Held on the 5th Jun 2025
at 5:15pm to
6:15pm
, Northern Tasmania; Online
Inveresk Library, Level 2, Room 216 , Invermay, TAS 7248
Summary:Ways of Knowing – artists Lois Waters & Sharon O’Donnell, facilitated by Zara Sully, Director of Sawtooth ARI
Ways of Knowing – artist panel
Join us on Thursday, 5th June, at 5.15 pm at the University of Tasmania's Inveresk Library, Level 2, Room 216 for an artist panel discussion with artists Lois Waters and Sharon O'Donnell, facilitated by Zara Sully, Director of Sawtooth ARI.
Lois and Sharon will talk about their recent work and creative processes as part of the UTAS x Sawtooth Vitrine series.
Lois and Sharon’s works are currently on display as part of the ‘UTAS x Sawtooth Vitrine series,’ now at Inveresk Library, Level 3.
You can view their works during business hours until 25 August 2025
NOTE:
If you chose to attend online a Zoom link will be emailed to you prior to the start of the event.
About the works / artists:
Lois Waters
Image credit: Lois Waters, Swell, 2025, Glass beads, fireline thread, stainless steel, 62 x 45cm.
This project considers how the kanamaluka/Tamar estuary might operate as a body. Distinct environments form along the system, determined by the interactions between salt and freshwater. Sediment constantly shifts; deposited and discarded by an asymmetric tide and human intervention. These processes are mirrored in the materials of the body, which can dissolve and reform to generate new sensory experiences.
In Swell, a hand-beaded gradient of green and red glass simulates these actions of dissolution and reformation. These processes are decidedly nonlinear—the right-angle weave of this beaded structure takes a single thread that continually loops back on itself.
An accompanying zine of preparatory drawings considers the impossibility of knowing something - a place, a body - from the outside. This project was undertaken remotely, without direct experience of the kanamaluka/Tamar estuary. This work draws a comparison between available data on the estuary online, and visual representations of hearing anatomy and physiology. Through external systems of measurement, imaging and mapping, both place and body are abstracted.
Lois Waters (she/her) is a hard-of-hearing artist who uses textile and printmaking processes to visualise ongoing shifts in her perception of sound. She is interested in what materials can and can’t do, as a parallel for the limits and possibilities of the body. Gently undulating, dissolving or bent and strange, her textile forms reference her amplified experience of internal sounds: eyelids closing and parting, bones shifting against one another, or breath travelling through the body. To complement her personal experience of sound, she draws on research into the mechanics of speech and hearing.
Lois was born in Naarm/Melbourne, and now lives on Gadigal land in Sydney’s inner-west. She has a BFA in Printmaking and a Masters of Cultural Materials Conservation form the University of Melbourne. In 2025 Lois is participating in collaborative projects working with sound, printmaking and textiles at Bundanon AIR (NSW), PCA Gallery (VIC) and Puzzle Gallery (NSW).
Her work, Swell, is currently on display as part of the ‘UTAS x Sawtooth Vitrine series,’ at Inveresk Library, Level 3.
Sharon O’Donnell
Image credit: Sharon O'Donnell, Every Thread Counts (detail), 2025, mixed media, dimensions vary.
Every Thread Counts is a deeply personal installation that brings together raw fibres, hand-spun yarns, and indie-dyed threads through a series of weavings created during my Bachelor of Visual Arts at UTAS. Each piece is grounded in process and place—woven slowly by hand, thread by thread—reflecting the rhythms of memory, reflection, and care. These fibres carry more than material weight; they are infused with stories of identity, kinship, connection and disconnection, grief, resilience, pride, and growth.
As each thread crosses another, a new moment is recorded—a tactile conversation between past and present. Some fibres speak of protection and grounding, others of vulnerability and healing. Together, they map a journey of learning, unlearning, and remembering. Weaving became not only a creative act, but a meditative and restorative practice—an embodiment of self-care and reconnection with self, land, and lineage. In this way, every thread truly counts.
Sharon O’Donnell is a Canadian-born Australian artist living in Lutruwita/Tasmania, nestled within 41 acres of forest. Her ceramic and textile practice is grounded in place, identity, kinship and belonging. Drawing on the textures of the forest floor from her childhood, the construction techniques learned in her father's garage, and vessel forms that hold space and memory, her work reflects a deep engagement with personal and environmental histories. Deeply connected to the materiality of clay and fibre, O'Donnell views the evolution of each piece as a process of capturing moments—where memory, touch, and time converge.
Her work, Every Thread Counts, is currently on display as part of the ‘UTAS x Sawtooth Vitrine series,’ at Inveresk Library, Level 3.
