UPCOMING
Opening 11.09.26 | 6-8pm
Mereka dari Laut / They Came from the Sea
Patrick Yates (UTAS Award Winner)
Strangers have gathered in the night, beneath the old house. Their elongated forms ominous and assertive. In their discomforting presence, beautiful and terrifying shadows are cast beneath white sails. They stand immaterial - As charcoal strewn from their skeletal frames, their hues blackened, burned into its thread.
They came from the sea. That vast well of darkness, as dark as the silhouettes that watch them from the shore, behind limestone ashlar and timber verandahs. As dark as their cast shadows.
They are strangers amongst strangers; neither visitors nor guests and deserving no shelter. Watched by figures as ash strewn as they. Their haven lost to the sea; there is no rest, for it never belonged to them.
Bio: Patrick Yates is an Indonesian-Australian, currently based in Northern Lutruwita/Tasmania. As an emerging artist, Patrick’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in drawing and painting, with recent explorations expanding into installation. Through surreptitious interventions, Yates’ research is underpinned by his personal experiences as an intercountry adoptee. Patrick’s works seek to examine bureaucratic systems; Australian politics, culture, and history, drawing intersections in Australia and the wider world.
In 2025, at University of Tasmania’s graduate exhibition, Patrick received the Contemporary Art Tasmania Student Prize and the Sawtooth ARI award.
ARIXCHANGE 2.0
Isabella Rose Cort & Amy Baillie
ARIXCHANGE is an ongoing exchange series between Blindside and Sawtooth ARI, connecting artists across Narrm/Melbourne and Lutruwita/Tasmania.
First presented digitally in early 2026, ARIXCHANGE 2.0 brought together Isabella Rose Cort and Amy Baillie in a residency exploring how performance-based practices could be adapted for online presentation.
Now returning as part of Sawtooth’s new chapter, the project comes full circle, with digital adaptations from the original residency presented within the gallery space, alongside a live performance by Amy Baillie that re-activates the project, translating an initially digital exchange into an embodied physical experience.
Bella
Isabella Rose Cort is a neuro/queer, cis-identifying woman, working across interdisciplinary arts practice, performance, and choreography. Arriving within contemporary art after a career in classical ballet, Isabella was first trained at Queensland National Ballet School, before being accepted into Elmhurst Ballet School (School of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, UK). Upon graduation, the artist was then fortunate to receive a professional contract for the DJKT Ballet, Czech Republic, however was forced to retire prior, following chronic injuries.
Isabella then transitioned into the visual arts, undertaking studies at the Queensland University of Technology, where she received multiple Executive Dean’s Commendations and the 2024 Hilde Chenhall Memorial Scholarship. More recently, the artist has also undertaken a choreographic residency for Phluxus2 Dance Collective’s IndepenDance 2024 (as supported by Arts Queensland), and was selected to exhibit in Hatched: National Graduate Show 2025, at PICA, Perth. Isabella also completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) (First Class Honours) at RMIT in 2025, and was fortunate to receive the Varney Foundation prize following graduation.
Amy:
Amy Baillie (she/her) is an emerging artist, recently graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts - majoring in Sculpture & Time-based Media at the University of Tasmania.
Amy’s practice traverses disciplines of performance art, dance, participatory performances and sculpture. World-building and space making, Amy is passionate about creating environments transporting audiences elsewhere. She thrives off of collaboration and connection, constantly seeking out opportunities to create and work with others.
Being a member of Launceston’s Youth Dance Company Stompin since 2020, Amy has performed in Junction Arts Festival, MONA FOMA and Ten Days on the Island. Choreographing works such as ‘Into the void’ 2023, in Stompin’s Youth Choreographic Project and interning in Stompin’s major project ‘Ground Beneath, Ocean Between’ 2024.
Alongside her artistic practice Amy is the 2024/25 Director of The Creative Pod, UTAS’ art society, Board Member of Junction Arts Festival and works at Design Tasmania.
Amy hopes to create a safe, inclusive and expressive space for all as she continues to work, dance and create on palawa country.
The Ephiphany
First Space Program
Exhibiting Artists: Bianca, Brett, Nic and Tristan Templar.
Curated by Bianca Templar.
Four people, four skill sets, four lived experiences, one family. For the first time Brett, Nic, Tristan and Bianca Templar are exhibiting together. We invite you to join our journey and embrace the unknown. Allow yourself to see the world through their eyes.
Bio: Brett Templar and his three children, Nic, Tristan and Bianca Templar are proud Truwulway and Bunurong creators. Brett’s artistic journey began in his young years, undertaking mentorships in theatre and poetry before settling down and having children. This spark of creativity has been passed onto his children, with Nic being a qualified chef whom of which uses his skills to experiment with different flavours, textures and taste to take people on a culinary journey, Tristan becoming both a sculpture, realism artist and tattooist and Bianca leaning more towards cultural crafts with contemporary twists and mural work. Despite struggles with mental and physical health, their parents Brett and Mary always supported and encouraged their children to not let their struggles define them. Join us as we bring our different skill sets together for the first time.
HSP
Lara Chamas
The abbreviation ‘HSP’ holds double meaning, halal snack pack and highly sensitive person. I am both. Sure, this body of work can speak on class, race, labor and food colonisation, but ultimately, it’s a self-portrait of a sad, sensitive soul. HSP is a return to my facetious roots, and at this stage of my practice, an experimental show of new work. Challenging myself with lesser used mediums, and the biggest challenge of all for me; to stop trying to make the perfect artwork. My art used to be funny, now it's just sad. Sometimes the funniest people, are deeply sad. Part ridiculous and part tender, this body of work is a big exhale, putting down the pressure to speak for country, race or religion, and simply, just express myself. Exploring my mental health and what keeps me going in the form of fast foods and liquids, HSP sheds light on what living with crippling mental aliments is like for me, while remaining lighthearted and poking fun at myself.
Bio: Lara Chamas is a Lebanese artist and activist, based in Naarm (Melbourne). Fleeing from war, her parents migrated to Australia, where she was born. Her practice investigates topics of postcolonial narratives within the context of her ethno-religious identity, and lived experience of class, race, and disability. Utilising storytelling, transgenerational trauma and memory, and tacit knowledge; her research explores meeting points between narrative theory, cultural practice, current political and societal landscape, and the body, namely hers, as a political vessel. Central to her practice is the expansion of these notions in a more historical and anthropological sense, lived experience is central to the authenticity of her work.
Sawtooth ARI will have extended opening hours as part of Junction Arts Festival, from 17-20 September 2026.
Junction Arts Festival
Dates: 17-20 September 2026
Location: Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
Website: www.junctionartsfestival.com.au
Image credits courtesy of the artists.
ARIXCHANGE 2.0
(Top) Isabella Rose Cort, hush, heresy, heave [iterations 2-3] [video still] (2025-26), two-channel video installation, with video performance, and written, overheard and found text.
(Bottom) Amy Baillie, TARPTHOLOMÉ.