
Josie Cavallaro oscillates between making objects and facilitating projects that enable art to be made and experienced through diverse perspectives. Josie’s sculptural practice is largely informed by the built environment as shared multispecies sites. Her work observes mediated relationships between humans and other species and how conditioned environments and behaviour influence narratives of pest or partner.
As a facilitator, Josie generates projects that aim to extend frameworks for contemporary art practice. She was the co-founder and co-director of Belmore Institute for Try-hard Ceramicists and Handicrafters (Belmore ITCH), a residency program that supported both artists and people from non-arts fields to develop new cultural and/or material applications to ceramics.
Josie believes that diversity and universal access to the arts underpins innovation and broadens perceptions and possibilities for artistic forms.This sensibility and skill-set has led Josie to be employed by arts, cultural and government organisations such as Inner West Council, Accessible Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art and the Biennale of Sydney.
Selected Exhibitions
2021 | Space YZ, Campbelltown Arts Centre (forthcoming) |
2020 | Foothold, Airspace, Sydney* |
2019 | May, Home@735 Art Gallery, Sydney |
Going Gone, Articulate, Sydney | |
2018 | Couplings, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney |
Fisher Ghost Art Prize, Campbelltown Arts Centre | |
2015 | Biggie Smalls, Casual Powerhouse, Sydney |
Che Cosa, Wollongong Art Gallery, Wollongong | |
Notes Towards a Future Feminist Archive, Cross Art Books, Sydney | |
2014 | Glazed and Confused, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, Sydney |
2013 | Spin, Marrickville Garage, Marrickville* |
2012 | Hold your EFTOS machine to the sky, First Draft Gallery, Sydney* |
Awkward Silence, Seventh Gallery Melbourne | |
2011 | Green Bans Art Walk, Walks Season at Performance Space, Sydney |
2010 | Texting Pigeons, MOP projects, Sydney* |
2009 | Correspondence, Liquid Architecture 10, Performance Space, Sydney |
Embroidery takes too long to do, Mori Gallery, Sydney* | |
Hidden, Rookwood Sculpture Walk, Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney | |
2008 | Awkward Silence (with Anne Kay), Institute of Modern Art, Newtown (I.C.A.N), Sydney |
Anaesthesia for the Uninterested, First Draft, Sydney* | |
2007 | Loose Ends, Loose, Sydney |
2006 | Like Talking to a Brick Wall, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra* |
It’s a New Day, Artspace, Sydney | |
* | solo exhibitions |
Selected Projects and Related Employment
2014-2019 | Coordinator of public programs, Inner West Council Library and History/formerly Marrickville Council |
Produced and coordinated Community Opening for Marrickville Library | |
2011- 2016 | Co-director, Belmore ITCH – Institute for Try-hard Ceramicists and Handicrafters |
2014 | Presenter, Contemporary Outsider Art: The Global Context, University of Melbourne |
2013 | Convener, Supported Studios: Possibility and Potential, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |
2008-2012 | For Accessible Arts,established and project managed partnership with the Bundanon Trust to host a series of residency opportunities for NSW artists with disability |
2006-2011 | For Accessible Arts, facilitated and project managed AART.BOXX, a series of national survey exhibitions of recent works by artists with disability. Exhibition partners included, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney Opera House, SCA Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. |
2010 | Audio Describer, 17th Biennale of Sydney, The Beauty of Distance |
Prior to 2010 | Educator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Tutor, Pine Street Creative Arts Centre, City of Sydney, Artist Coordinator, Sculpture by the Sea |
Selected Reviews and Occasional Writings*
2016 | Art Factory Catalogue Essay, Artlands, Dubbo by Josie Cavallaro |
2015 | The Outsider Mirage by Josie Cavallaro and Kris Tito, Runway issue # 27, accessed 6 June* |
Throwing Pots to See What Sticks by Rebecca Gallo, Raven, published 20 January | |
Biggies Smalls by Stella Rosa McDonald, The Art Life 2.0, published 24 May | |
2014 | Tuesday’s Child by Josie Cavallaro and Amanda Tink, ON: Audio Journal for Experimental Art and Culture, issue # 1, published 1 September * |
2013 | Finding a Place in the Art World by Lucas Ihlein, Real Time issue # 118 Dec-Jan Pg.6 |
2012 | Hold Your EFTPOS Machine to the Sky by Sharne Wolff, The Art Life, published 12 Oct |
2010 | Lives of the Artists: Scenes from a non-comprehensive history of Sydney’s artist-run initiatives by Anne Finnegan, Time and Space, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, p. 13-20 |
* | artist writings |