Artist in Residence, The Old School Mt Wilson

Artist in Residence, The Old School Mt Wilson The Artist in Residence program provides accommodation and exclusive use of a studio for one month.

A very warm welcome to Donovan Christie, our very first 2026-27 Artist in Residence!Donovan’s work celebrates the nostal...
13/09/2026

A very warm welcome to Donovan Christie, our very first 2026-27 Artist in Residence!

Donovan’s work celebrates the nostalgic character and charm of everyday life, those often-overlooked moments, places, and objects that quietly shape our collective memory.

With a realist approach and a strong eye for detail, Donovan invites us to pause and re-examine the familiar.

Through oil paint and installations, he documents the urban landscape and cultural relics of contemporary Australia; corner stores, ghost signs, snack foods, advertising, and household icons - capturing their significance before they fade away.

His work functions as a time capsule of a recent era, resonating across generations and backgrounds by unlocking memories long forgotten by the viewer.The works depicted are from a current series he’s working on and indicative of the pieces he’s painting while in residence.

All six pieces depicted in this post are from the current series Donovan os working on and indicative of the pieces he’ll be painting while in residence.

All are Oil on Linen in Custom Frame 40x48cm with the titles as follows:

Gettin’ Caught In The Rain (Big Pineapple)

Fields of Gold (Big Gold Miner)

Twist of Colour (Big Rubiks Cube)

Seafood Cocktail (Big Prawn)

Eternal Flame (Big Matchsticks)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Big Golf Ball)

06/09/2026

And now we wait 🤗

01/09/2026

This month, the first of our seven selected artists will commence their residency!

Contemporary Australian painter, Donovan Christie will be immersing himself in the distinctive natural and cultural character of the mountain and the surrounding area.

Donovan’s practice explores memory, nostalgia and Australian identity, often drawing on regional landscapes, historic architecture and culturally significant places.

His work is particularly interested in how places accumulate stories and how they become sources of both personal and collective memory.

During his residency, Donovan will spend time observing and photographing Mount Wilson’s landscapes, gardens, streetscapes and historic buildings, as well as talking with locals. These encounters will inform a new body of oil studies, sketches, photographs and paintings created during his time at The Old School.

We’re excited and looking forward to seeing Mount Wilson through Donovan’s eyes and to following the stories, observations and works that emerge along the way!

Be sure to follow along with us throughout September as his residency unfolds.

30/08/2026

In October, we’re delighted to welcome Dr Cathy Franzi as the Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

Cathy is a Canberra-based visual artist whose ceramic practice explores how Australian plants and environmental knowledge can be expressed through form and surface.

With a background in science and research in botanical sciences, natural history collections and fieldwork, her work brings scientific curiosity and artistic interpretation together in distinctive ways.

During her residency, Cathy will explore Mount Wilson’s endemic flora, landscape and environmental history in spring, developing ideas for a new body of work.

Through walking, observing, photographing and sketching, she will investigate the area’s distinctive plants and geological features before translating her research into ceramic forms and surfaces.

Cathy’s work has a distinctive textural language, using techniques including sgraffito, incising and hand-drawn stencils to capture the character of plants and evoke the ecosystems of a particular place.

We look forward to following Cathy’s residency as she explores Mount Wilson through both a scientific and aesthetic lens, and watch on as a new body of work takes shape.

30/08/2026

This November, we’re delighted to welcome Lisa Walker as the Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

Lisa is a photographer and artist whose practice is interested in the impermanent states of nature and in the beauty that emerges through light and shade in the landscape.

During her residency, she will immerse herself in Mount Wilson’s distinctive environment, creating a new series of black-and-white photographic landscape images.

From bushland and rainforest to lookouts and open gardens, Lisa will explore the many textures and contrasts of the region, developing work for an upcoming 2027 exhibition at William Mora Galleries in Melbourne.

Lisa also brings a collage and works-on-paper practice to her residency, with plans to share this aspect of her work through a community workshop.

We look forward to following Lisa’s creative journey as she captures Mount Wilson through her distinctive visual language; finding beauty in its shifting light, shadow and ever-changing natural world.

📷

27/08/2026

In February 2027, we’ll be welcoming Nigel Featherstone as the Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

Nigel is a writer whose literary practice has spanned three decades, with longform fiction at its core.

But poetry has been part of his creative life from the beginning, and over the past decade he has returned to the form; for both the stage and the page.

His work has appeared in leading literary journals and has been shortlisted for the ACU Prize for Poetry and the Newcastle Poetry Prize.

For Nigel, this residency is also deeply personal.

He has a lifelong connection with Mount Wilson, from childhood holidays at Pine Lodge in the 1970s to teenage years at Applecot.

His proposed suite of poems will explore the mountain’s natural and manmade environments, its layers of history, the impact of bushfire and the fascinating territory between memory and imagination.

Nigel also plans to compose music to accompany the poems, drawing on field recordings as part of his creative process.

We look forward to following Nigel as he returns to a place he knows so well, and discovers new ways of seeing, remembering and listening to Mount Wilson.

22/08/2026

In March 2027, we’ll be welcoming Sarah Randall as the Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

Sarah’s landscape paintings explore the space between human influence and the natural world.

Drawing from the environments around her, she paints rural landscapes and distinctive forms unique to their place - exploring the quiet negotiation between our intentions and nature’s persistent resistance.

During her residency, Sarah intends to create a new series of oil paintings en plein air, responding directly to Mount Wilson’s landscapes and capturing their likeness, atmosphere and feeling. She is particularly drawn to the harmony between the handmade and the natural here; from established gardens to the distinctive land formations of the high-altitude landscape.

We’re looking forward to seeing Mount Wilson through Sarah’s eyes as she steps beyond the familiar and discovers new terrain through her painting.

Follow along as we introduce our other artists for the upcoming season 🙌

21/08/2026

In May 2027, we’re delighted to welcome Eva Torkkola as the Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

Eva is a writer, director and interdisciplinary artist of Ukrainian-Finnish heritage.

Her work explores grief, migration, feminine interiority, inherited memory and landscape as psychological terrain.

She is currently developing her debut novel, Something Has Died in the Forest, alongside a feature screenplay of the same name.

For Eva, landscape is more than a setting.
Before arriving at Mount Wilson, she plans to walk through the Snowy Mountains, one of the novel’s primary settings, immersing herself in places she needs to experience before she can write about them honestly. She will arrive carrying the landscape “in my body”.

At Mount Wilson, Eva will use the studio for daily writing and the surrounding landscape for walking and thinking. The gardens, forest, light and weather of the mountains will feed directly into a novel concerned with the relationship between inner life and outer terrain.

Her goal is to complete a full first draft of the novel or, if it needs more time, establish the structural blueprint and extended outline from which she can immediately continue.

We look forward to following Eva’s residency and seeing what emerges when landscape, memory and imagination meet in the stillness of Mount Wilson.

16/08/2026

Yesterday, Jonathan, and previous Artist in Residence, Alex Raineri treated the local community to a special Music to Soothe the Soul performance at St George’s Church.

It was cold, misty and drizzly outside, which made for a more cozy and intimate experience in this beautiful space.
And this piece was a delight 🤗

Jonathan is truly looking forward to his residency in January which he says will allow him precious space and time to explore his craft.

We are too!

Meet Jonathan Henderson 🎶In January 2027, we’ll be welcoming Jonathan, flautist and composer, as our Mount Wilson Artist...
12/08/2026

Meet Jonathan Henderson 🎶

In January 2027, we’ll be welcoming Jonathan, flautist and composer, as our Mount Wilson Artist in Residence.

A classical flautist based in Sydney, Jonathan has enjoyed an international career as a recitalist, chamber musician and orchestral player, including as Principal Flute with the Estonian National Opera Orchestra.

During his residency, he’ll turn his attention to another part of his artistic practice: composition.

Jonathan will use his time at the Old School to explore his compositional language and work towards a new sonata for flute and piano. He describes Mount Wilson’s natural surroundings, remoteness and stillness as ideal conditions for uninterrupted creative work - creating space to listen, experiment, reflect and allow unexpected ideas to emerge.

And for Mount Wilson residents only, this Saturday, Jonathan will treat the community to a special Music to Soothe the Soul performance, ‘Waves At Play’ at St George’s Church – Lucky us!

Follow along as we introduce our other artists for the upcoming season!

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Mount Wilson, NSW
2786

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+61410632096

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