus School (1919-1933). Between two world wars, It was a period when creative experimentation blurred the boundaries between photography and architecture, redefining spatial expression. This period of global transformation draws intriguing parallels with now, where amidst today’s economic and political uncertainties, the world grapples with a crisis-laden landscape, endeavoring to forge a new future shaped by the trans-formative forces of architecture, design and construction. Ultimately, these abstract works seek to reconsider our perception of the city, by challenging the architectural gaze—reminding us that it is not only what we see, but how we see, the metropolis we inhabit. Chris May 2025. @chrismay17

Opening this Friday in Project Space 4 is “MetroScape” by Chris May: Cities worldwide never tire of structural change as they aspire to become monuments to human progress. Melbourne is no exception—its skyline dominated by contemporary architecture and expanding infrastructure. Yet, with this transformation comes disruption, a paradoxical space where creation and destruction coexist, leaving a trail of upheaval in its wake — The price of change. MetroScape reflects this paradox as seen through a series of works which grapple with the relationship between construction, infrastructure and the city environment. Within these transitional sites of construction, Chris May explores the ‘unfinished’—spaces that, for him, reveal far more than the completed structure. Exposing the unseen, the ephemeral, and the shifting nature of urban change. His works are multi layered, revealing areas of site construction and road infrastructure punctuated by industrial fluro colours that dominate the inner-city landscape. Machinery, steel, timber and heavy-duty materials are also combined—expressing the underlying layers of a city in a constant state of organise chaos. These are urban areas of a different kind, MetroScapes, far removed from the romantic notions of the pastoral and the sublime. This project deepened through his research into early 20th-century modernist thinking, particularly in the 1930s during the establishment of the Bauhaus School (1919-1933). Between two world wars, It was a period when creative experimentation blurred the boundaries between photography and architecture, redefining spatial expression. This period of global transformation draws intriguing parallels with now, where amidst today’s economic and political uncertainties, the world grapples with a crisis-laden landscape, endeavoring to forge a new future shaped by the trans-formative forces of architecture, design and construction. Ultimately, these abstract works seek to reconsider our perception of the city, by challenging the architectural gaze—reminding us that it is not only what we see, but how we see, the metropolis we inhabit. Chris May 2025. @chrismay17

Opening next Friday (April 10) from 6-9pm in Project Space 3 is “Sun Path” by Claire Mooney: A sun path traces the journey of the sun as it moves across the sky. As seasons pass, this arc shifts, and intersections between light and material objects change. This path marks cycles of time and light; mapping and informing our orientation to ourselves and our lives. The new paintings and textiles in Sun Path map a period of continuing and evolving trajectories. The works in this exhibition explore recurring concepts and themes of practice; the interplay of geometric pattern and colour, and how a process of fragmentation, layering and interweaving can allow forms to merge and emerge. Within this, there is a new shift towards the materiality of the surface, and an investigation into the varying densities and luminosities of colour that can be generated by paint, thread and textiles. Hard-edge sensibilities are retained, yet an amplified textural and optical language is embraced in the layered mark-making of brushstrokes and stitches. Colours and forms can reveal more of their histories and the traces of their making, and sequences of decisions remain visible, both dissolving and defining form. Through this insistent physicality, colour as an embodiment of light is felt as much as it is seen. The colours in these works started from personal experiences of sun and light; an extraordinary journey travelling north, inhabiting a different place and seeing in a different way; to the more prosaic routine of cycling to work in the early mornings, riding head on into the sunrise, face stunned by gold light. Together, these artworks begin to explore visual and conceptual resonances between the material practices of painting and textiles, and reflect a renewed, embodied awareness of space, time, colour and light in nature. The opening is from 6-9pm and all welcome. @clairemooneyart

Opening Friday April 10th from 6-9pm is Transient Luminous Events- Diamond Paintings by Mark Misic: Transient Luminous Events brings together Misic’s instinctive use of gesture, texture and colour in a new series of diamond-shaped paintings that continue his exploration of the intersection between human experience, primordial landscape and universal phenomena. The exhibition takes its title from naturally occurring upper-atmospheric phenomena—fleeting electrical storms visible only through high-speed photography. Known as TLEs, these events are named by scientists in whimsical terms such as sprites, elves, pixies, trolls, gnomes and ghosts. Misic is drawn to this merging of scientific language and myth, reflecting his broader interest in folklore, spirituality, personal encounters with nature and the paranormal. The exhibition comprises three groups of works. The TLE diamond paintings are named after spirits drawn from both science and folklore. Eight Directions is a series of small mandala paintings referencing the eight mythical Charnel Grounds of Buddhist cosmology. The third group presents a large tessellated pattern based on a mutating swastika motif that transforms into a labyrinth, suggesting instability and transformation. The rotated square format allows each painting to function as both portrait and mandala. Composed of two intersecting triangles, they form symbolic portals: the upward-pointing triangle represents the masculine principle, Shiva; the downward-pointing triangle signifies the feminine principle, Shakti—key elements in Tantric philosophy. Silver is layered throughout the works as a personal and transcendental motif. Both reflective and immersive, it conjures and mirrors the surrounding world, referencing the gilded surfaces of Tibetan Buddhist Thangka paintings. Misic’s interest in abstraction began in his youth while hang gliding in Bright, Victoria, and encountering the work of British painter Peter Lanyon, whose embodied experience of flight informed his gestural mark-making. As part of his yoga teacher training in 2017, Misic travelled to Bhutan, where he visited temples and the National Art School in the capital, Thimphu.

Light Forms Shape Open today Saturday March 14, until 5pm. Exhibition continues until March 28, with an artist talk at 3pm March 28. It’s been fantastic seeing this group show come together at the wonderful @five_walls_projects The extraordinary environment of Barreiro and the artist residency @padastudios where the five artists met is the source and force behind the work in this project. This exhibitions international sweep takes in Three Australian artists @eve_bracewell @tinieka @jeani9910 a Swedish artist @alexandraseverinsson and a British artist @mswiftyart #barreiro #artistcollaboration #evocativelight #paintinglight #contemporaryabstraction

Continuing this week in Project Space 3 is Between Squares by Rosanne Freak-Poli: This body of work comprises a series of large-scale paintings on canvas, stretched over pine frames and rendered in a restrained, monochromatic yellow palette that at times borders on green. Each composition is structured through a grid, with every square bisected diagonally to form a repeating triangular motif. While the system appears rigid at first glance, closer inspection reveals subtle irregularities: slight shifts in alignment, tonal variation, and visible brushwork that registers the presence of the artist’s hand. The paintings are deliberately flat and frontal. Their scale saturates the viewer’s field of vision, producing an optical experience that is immersive yet affectively cool. Rather than inviting expression or narrative, the works operate through repetition, restraint, and tonal modulation. The yellow surface functions less as colour than as atmosphere — steady, muted, and insistently present. These works draw on a history of geometric abstraction, particularly practices concerned with the grid as both a formal device and a conceptual structure. As articulated in Rosalind Krauss’s writing on the grid, such systems promise order, neutrality, and autonomy, yet inevitably expose their own instability. Here, the grid is neither perfectly mechanical nor fully expressive; its imperfections signal the persistence of difference within an imposed structure. The diagonal divisions introduce a quiet tension into the compositions, disrupting the grid’s claim to uniformity while maintaining its overall coherence. Repetition becomes a method of both containment and resistance: a way of working within a system while allowing slippage, variation, and looseness to emerge. In this sense, the paintings propose a measured rethinking of structure — one that acknowledges constraint while insisting on the inevitability of divergence. @freakpoli