At a time when meeting indoors was restricted, a group of artists gathered amongst the granite boulders to talk art, creativity and inspiration.
The Granite Girls were formed in 2021 to spark artistic collaboration and answer the need for creative kinship.

Zoe Amor: @zoe.r.amor,  www.zoeamor.com  

Sculpting, casting, drawing, painting and printmaking – Zoe Amor’s work is informed by a deep appreciation for biological/cultural diversity and how creative expression can connect us to broader social/ecological circumstances and transitions.  Zoe has worked extensively in the arts and cultural spheres as a director, curator, designer, researcher, writer, lecturer, and public arts facilitator. Her work is commissioned, exhibited widely in award, solo and group exhibitions and is held in public and private collections. Zoe lives in Central Victoria on Jaara country and is represented by Otomys Contemporary Art Gallery www.otomys.com

Catherine Pilgrim: @catherinepilgrim,  www.catherinepilgrim.com  

Meticulous, considered drawing is the basis for Catherine Pilgrim’s practice including lithographs, drawings and textiles – with absence, contemporary still life and historical narratives influencing the subject matter.
Catherine has exhibited widely since 1994, when she returned to Australia after studying lithography and drawing in Washington DC, USA. In 2011 she completed her MFA (Research) at Monash University.
Catherine’s works are held in public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, NAB, Australian War Memorial and Castlemaine Art Museum. Her recent works revolve around narratives of women from goldfields history.
Exploring the murky ground of historical sources, Pilgrim builds imagery suggestive of missing details and acknowledging the cultural myopia of early settlers.

Denise Martin: @denisejmartin,  www.denisejmartin.net

Denise works across photography, film and writing, often with portraiture, creating projects that are inspired by personal cycles or transitions in life. Denise’s portrait work has been included in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale Fringe 2015, and Open Program 2019, and was selected as a finalist in the Olive Cotton Portrait prize 2013, the Alice Springs Art Prize 2016, and the Head On Portrait Prize 2020. Recently photography has been a way to discover the sublime and spiritual in her travels to far away places

Hilary Finch: @finch.hilary,  wwwhilaryfinch.com

Hilary Finch composes her photographic works from single and composite images built over time.

Atmospheric conditions are layered with geological formations and monolithic archaeological remnants to evoke enigmatic terrains, where memory and imagination, past and future coalesce.

These psychological landscapes are imbued with the twin forces of the Sublime and atmospheric Surrealism. Compositions may resemble a real place or include imagery from the artist’s travels in Greece, Greenland and Australia, but they are reconfigured with a strange intensity so that the scenes portrayed take on a powerful monumentality and dreamlike quality.

Sue McLeod:  @sue_mcleod_painter, claypans.sue@gmail.com

A few months away from painting is never a good thing. At the precipice of painting again I feel, “ I have no idea how it is I paint”.

So the call from the granite girls to gather for another open studios in 2024, flings me back into this place of beginning again.

First move – clean up the chaos of my studio.

Second move – review my stocks, recent work/old work.

Third move – what’s the heart of what I want from painting

Forth move – more cleaning

Fifth move – just get f’ing started and squeeze out some paint!!

Sixth move – we shall see ….