Nat Penney (b.1991) is an artist based in Tarntanya (Adelaide). Combining processes from timber furniture making and metal fabrication with found and formed objects, she considers the sensory desires in things, looking for subconscious object impulses. She’s driven by an obsession and confusion over psychological and emotional states and their reciprocal exchange with our relationships, environments, and the objects we engage with.

Recent works are drawing from experiences of loneliness and how they are shaped not only by absence, but by conditional presence. Looking into the atmosphere of familial domesticity she searches for pleasing points of interconnectedness between the familiar and the eerie; for absurdist moments that engage themselves through futile motion and maybe make you smirk.

Her practice often incorporates materials weighted heavily in nostalgia, such as tiles from her renovated childhood bathroom or her parents’ wooden tennis racquets, embedding personal histories into sculptural objects. These materials act as communicators and carriers of memory, yet memory and nostalgia themselves are malleable, untrustworthy, and sometimes irresponsible, reshaping perception and altering what we take to be truth.

CV

email: nat.pen@live.com.au

Education

2017 Bachelor of Creative Arts, Honours (First Class), Flinders University, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2016 Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design, Adelaide College of the Arts, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia

Solo exhibitions

2024 a winter beach is a good place for seeing clearly, Newmarch Gallery, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2024 making beds inside post anchors, POP (Post Office Projects), Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2019 simple actions/sensory satisfactions in the unrest, FELTspace ARI, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2019 watch this space, Newmarch Gallery, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2017 SALA at FELTspace, FELTspace ARI, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia

Two person exhibitions

2022 Limits and Leavings, with Eleanor Amor, Bus Projects, land of the Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung language groups (Collingwood), Australia

Selected group exhibitions

2026 10+10+DRG 10 Year Anniversary, curated by Robert Rearson David Roche Gallery, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2025 personal colleague; no one is a kitchen island for ‘every*where’: Adelaide Design Week, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2025 ‘motion’ for ‘every*where’: Adelaide Design Week, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2025 The Other Room, Seventh Gallery, Richmond, VIC, Australia
2025 Reflections of Home- Vol. 2: Material & Culture, curated by Bolaji Teniola Rotterdam Design Biennale, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2024 Dance Machine, curated by Tom Golin, Household Presents, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2024 HEAVY // lite, curated by Dre Fuzz, Praxis ARTSPACE, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2024 nearly an exhibition, curated by Asha Southcombe, Nearly Bar, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2024 Soft Fascinations, curated by Brianna Speight, fab workshop, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2020 on being an artist, curated by eDuard Helmbold, Praxis ARTSPACE, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2019 poles of art, curated by Ed James, Prospect Gallery, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2019 FELT Auction, FELTspace ARI, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2017 The Porous Edge, Light Square Gallery, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2016 Ingress: Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition, Light Square Gallery, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2016 ERROR, Glitch Experimental Art Space, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2016 NOW/ALL/MORE, Glitch Experimental Art Space, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2015 PTADL Studio Launch/Pop Up! Opening, Glitch Experimental Art Space, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia

Grants/awards/professional highlights

2025 CreateSA Major Collaboration Grant
2025 Arts South Australia Project Grant
2023-Present Director at fab workshop, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2023 Jam Factory- Furniture Associate, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2022 Helpmann Creative Development Grant
2021 Arts South Australia Project Grant
2020 Helpmann Covid-19 Relief Fund Grant
2015-2018 Co-Director at Glitch Experimental Art Space, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2016 FELTspace emerging artist award

Residencies

2019 George Street Studios Residency (Helpmann Academy), Kaurna Country (Adelaide) Australia
2018 Sanskriti Kendra Artist Residency (Helpmann Academy), New Delhi, India

Publications and press

Nat Penney finds clarity in a winter beach, 2024, Art Guide (May Edition)

Employment

2020-present Freelance Metal Fabricator, Kaurna Country (Adelaide), Australia
2020-present Timber Furniture Maker, Agostino & Brown, Kaurna Country (Adelaide) Australia
2024-present Casual Install Technician, Samstag Gallery, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia
2022-23 Casual Install Technician, ACE, Tarntanya (Adelaide), Australia

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Fabrication