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Sarah Thornton-Smith

@sazts

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curious about colour, convos + connections©

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5 DAYS TO GO | Tied Up With String

Revisiting the hugely popular blind box fundraiser, Mundaring Arts Centre Inc. invited sixty-one established, mid-career and emerging Western Australian artists who have been crucial to our programming over the past 6 years, to think inside the box and create small, intimate covetable artworks contained within identical wooden boxes, Tied Up With String.

SAVE THE DATE | Boxes on sale | $300, 15 OCT 6pm

Details to come - visit link in bio or https://www.mundaringartscentre.com.au/exhibitions/tied-up-with-string

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National Works on Paper 2026 features artists from across Australia, and we were delighted to welcome several of them to MPRG for the exhibition opening.

📸@Kinfolk_imagery

Pictured here are: Sarah Duyshart and father, Unfolding vessel 4: Scaling series, 2026, charcoal on paper.

Sarah Thornton-Smith, Rapture (detail), 2025, etching inks on hosho paper.

Caleb Arcifa, Sonant autograph of Joini (If I ain’t got you), 2024, carbon print on hanji paper.

Matthew Clarke (left) with fellow NWOP 2026 finalist Robert Hague (right), Lost at Eureka Tower, 2025, ink, metallic pens and fine-liner pens on paper.

Robert Hague (left) with fellow NWOP 2026 finalist Matthew Clarke (right), Kookaburra, 2025, hand-coloured stone lithograph on cotton rag paper.

Jade Lees-Pavey, Consumer education, 2026, post-consumer waste cardboard, cotton thread, ceramic and found object.

#MPRG #MorningtonPeninsula #NWOP2026 #AustralianArt #ContemporaryArt #WorksOnPaper #ArtistCommunity

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NWOP finalist Sarah Thornton-Smith chats with Curator on Tour, Tash, about Rapture 2025, a work inspired by the sense of wonder she feels in the Australian bush. Made from 74 suspended pieces, it invites light to filter through just as it does in the landscape.

National Works on Paper 2025 is on until 22 November. FREE ENTRY, Tues-Sun, 11am-4pm. 🎨

Video: @mickrussell_
Artwork: @sazts
Interview: @curator_on_tour

#NWOP2026 #MPRG #MorningtonPeninsula

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Sarah Thornton-Smith’s art reflects a deep immersion in line and colour.
Microscopic cuts and tiny folds; a wall of falling arcs and loops with undertones of the family fabric.
Raised in a Malay Chinese household, her early teens were lived in Singapore - and then, her family moved south to the Perth Hills in Western Australia.
‘Colour and plant life always attracted me from a young age. The bush was a place to calibrate and settle myself, a shroud and sanctuary.
The ‘landscape that once felt quite unfamiliar to me… over time, has become a place of discovery, connection and gratitude’.
Her Eastern and Western cultural influence continues to be woven into her process.
‘As much as I am biracial, I am raised in a western environment. I didn’t want to go down the road of being ‘on trend’. If I want to tell my side of the story that is what it is – my side of the story. Not the hybridity’
Maths - and in particular geometry - compels her.
She ‘plays around’ with mathematical formulae.
Earlier bodies of work were measured in her head, folded and trialled on aluminium foil, then on paper, and finally, defined by the colours of indigenous flora.
After a 2025 trip to Japan and her subsequent exhibition ‘Grace’, Sarah offered a clue to her creative ethos.
‘Much of this work required patience and letting go — allowing time, gravity, and material to do their part. The installation arrived intuitively… the quiet generosity of materials coming into being on their own’.
Chosen from over 900 artists, Sarah was recently heralded at the National Works on Paper 2026 exhibition at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria (open to 22 November ‘26).
Her piece, ‘Rapture’ is a large textured and coloured landscape, a suspended wall installation of 74 individually monoprinted lengths of hosho paper.
It manifested with a quiet, respectful nod to her mother’s collection of Malay and Nonya traditional clothing, batik sarongs, and embroidered blouses.
The installation is never quite still; yet the gallery installers loved working with it - and made a point of telling her personally.

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And with that, ‘Echoes of Home’ has come to a close. I am so grateful to Kristy Scaddan, Sarah Thornton-Smith and Yasamin Khadembashi for being the amazing artists involved in this exhibition. A big thank you to Clare, James, Ruby and Lee from Rockingham Arts Centre for all your help. It has been a great exhibition and I look forward to what’s to come!

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‘Echoes of Home’ closes this Sunday at Rockingham Arts Centre. Explore the amazing works from Kristy Scaddan, Sarah Thornton-Smith, Yasamin Khadembashi and Sarah Soulay. If you can’t make it, check out my website for the online gallery and info about the artists and their works- link in bio.

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‘Echoes of Home’ brings together diverse perspectives as artists examine how belonging is shaped and how home emerges as both a physical presence and an internal, felt condition. Together, the works invite viewers to consider home as layered and evolving.

‘Echoes of Home’ is still open at Rockingham Arts Centre until end of close Sunday 17 May 2026. If you can’t make it, check out the online gallery on my website. Link in bio.

Image 1- Sarah Soulay, ‘Fichi’, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 x 4 cm
Image 2- Kristy Scaddan, ‘Weeds’ (detail), 2026, Saunders, 190gsm, 100% cotton rag, 49.5 x 23 cm
Image 3-Sarah Thornton-Smith, ‘symbiont 4_only the wind’, 2024, gouache on paper, 42 x 61 x 4 cm
Image 4-Yasamin Khadembashi, ‘A World In Between’, 2022, acrylic and ink on marine plywood, 100 x 100 x 1cm

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Thank you all so much for coming to the opening of echoes of home.

Thank you to the wonderful artists @yasamin_khadembashi @kristy.scaddan @sazts for being a part of this exhibition and Clare Stroud for all of your guidance.

Echoes of home is open at Rockingham Arts Centre until Sunday 17 May 2026.

If you can’t make it to Rockingham, check out my website for artist statements and the online gallery.

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Sarah Thornton-Smith. ‘Inflorescence I’
Gouache on Paper, Timber framed with Artglass AR70
2026 No. 5
Starting bid: $300
Current highest bid: $310

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TOMORROW | ECHOES OF HOME OPENING EVENT

Come to the official opening of ‘Echoes of Home’.
Explore the amazing work and hear from the artists Yasamin Khadembashi, Kristy Scaddan, Sarah Thornton-Smith and Sarah Soulay.

When: Sat 2 May | 2-4pm
Where: Rockingham Arts Centre
RSVP: via link in bio

Portrait of Kristy Scaddan by Rebecca Mansell
Portrait of Yasamin Khadembashi by Aaryn Bath

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We had a lovely day installing at Rockingham Arts Centre. Echoes of Home opens Wednesday.

Thanks @sarahsoulay.art for curating, @sazts for the lift and @cpmkirk for the amazing install support⭐️

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I am so excited to announce my second curated exhibition ‘Echoes of Home’ opening at Rockingham Arts Centre from the 29th of April to the 17th of May 2026.

‘Echoes of Home’ explores the emotional, cultural, sensory, and material approaches to how belonging is shaped and how home emerges as both a physical presence and an internal, felt condition.

Featured artists are Kristy Scaddan, Sarah Thornton-Smith, Yasamin Khadembashi and Sarah Soulay.

The opening event will be on Saturday 2nd of May from 2-4pm. There will be light refreshments, speeches and amazing artwork to be seen!

You can RSVP to the opening via artscentre@rockingham.wa.gov.au

Featured artwork by Yasamin Khadembashi.

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