kaurna yarta

“australia”

Nat Penney is an artist based in Tarntanya (Adelaide). She has a multidisciplinary practice which engages with sculpture, kinetics and painting, with a physicality that alters. She’s intrinsically wired to shift through an expansive variety of fields, including woodwork and metal fabrication, in order to test the extent of her technical capabilities; restless.

In a perpetual state of flux, her recent work has been investigating the potential impact that being in constant motion has upon human functionality and the multilayered nature of human perception; with the underlying, tenacious objective of how her work can have broader purpose. Nat creates intricately constructed and technically considered works that question whether states of disorientation and ambivalence are conducive to expanded creative thought, in an attempt to better understand the path and function of the complex individual within the larger context of our external and internal worlds. Her work develops from within an ever-evolving state of uncertainty and indecision, belonging and not belonging, flailing through the peaks and troughs of searching for a fit, as she navigates her environments. She searches for unexpected material combinations and making processes, resulting in awkward and humorous situations, often resulting in flip flopping moments that can be both discomforting and titillating. Her practice similarly bounces somewhere between functionality and uselessness, preferring not to settle on either, sifting through for an insight into productive pathways for making a practice that looks outward, that becomes more purposeful than itself.

Penney graduated from Adelaide College of the Arts with first class honours in 2017. She has exhibited at Bus Projects (VIC), Praxis ARTSPACE (SA), FELTspace (SA), Glitch Experimental Artspace (SA) and Light Square Gallery (SA). In 2018 she was selected by Helpmann Academy for a 6 week artist residency at Sanskriti Kendra Museums in India and completed a 6 month studio residency at George Street Studios, where she now resides permanently. Her time at George Street Studios has resulted in employment as a metal fabricator, and her recent employment at Agostino and Brown afforded her the opportunity to learn furniture making. Both of these making processes feed back into her arts practice. Nat is a 2023 Furniture Associate with the Jam Factory. SA.