Chrys Zantis (b. 1956, Denman. New South Wales, Australia)
Chrys Zantis' creative journey has unfolded beside pristine bushland in Daisy Hill, Queensland, Australia, and for over three decades, she has contributed to the arts as a practitioner, educator, community worker, advocate, and activist. Zantis' artistic repertoire spans various mediums, from traditional crafts of knitting, crochet, felting, and weaving to contemporary forms such as assemblage, print, digital media, wearable art, and installation, and includes participatory and performance art. The artist’s oeuvre delves into the intricate landscapes of the human mind, body, and spirit, expressed through meticulous cartographies. In recent years, Zantis has collaborated with diverse individuals and organizations to advance social justice, scientific research, and academic pursuits. Her artist residencies have yielded exhibitions, workshops, public programs, and conferences across various venues, fostering mutual understanding and communal contribution. Notable projects include the intersection of art and neuroscience research by Dr Marta Garrido, focusing on brain function and conditions like anxiety, autism, and schizophrenia. The work informed a documentary video and art installation, Hidden in The Folds, for Logan Art Gallery and Warwick Art Gallery. Zantis created a participatory textile installation, Landscape of Resilience, at the Adderton House Gallery's Artist-in-Residence program. Through her art, Zantis strives to raise awareness and facilitate a creative dialogue that transcends traditional boundaries.
EXHIBITIONS
2024 Murmuring Mushrooms
Logan Central Library, Logan Queensland - Group Exhibition
Installation makes a place for playful co-learning through our practices. Inviting inclusive conversations that bring value to personal stories with multiple sources of knowledge.
2023 – 2024 Unconnected Yet VIEW WEBSITE
Lorne Community Connect, Lorne Victoria - Group Exhibition
Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about the junction between things- creativity that explores a combination of art and science or cross-curricular inquiry. It explores art that points to the gap: things to be connected, something to be spanned, a subject to be better understand, an unexperienced phenomenon, an unnamed or unseen thing, something that has not yet occurred, or something unexplained. Unconnected Yet assembles seventy-four artists from eleven countries and bridges the art and science communities of Boston, Kolkata and Lorne.
2023 Hidden in the Folds
Warwick Art Gallery, Warwick Queensland - Solo Exhibition
The jumpers and Jazz Festival in July featured Hidden in the Folds as its feature exhibition. It explores the mysterious workings within the folds of grey matter in our brains. Inspired by scientific research, and patterns of synchronicities between us and the natural world, Zantis interrogates relationships between the human mind, body and consciousness.
2023 Texture
Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra ACT - Group Exhibition
This exhibition showcases textile artists that push their materials past their boundaries, with artworks that invite us to question, examine and explore all that textiles can do and be.
2022 Hidden in the Folds
Logan Art Gallery, Logan Queensland, Solo Exhibition (RADF grant recipient)
Hidden in the Folds is a profound and responsive textile exhibition with the culmination of works spanning assemblage, installation, and wearable art. Exploring the mysterious workings within the folds of grey matter in our brains, while synthesising intricate layers of scientific data, metaphor and myth.
2021 Landscape of Resilience
Adderton: House of Heart of Mercy, All Hallow’s Convent, Brisbane Queensland - Artist Residency
A participatory art project displayed collectively in the shared space as installation, work station and sanctuary. Inviting members of the public to claim collective ownership of Landscape of Resilience as it unfolds and forms part of the tactile tapestry of Adderton’s RE-COLLECTION programme.
2020 Beneath the Surface
Redlands Art Gallery, Capalaba Queensland - Solo Exhibition
Poetically references the brain-body connection and representing the breath as central to mindfulness. Circular frames recall scientific apparatus like the microscope, magnifying glass and petri dish, while textiles form artistic representations of body tissue for visitors to explore.
2019 Inside Out and Beneath the Surface
Biological Psychiatric Australia conference, Melbourne Victoria & Australasian Neuroscience Society conference, Adelaide South Australia - Solo Exhibition
Beneath the Surface is a series of works that is a moving remi nder of the silent disconnect between what is experienced internally and what is witnessed externally while Inside Out is an intimate exploration of human biology and psychology from mythology and metaphysical perspectives.
2018-2019 Internal Landscapes
Project Gallery QCA Griffith University Southbank Brisbane & Saint Andrews Hospital Gallery Space Brisbane & Logan Art Gallery Queensland - Solo Exhibition
Internal Landscapes draws on medical and metaphysical references to introspectively explore the significance of the human brain and body connection.
2017 Beautiful One Day, Fruit Salad the Next
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane Queensland - Group Exhibition
An exhibition of Queensland artists who by happenstance discovered some relationship between their works.
2016 Zantis & Zantis
88 Gallery Redcliffe, Morton Bay Queensland - Group Exhibition
A synchronous solo exhibition. A meeting of, and bringing together of two unique individualistic expressions and minds. Maybe it’s a look at who you think you are …. Who others think you are …. Who you really are… Our stories are interconnected and are linked.
2016 Specimens
Hilltop Gallery, Mt Tamborine - Group Exhibition
A group exhibition showcasing lithography prints, paper sculptures and soft sculpture works around the theme of curiosity cabinets and myths of the Victorian era. The obscure and grotesque sit comfortably alongside with the beautiful and charming.
2015 Glory Box, Hope Chest, Bottom Draw
Logan Art Gallery, Logan Queensland - Group Exhibition (Group RADF grant recipients)
A collaborative exhibition of local women artists, examining the tradition of the ‘glory box’ and how it has evolved over the years. The exhibition explores various symbols attached to different cultural traditions.
2014-15 Homesickness Project
Logan Art Gallery, Logan Queensland - Group Exhibition (RADF grant recipient)
An artist led on-site community art project with the Beenleigh International Cooking Group. A seven-meter photo tableau, which is an appropriation of The Last Supper consisting of twenty-two participants and their homesickness meal.
2013 Open Studio Hybrid Materials Collaboration
Berrinba Wetlands Facility, Logan Queensland - Group Exhibition (Group RADF grant recipients)
This project brought together four artists from different disciplines to share skills weekly over four months and make work in response to the Berrinba Wetlands. A kitchen and studio space are on site.
2012 Double Vision Artist Exchange Program
Logan Art Gallery Logan & Tea Tree Gully, Adelaide SA - Group Exhibition
An exhibition of artists from Logan, Queensland and Onkaparinga, South Australia created works in response to each other city.
2011 Mamas in the Hood
Pine Rivers Art Gallery, Strathpine Queensland - Group Exhibition
A collection of installations that showcase motherhood and being an artist in contemporary society.
2011 Motherboard Olympus
Logan Art Gallery, Logan Queensland - Solo Exhibition (RADF grant recipient)
Soft pink yarns and beaded sharp kitchen objects are some of the incoherent elements of this installation. Pass through the luscious soft pink embellished curtains to find the Queen of Motherboard herself as she gives audience to her court. In this installation the classic world meets the matriarchal rise of the 21st century digital world.
2010 Bad Exposed
Percolator Gallery, Brisbane Queensland - Group Exhibition
A group exhibition of installation artists, printmakers and painters.
2008 Domestic Goddess
Ivory St Window Artisan, Brisbane Queensland - Solo Exhibition
An installation of sixty-four metal cookie cutters and pink knitted loin cloths embellished with beads and pearls. Domestic Goddess explores inherent elements of ritual, seduction, love and power that resides in the domestic kitchen.
2007 Knit
Evolution Studios, Brisbane Queensland - Group Exhibition
An installation and performance piece featuring knitting as a free-form sculpture of emotion. Landscape of Resilience Project was launched at this exhibition. It is the embodiment of people’s strength of will to overcome adversity. This is an ongoing travelling community project.
2007 A Moment of Friendship
Evolution Studios, Brisbane Queensland - Group Exhibition
A show featuring Kniky knits, sculptured bags and wraps.
2004 Nomadic
Artisan, Brisbane and Queensland Regional Galleries traveling with Flying Arts - Group Exhibition
A show exploring the nomadic journey of yarn and people.
2003 Translucent Botanica
Noosa Regional Gallery, Noosa Queensland - Group Exhibition
Featured in Watermark which was an artist book exhibition.
2002 Works of Imagination
Noosa Regional Gallery, Noosa Queensland - Group Exhibition
Artist book exhibition.