Affordable Art Fair – Royal Exhibition Building
28 – 31 August 2025
The Naarm Textile Collective will be representing four artists, all based in Naarm/Melbourne, at this year’s Melbourne Affordable Art Fair
Carol Rowlands is an artist who draws with free machine stitching on fabric, producing sculptural forms through collage, applique, and layering. She finds inspiration in the stories, memories, imagination and history that shadow objects, wildlife, and their environment. She experiments with various materials and techniques, learning from successes and failures, which can be a pathway for moving forward. Even the smallest adventure in work mimics our experience of life. We repair and replace so that our lives are a work in progress. www.carolrowlands.net
Maryanne Moodie weaves like she lives: with colour, emotion, and a little bit of chaos. A self-taught textile artist, she has been weaving since 2011, turning threads of memory into tangible stories. Drawing on themes of motherhood, nostalgia, and the messiness of everyday life, her vibrant woven works honour transformation and hold space for feeling. Each piece is a gentle tangle of tradition and intuition—crafted to be lived with, not just looked at. maryannemoodie.com
Sally Darlison’s work is about place and our connection to place. A collage artist, she uses a variety of media, combining fabric, photos, maps, text and various printmaking techniques. Sally aims to share some of her awe of the world, both natural and built, with others using machine and hand stitch to draw, bind and link. Her art practice has evolved from working predominantly in textiles to working with a combination of media drawn together by her love of stitch. She is particularly aware of the impact we as humans have made on the world and aims to limit her negative impact by using repurposed materials. sallydarlison.com
Tamara Russell specialises in free machine embroidery, hand stitching and mending. In her textile practice, she combines traditional and modern embroidery techniques to depict social issues and tell stories about society and family links. Her love of discarded materials and family heirlooms emphasizes sustainability and connects generations. In creating her Textile Kintsugi pieces she recreates discarded ceramics using reclaimed textiles to wrap broken pieces and reassemble them with stitch, enhancing the ‘scars’. She loves the unpredictability of found materials and enjoys the inventiveness required to transform them. karhina.com
