BIOGRAPHY
SERA WATERS
EDUCATION
2006 Embroidery Summer School courses, Royal School of Needlework, Surrey, UK
2003-2006 Masters of Arts in Art History, Adelaide University
1997-2000 Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours), SASA, University of SA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2012
Sensation Seekers, Fontanelle Gallery, Adelaide SA (upcoming – March)
Objectified, SASA Gallery, Adelaide SA (upcoming – April)
...build me a city, AEAF, curated by Vivonne Thwaites, Adelaide SA (upcoming – Oct)
2011
CavernLight, Lowrise Projects, Melbourne VIC
Sensorial Loop, Tamworth Textile Triennial, curated by Patrick Snelling, Tamworth, NSW (+ touring)
Flocked, Inside SAM’s Place residency, SA Museum (with Craftsouth), Adelaide SA
artroom5, Adelaide SA
Imagining Interiors, curated by Wendy Walker, Jam Factory, Adelaide, SA
Home Stories, Adelaide Central Gallery + Migration Museum, curated by VivonneThwaites, Adelaide SA
Covet, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide SA
2010
Flyblown, FELTspace, Adelaide SA
Moving Wounded (ongoing participatory project): http://littleweeds.conservatory.org.au/theMovingWounded.html
Consumed, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide SA
Little Weeds, online (littleweeds.conservatory.org.au) + Peel Street exhibition space (with Format Festival) + Seedling Art Space, curated by Lisa Harms, Adelaide SA
2009
Nell Pearson, Sera Waters, Claude Jones & Beci Orpin, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane Qld
Just Is, Max Dawn Gallery, curated by Bev Southcott, Adelaide SA
Craft’n Disaster, The Project Space, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide SA
Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award, Wangaratta Vic
artroom5, Adelaide SA
Talente 2009, International Trade Fair, Munich, Germany
2008
artroom5, Adelaide SA
2007
Spirited Away, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide, SA
Quiet Hands, Gaff Gallery, curated by Rayleen Forrester, Port Adelaide SA
Hedgemaze, Light Square Gallery, Adelaide SA
2006
Crooks & Nannies, downtown art space, Adelaide SA
2001
Hatched, National Graduate Show, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth WA
SELECTED GRANTS & AWARDS
2010 Project & Development Grant, Arts SA
2005 AJA Roy Terrill Prize, Japanese Art History Essay Prize, Adelaide University
2005 Ruth Tuck Scholarship, South Australian Youth Arts Board
2002 Artists-in-studios, South Australian Youth Arts Board
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Jude, 'Three Artists- in the world: Anne Kay, Irmina Van Niele, Sera Waters', Artlink, vol 29, no 2, 2009
Benson, Garry, ‘Sera Waters: Danger and Domesticity’, Textile Fibre Forum, Vol 30, Issue 3, no 103, 2011, pp. 32-35.
Clifton, Catherine, ‘All Stitched up’, Adelaide Matters, issue 107, February 2009, pp. 28-29.
Dunt, Nerina, ‘Craft’n Disaster: Sera Waters’, Object, issue 59, October 2009, p. 58.
Harms, Lisa, ‘Sera Waters’, FELTspace GOLD, 2011, pp. 116-119.
Harris, Samela, 'Huge Appetite for Arts', Adelaide Advertiser, 21 April 2010
Hart, Jenny, ‘Sera Waters’, Embroidery as Art blog, Jan 12, 2010 (http://embroideryasart.blogspot.com/)
Hemmings, Dr Jessica, ‘The Dark Side’, embroidery (UK), vol. 60, Sept/Oct 2009, pp. 24-27.
Kemp, Jemima, ‘During the South Australian Living Artists Festival’, Point Blank, Point 3, 09/08.
Neylon, John, ‘Flights of Fancy’, The Adelaide Review, April 2011
Nunn, Louise, ‘The Birds up there’, The Advertiser, July 7 2011
Radok, Stephanie, ‘Filling an extraordinary space’, The Adelaide Review, no 253, Sept 28, 2004, pp 20-21
Zeplin, Dr Pamela, ‘Sera Waters: Crooks & Nannies’, Craft Culture online, Craft Victoria, http://www.craftculture.org/Review/pzeplin1.htm, 2007
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2011-2012 Contemporary Embroidery workshops, Art Gallery of South Australia
2010-current Studio member of The Incinerator, Thebarton, SA
2005-current Committee Member on Adelaide Visual Arts Critic Circle, since Nov 2005.
2005-current Lecturing and tutoring in Art History at Adelaide University, Adelaide Central School of Art and South Australian School of Art (University of South Australia).
2004 – current Arts writer for various local and national publications and catalogues
2010 AAANZ conference, presenter in Relational Craft session + Chair, Post Graduate Symposium
2010 Artistspeak, University of South Australia
2007-2009 Peer Assessment Panel, Arts SA
2007 Key note speaker, SALA Festival, Art Gallery of South Australia
2005-2009 Studio member of Hedgemaze, Port Adelaide, SA
2005 Project Assistant, Tatsuo Miyajima residency, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia
COLLECTIONS
The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, University of Western Australia
Private Collections, South Australia and New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Sera Waters is an Adelaide based artist and writer. She has spent time living in Tokyo and is a graduate of the Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours), South Australian School of Art (1997-2000), and was selected for Hatched, the National Graduate Exhibition at PICA in 2001. In 2006 Waters was awarded the Ruth Tuck Scholarship, which enabled her to attend the Royal School of Needlework (Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, UK) to intensely study hand embroidery. This experience, alongside her postgraduate research into Japanese visions of the monstrous and catastrophic (Master of Arts, studies in Art History, Adelaide University, 2003-2006), lead Waters into a practice which is characterised by darkly stitched meticulousness. In 2009 three of Waters’ black-works from her Crooked Lineage explorations of petty crime were selected to be exhibited in Talente, in Munich, Germany. These fascinations have continued to develop into an exploration of repetitive crafting; a theory Waters has been explicating through conferences and publications. Waters is a studio member of The Incinerator, Thebarton, exhibits locally and interstate, and teaches art history and theory at Adelaide Central School of Art and in the Postgraduate Art History program, Adelaide University.