Colour is at play. Colour is put to work…

Alta Forma is thrilled to present COLOUR SHIFT featuring Peta Kruger, Rachel Schenberg, Danni Schwaag, Audrey Tan, Meredith Turnbull and Raewyn Walsh. COLOUR SHIFT presents six local and international artists working with colour, alongside ideas of the ecological and political entanglements of material in human activity. Using natural and human-made materials the artworks variously explore eco-anxiety, symbolism and the collision of nature and culture. Strategies of repurposing and bricolage connect the artworks, along with formal material choreographies and compositions in shape, form and colour. 

COLOUR SHIFT presents a new series of woven artworks and brooches by Peta Kruger. Using bright, discarded single-use plastics as a textile Peta weaves scenes depicting Australian bushland. Rachel Schenberg’s wall works are constructed from sun-bleached cardboard fruit boxes collected from a local grocery store. Danni Schwaag’s *gender stars* refer to the inclusive typographic use of the asterisk along with the underscore or colon in written German language to incorporate all genders. These works along with her pins, earrings and brooches in galalith and mother-of-pearl are dynamic brightly coloured formal compositions in natural and non-natural materials. Audrey Tan’s small-scale sculptures explore how objects of adornment can act as absorbers of energy, and markers of time, site and self. Meredith Turnbull constructed small-scale sculptures repurpose functional homewares and pop-trash jewellery adornments. Raewyn Walsh’s iconic rounded, glittering brooches and earrings combine found pumice with preciosa crystals and silver in a collision of natural and human-made materials.

About the artists:

Peta Kruger is an artist working across contemporary textiles, public art and contemporary jewellery currently living on Kaurna land. Peta’s textile works highlight the issue of waste plastic and confront her growing eco-anxiety. The plastic used is entirely waste plastic (sourced from households, streets, parks and bins) that was otherwise destined for stormwater or landfill. Peta received her Masters by Research in Visual Arts from the University of South Australia in 2020. Recent exhibitions include: Transformative Repair, JamFactory, Adelaide, 2024; Hadley’s Art Prize, Hadley’s Hotel, Hobart, 2021; and Used, JamFactory, Adelaide, 2020. With the support of Lend lease and ASPECT Studios, Peta completed her first public art project in Steam Mill Lane in Sydney’s Darling Square precinct in 2018. In 2011 she received an Australia Council for the Arts Jump grant and funding from the Ian Potter Foundation to undertake a mentorship with German/New Zealand jeweller Karl Fritsch. Peta was a previous tenant of JamFactory, Adelaide (2011-2013) and an alumna of its Associate program in the Metal Design Studio (2009-2010).

Rachel Schenberg is an artist and writer, currently living on Gadigal land. Her work engages in seriality, and traces the iterative orders of language as means to destabilise centrality, and question the authority of a single voice or perspective. She is a PhD candidate researching iterative poetics in the school of Art and Design at UNSW, where she also teaches histories of contemporary art, and art writing and publishing. Recent exhibitions include:Thousands of Luminous Spheres, Haydens, Melbourne (2025); Five rooms and house rules, curated byTim Woodward, Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne (2024); Language Exchange, curated by Amy Prcevich, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Sydney (2024); SayIt Again, curated by Alex Gawronski, new jörg, Vienna AT (2022); Holding in the hand, curated by James Lynch, Deakin University Art Gallery,Melbourne (2022)

Danni Schwaag is a jewellery artist living and working in Bremen, Germany. Behind each group of works there is a story and intense research into colours and materials and their visual impact. Mother-of-pearl, enamel, galalith - an early form of plastic (1900-1930) - are dominant materials in her work. She also combines wood, copper, dried acrylic paint, porcelain, threads or found objects to create abstract and figurative compositions. After a traineeship as a goldsmith she studied Gemstone and Jewellery Design from 2004-2008 at the Fachhochschule Trier, University of Applied Arts, Idar-Oberstein, Germany and the Escola Massana, Barcelona, Spain. In 2013 her work was awarded with the Bremen advancement award for applied art for her series l’art pour l’art – an ironic view on the fine art scene. Recent exhibitions in 2025 include Kunst RAI Amsterdam, presented by Galerie Door, Amsterdam (NL); Modern Times, Galerie Door, Nijmwegen (NL); Modern Times, Munich Jewellery Week Galerie Door guest of Galerie Smudajescheck, Munich (DE) and in 2024 Faszination Schmuck, 7000 Jahre, Museum of applied Art Cologne (DE). Danni’s work for this exhibition is informed by her artist-in-residence at the Jakob Bengel Foundation and the Idar-Oberstein University of Applied Sciencestjat in 2024.

Audrey Tan is a multidisciplinary artist and jeweller currently based in Naarm via Boorloo. Working across drawing, bricolage, metalsmithing and gardening, she is interested in the entanglements that exist between people and objects - and how objects of adornment can act as absorbers of energy, and markers of time, site and self. Audrey completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from Monash University in 2014 and an Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design at Melbourne Polytechnic in 2018. Recent exhibitions include in 2025, Thousands of Luminous Spheres at Haydens, curated by Hayden Stuart, Dungeon Crawl at Lightworks, curated by Guy Louden and Lyndon Blue, in 2024, an invitation to dance at Cool Change Contemporary, organised by Jess Tan, Salt Water Buffet at Alta Forma, and triple power of plants (with Jess Tan and Seb Temple) at Goolugatup Heathcote in 2023.

Meredith Turnbull is a Naarm based artist, curator and writer. Meredith’s practice focuses on human connections to the world of objects and things, making and material, and the experiential and temporal registers of forms. Meredith completed a PhD in Fine Art at the Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University in 2016, a Bachelor of Fine Art, Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT University in 2005, a Bachelor of Arts and Honours in Art History from La Trobe University in 1999 and the Certificate of Photography from Photographic Imaging Centre – PIC, Hawthorn in 1996. Meredith has exhibited and curated exhibitions nationally and internationally and developed major projects in Australia for Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne University, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, the National Gallery of Victoria and Heide Museum of Modern Art. Recent exhibitions include: Hold, Melbourne Design Week, Daine Singer, Brunswick, 2024, All Together (with Ross Coulter and Roma Turnbull-Coulter), Shepparton Art Museum, 2024, RITA 4: Décor Drive: Jeremy Eaton, John Meade, Reg Preston, Meredith Turnbull, Sutton Project Space, 2023.

Raewyn Walsh is a Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland based jeweller. She investigates the attachments humans have to physical things and ideas that surround collection, possession, ownership and function, and the subsequent associations these themes have with time and memory. Raewyn completed a Bachelor of Design (Honours) from Unitec in 2009. She studied at Unitec under the tutelage of Pauline Bern, Areta Wilkinson and Ilse-Marie Erl. She was the 2011 prize winner of the Objective Art Awards. She participated in the mentoring project HANDSHAKE set up by Peter Deckers, in HANDSHAKE 2, 2016 when Raewyn was mentored by Henriette Schuster and in HANDSHAKE 3, 2017. Raewyn has work held in the collections of The James Wallace Arts Trust and Tairawhiti Museum, Gisborne. Recent exhibitions include: in 2025, A Leaky Abstraction, Nelson Jewellery Week, and GOODNESS, Deutsche Meisterschule Für Mode, Sendlinger-Tor-Platz, Munich-Altstadt-Lehel, Germany and in 2024, Let’s play, Masterworks Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau and Victory over Death, Stanley Street Gallery, Sydney.

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