CityMag is getting to know the artists of ACE Open's 'Studios: 2021' exhibition to understand the opportunities the organisation's studio residencies give to participants. This week, we meet Loren Orsillo and Anna Gore.

Midway through 2020, ACE Open welcomed five artists into its studio space, as part of the arts organisation’s annual Studio Program.

For the participating early-career artists – Sundari Carmody, Anna Gore, Jonathan Kim, Oakey and Loren Orsillo – the Studio Program is a fully supported professional development opportunity, offering the artists 24-hour access to studios for 12 months.

Due to the pandemic, this 2020 cohort of artists were given 18 months in the space, and the resulting work is available to view as part of ACE Open’s current exhibition, Studios: 2021, which runs until 18 December.

CityMag has spent time chatting to the artists about how the Studio Residency has influenced their career and practice, and where they hope to go from here.

Meet artists Loren Orsillo and Anna Gore in conversation about their work below.

ACE Open’s exhibition ‘Studios: 2021’. This photo: Grant Hancock

Loren Orsillo

Tell us about the body of work you’ve created that’s on show in Studios: 2021.
I made this body of work very slowly over the course of the residency. This was a lovely approach as the work was allowed to organically evolve, with each new work informing the next, and with plenty of time to edit, remake and plan. Each element was made as a smaller unit designed to be compositionally ‘completed’ by its interaction with other paintings in the body of work. This meant that although each painting was completed well ahead of schedule, their final installation, or even which would make the final cut, was not decided until I was hanging the works in the gallery space.

Where were you at before your residency with ACE and where are you now?
I felt that before ACE, while my practice was strong in its experimentation, it lacked some of the fine-tuning skills that allow the works to really resolve in a successful way. Any previous successes had always felt like a stroke of luck, rather than a reliable decision that had been made. The setting of ACE gave me the physical space, but also the professional mindset to be able to take control of those aesthetic decisions in my own practice. It also gave me the time to reflect back over those previous ‘fluke’ paintings and really unpack why they worked. Reaching the end of the residency, I have a much greater and more secure understanding of my own practice and its intentions, and have gained a lot of confidence in my decision making.

What’s next for you?
It is my hope to continue researching at a university level, a challenge I hope to embark on ideally within the next few years. In the meantime, I intend to continue to push my practice by pursuing residencies and personal research. Interstate exhibitions will also be a new goal for me. Additionally, I have been sitting on a large project idea that I have been slowly developing for the last three years, based around the translation of a piece of music into a readable sculptural code. So I hope that work can become a reality soon!

What will you be doing five years from now?
In five years time I hope to have achieved or embarked on a higher research degree. I also hope to find myself in an artist-run/self-run studio setting with an inspiring group of working artists around me! Other than these goals, I am quite open to where things take me.

Anna Gore

Tell us about the body of work you’ve created that’s on show in Studios: 2021.
At the time of this exhibition, I have been working on a 10m painting, which is still in the process of taking shape both visually and conceptually. To help me work through this huge project, I’ve been experimenting with ideas through drawings, studies and other processes of material thinking.

The body of work collects the most significant and potentially useful studies and pieces from around my studio. As the studio is a theme for this show, I wanted to reflect on the studio as a site for processing not-quite-formed ideas, for experimenting and testing, and for questioning numerous possibilities.

Where were you at before your residency with ACE and where are you now?
This residency has immediately followed a residency with George Street Studios, where I focused on developing new practical and material skills. At this point, I see that the past 18 months at ACE have been a very reflective time, with a big emphasis on experimenting with different forms and ways to express my ideas.

What’s next for you and what will you be doing five years from now?
My immediate next plan is to continue working on my large painting project. After that, I am not sure, but in the long term, I plan to keep making and exhibiting work as much as possible.