Nillumbik Artist in Residence Program

The Nillumbik Artist in Residence Program creates artist residencies for local creatives to explore their practice in an environment removed from the distractions of everyday life, connect to the Nillumbik community and develop Nillumbik-inspired work.

2026-27 program

Applications for the next Artist in Residence program will open in 2026.

2025-26 Nillumbik Artist in Residence program

The Nillumbik Artist in Residence Program 2025-26 has been expanded through additional partnerships to offer artists access to new art spaces and training opportunities. The program offers four separate residencies, all located within Nillumbik.

Each residency offers the successful artists:

• an artist support grant
• an artist-in-residence space
• orientation and induction
• creative support
• promotion
• access to cutting-edge technology. 

2025-26 Artists in Residence

   

Artists: Katie Stackhouse (top left), Teneille Clerke (top right), Dr Tamara Jordon (bottom left), Brendan Huntley (bottom right - Photo by Charlie Kinross)

Baldessin Press & Studio

This residency is open to printmakers and visual artists using printmaking processes in their art practice.

Brendan Huntley

Brendan Huntley is a painter, sculptor and lyricist. His art practice is autobiographical, exploring themes around the human psyche, connection and community. Brendan has exhibited throughout Australia and internationally over 23 years at institutions such as NGV, AGSA, MCA, MPRG and Heide Museum. He is represented by Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne. Brendan is also the frontman and lyricist in the punk band Eddy Current Suppression Ring.

At Baldessin, Brendan is excited to explore new techniques, particularly using the Albion relief press and intaglio printmaking with aquatints.

Banyule Nillumbik Tech School

This residency is open to artists of all mediums and provides access to BNTS’s cutting-edge technology.

Katie Stackhouse

Through sculpture, installation, painting and public art, Katie explores notions of time, ecology, and contemporary human interactions with place. She undertakes detailed site-based research, exploring the interplay between living systems, material resonance, and human behaviour.

Katie is excited that through this residency, she will have the opportunity to utilise highly refined technical equipment to explore and extend new ways of using technical processes, digital media, and sculpture making within her studio practice and community.

Edendale Community Environment Farm

This residency is open to individual artists and small artist groups of all mediums whose art practice has a focus on the environment, sustainability, biodiversity, climate, the history of Edendale or a related subject matter.

Dr Tamara Jordon

Dr Tamara Jordan is a visual artist, art educator and researcher who lives and works in Eltham. Her creative practice is driven by a great passion for combining visual storytelling with environmental and social activism.

Tamara’s work as a volunteer wildlife carer inspired her to create the children’s picture book “Lulu the Lucky Possum.”

Tamara will use her residency to research, write and illustrate a new children’s book concept focusing on coexistence, conservation, and sustainability. As part of her research, she wants to learn more about sustainable gardening. Edendale Farm is an ideal place to accomplish this creative goal. Tamara’s children’s book project aims to raise awareness of environmental and wildlife welfare issues, whilst providing some simple and practical ideas demonstrating what each of us can do for a positive change.

Writer in Residence at Yarra Plenty Regional Library (Eltham Library)

This residency is open to writers and literary artists of all genres. 

Teneille Clerke

Teneille Clerke is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans performance, visual art, and writing. She is a current Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, and her essay on domestic abuse was shortlisted for the 2025 Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award. Her work has been published in Gippslandia and broadcast on 3RRR. Teneille is the editor of Fast Fashun Collective’s art zine series, launched at the NGV’s Melbourne Art Book Fair. Her live and digital works have been nominated for multiple Green Room Awards and presented at Sydney Festival, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Midsumma, Re//Perth, Science Gallery, and more.

Teneille grew up in Nillumbik, and during her residency she will work on a memoir that navigates the complexities of intergenerational domestic abuse, mental illness, class, gender, love and death. Told in vivid, sensory prose, the work blends unfiltered honesty with dark humour, offering nuanced, candid representations of survival, identity, and the messiness of personal and relational change.