DEBUT XXI
Amelia Gill, Dylan Marriott, Celline Mercado, Georgia Naughton, Aliza Nickle, Mythra Schwartz, La’la Zarei
3–26 Apr 2025
Announcing DEBUT XXI - an annual curated exhibition of works by recent graduates from Melbourne’s major art institutions. DEBUT is a Blindside project committed to fostering new talent.
Celebrating its 21st year, DEBUT XXI brings together recent graduates working with traditional techniques, historical styles, or otherwise labour-driven processes, representing a shared affinity with artisanal notions of artistic value.
FEATURING THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS:
Georgia Naughton
Amelia Gill
La’la Zarei
Aliza Nickle
Celline Mercado
Dylan Marriott
Mythra Schwartz
Showing Thu 03 - Sat 26 Apr 2025. Opening event Thursday April 3rd, 6-8pm.
This year, Blindside offered an award to graduates from RMIT, MADA, and VCA. All Debut artists received an artist fee, curatorial advice and technical assistance as part of the four week exhibition.
CURATORS Emeline Robinson-Shaw and Veronica Charmont.
An annual curated exhibition of works by recent graduates from Melbourne’s major art institutions. DEBUT is a Blindside project committed to fostering new talent.
Celebrating its 21st year, DEBUT XXI brings together recent graduates working with traditional techniques, historical styles, or otherwise labour-driven processes, representing a shared affinity with artisanal notions of artistic value.
This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.
Amelia Gill (b. 2001 Auckland, New Zealand) lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT University in 2023 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts(Honours) at Monash University in 2024.
Dylan Marriott is an artist working within the boundaries of photography. Originally from Boorloo Perth, he now lives and works in Naarm Melbourne. His photographic practice takes interest in (un)common spaces and the psychological implications of objects and their silhouettes, with a focus on the materiality of the printed image. His most recent solo exhibition, Remember The Darkness, was held in the disused storage rooms of an early Victorian shopfront in Melbourne’s CBD. He recently completed studying Fine Art at the University of Melbourne, with his graduate work awarded the Fiona and Sidney Myer Award, as well as being acquired into George Paton Gallery’s collection.
Celline Mercado (b. 1997, Philippines) is a visual artist always caught in between, searching for a soft place to land. As a Filipino woman of Japanese descent, she is thematically interested in migration, labour and colonial histories. With emphasis on materiality, repetition and rigour, her work spans print, soft sculpture and installation.
Prior to completing a Master of Fine Art at RMIT University, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Double Major in Information Design and Art Management from the Ateneo de Manila University. She has exhibited works around Asia, the United States and Australia, with works held in private collections in the Philippines and Australia.
Georgia Naughton is a visual artist based in Naarm/Melbourne who explores taste and texture in painting to metabolise and distill bodily experience. She recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2024. Recent exhibitions include Dry, Fuzzy, Cold at Propane, Melbourne (2024), and The Emotive Power of Colour at Van Der Plas Gallery, New York (2024).
Aliza Nickle is an artist working on Bunurong Country, exploring the intergenerational creative practices within her family. Her work pays tribute to her grandparents' approaches to ceramics, sculpture, and collage, investigating how inherited knowledge and shared narratives inform her visual and material language. Through labor-intensive, repetitive processes with both manufactured and handmade materials, she embeds meaning in the act of making, fostering a dialogue on lineage, connection, and creative inheritance.
Mythra Schwartz is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist. She studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at RMIT in 2022 and Fine Art Honours at VCA in 2024. Born in Canada, she moved between Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and finally Bali, Indonesia, where her family still lives. Mythra’s work explores the ephemeral nature of perception and experience, capturing the tension between desire and possession, dwelling in the act of reaching for what remains just out of grasp. Her paintings use motifs of shadows, reflections, and blurred forms to evoke a transient, in-between space where memory, desire, and time intertwine, inviting slow engagement and contemplation.
La’la Zarei is an Iranian-Australian artist exploring identity, memory, and migration through drawing, painting, bookbinding, ceramics, printmaking, and watercolour. Since moving to Australia in 2018, she has navigated cultural identity and womanhood in a new environment. Her work tells visual stories of travel and transformation, reflecting personal and universal themes. Showcased in numerous exhibitions, her art offers a compelling narrative on culture, gender, and belonging. Through her multidisciplinary practice, Lala captures the complexities of her experiences, creating thought-provoking pieces that inspire and resonate with diverse audiences.
Emeline Robinson-Shaw Emeline Robinson-Shaw is an emerging curator, arts worker and researcher from Aotearoa living in Naarm. She is a graduate researcher in Art History & Theory at Monash University and a Blindside Board Director. Her research focuses on the relationship between labour, finance, and arts production.
Veronica Charmont is an artist and filmmaker. She creates images to explore the entangled interactions that occur across memory, time, and history. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2022, and was the recipient of the 2019 Majlis Travelling Scholarship. She has exhibited at Gertrude Glasshouse, Blindside, KINGS Ari and Seventh Gallery, and participated in the first online web residency for Temporary Position. She is also a member of film collective Artist Film Workshop.