Shared Horizons

An Exhibition by Four Artists

Kate Anderson / Doffy White / Annalise Fairfax / Sandy Pratten

Curated by Tony Scott

Shared Horizons – Curatorial Statement
Shared Horizons evokes journeys: of travel, of artistic discourse, and of the continuous flow between cultures. Each artist reflects on how their experiences of travel and friendship reshaped their understanding of making and meaning—how the rhythm of paint and pencil on paper, the capturing of images, or the making of objects can speak to connection and personal experience.
The title Shared Horizons speaks of memory and artistic evolution The artists, Kate Anderson, Annalise Fairfax, Doffy White, Sandy Pratten reflect on how encounters and travel have shaped their understanding of making, belonging and cultural identity. The exhibition highlights how art can move between language and histories, finding resonance in shared gestures of craft, medium and mark making.
In a world often defined by distance Shared Horizons celebrates the spaces in between—those fragile, fertile zones where art and memory cross borders, finding harmony in dialogue and the artistic process.
Shared Horizons is about more than exhibiting artwork together. It is a celebration of creative exchange, mutual encouragement and the friendships that have shaped our artistic journeys. Shared Horizon is not a single destination but a place where different perspectives meet, challenge and inspire one another.
The artists hope this exhibition invites visitors to slow down, look closely and discover connections within the works. Whether through the natural world, personal memories or shared experiences their hope is that these artworks encourage reflection and remind us that while each of us sees the world differently our stories often intersect in meaningful ways.

Kate Anderson – Artists Statement

Today in 21st Century China western influence and practice has grown but still the constraints of the ancient culture remain and inform everyday life.
My photographs and digital prints form a visual diary of my encounters. Through the juxtaposition of everyday objects, food, people and cultural artifacts, seemingly unrelated images begin to speak to one another. Familiar things become carriers of memory and symbolism, revealing unexpected connections between domestic life, traditional practice and contemporary experience.
Or more personally and simply; I collect images intuitively, then bring them together to discover the relationships between them and to invest them with a personal meaning.

Kate Anderson, Sydney September 2026

Annalise Fairfax -Artist Statement

In my love of drawing I have concentrated on what one might consider ordinary things – plants, flowers, figures and natural objects which I find to be a source of wonder. I particularly love collecting and drawing seedpods. Pods float across oceans like ancient fertility goddesses, their womb forms carrying precious seeds to bear fruit in far horizons. Sometimes we also need to leave familiar shores and dive into the unknown (to be “at sea”), in order to journey into new creative possibilities. In that liminal place there might be no sight of a horizon.
Engaging in looking and observing takes us into that space where time slows down. Drawing involves more senses than the eyes. I love the feeling of a graphite pencil gliding over the page. A stick of charcoal can be an extension of my fingers, sculpting a form like stroking a shiny leaf or touching the woody prickliness of a pod. Smooth or rough paper enhances unexpected marks which can be a surprise and create mystical landscapes. Having my fingers gritty and black with charcoal while I rub in tone and shadow makes for a good day.
In this exhibition, each pod drawing is a postcard, a moment in time, when it was discovered on a coastal walk, where the nearby sea formed a distant horizon.

Annalise Fairfax, Sydney September 2026

Sandy Pratten – Artists Statement

As a horticulturist and artists my travels have deepened my understanding of the relationships between people, plants and place. Travel has broadened this relationship and landscapes fascinate me as a living archive . Although the images I paint lie across different continents they have shared horizons, physically and also invisibly as a link with the human condition and spirit.
All these landscapes fascinate me as a living archive and a symbol for hope for the future. In my art I endeavour to capture this feeling, to express the beauty and the power of this enduring connection.
I really enjoy painting in the field, pleine air, because surrounded by the natural world I have direct contract with it, sounds scents and the living form. In the studio rather than representing specific places, I paint abstracted works in response to my feeling and emotions , using colour, texture and line to evoke my connection to the landscape and environment around me.
I think of an horizon as more than a physical boundary, rather as a place of possibility, where memory, experience and imagination can converge. Through abstraction, I hope the viewer might find their own horizons within my work.

Sandy Pratten Sydney 2026

Doffy White – Artist Statement

These small sculptures began as a series of simple caboard cone forms, each one an open invitation to explore materials and see what might emerge. Working with Japanese paper clay and oil paint, I added whatever felt right in the moment – fabric, beads, ribbons, tassels, tiny bells, driftwood, stones, wood shavings and fragments of the natural world. Nude figures, both female and male, appear alongside bushfire – scarred landscapes, ghost gums and sheep, cockatoos, and a solitary magpie, distant mountains under falling rain, hills and rivers, and abstract banksias. The subjects arrive through play rather than plan, one form suggested the next.
Each cone is closed at the top with its own collection of found or fashioned elements- rocks, fur, fabric, nests filled with tiny eggs, and other small additions that complete the form while adding another quite layer of texture and presence.
I have always believed that once a work leaves the studio it belongs to the viewer. Meaning is not fixed by the maker. These pieces are offered in that spirit – small tactile objects that may speak of the human body and the Australian land, of endurance and fragility, of journey and return or of something else entirely. They sit within a shared conversation about lasting friendship, the places we have travelled and the quite persistence of making art together.

Doffy White, Sydney, September 2026