24th October to 17th November 2026

Jo Davies – ceramics
Kate Herd – prints
Sharyn Madder – drawings

Three Alphington artists explore the cycles of growth, renewal and decay, looking closely at the life that surrounds us – from gardens and local flora and fauna to the wild, weathered and overlooked spaces at the edges of the city. Through ceramics, prints and drawings, Regeneration considers nature as both fragile and persistent: adapting, returning and reclaiming.
The exhibition finds beauty in change and imperfection, inviting us to notice the quiet processes of transformation taking place all around us.

Kate Herd – prints

Kate is an artist and author who designs and makes stuff – often gardens, but she has been known to mess about with fabric, paper, wood and steel. Her works on paper – whether in the form of drawings, papercuts or prints – tend to reflect a love of flora and fauna and a passion for the Australian bush and gardens. Gardens both wild and cultivated provide stimulus for her art practice; she see gardens as a locus for nature and community. Kate’s linocuts and etchings celebrate the morphology of flowers, plants and wildlife, the colours of foliage, fungi and seedpods, as well as express a fascination with ecology and interspecies relationships.

Jo Davies – ceramics

Jo works as a sculptor using clay to create hand-built forms that reference both functional and sculptural detail found in nature. Her fascination with the “fallen gifts” nature provides, sees her collecting remnants from the banks of her riverside environment. A sculptural response allows Jo to use scale and a more permanent material to exaggerate and capture deterioration; highlighting how we observe our landscape, celebrating imperfection and seasonal change.  Stand-alone or placed in an installation, the ceramic forms recreate a new environment of their own. 

Sharyn Madder – drawings

Sharyn Madder has worked as a freelance illustrator and natural history artist for the Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne Museum, the Gould League and Parks Victoria. Illustrating whimsical scenes that speak of wonder and imagination, she shares a deep familiarity with the natural forms that populate her scenes, vistas and vignettes. Closely involved with the ‘Alphington Open Studios’ artists collective. Sharyn works intimately with place and locality