Alma Studholme is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working across ceramics, mixed media and multimedia installation, sculpture, performance and video. She holds a PhD in Arts and Social Sciences from the University of Sydney for her research in cognitive sciences, neuroscience, contemplative religious traditions and art practice. In 2023 she was awarded a Doctor of Fine Art degree from the National Art School in Sydney, Australia, where she is a senior lecturer in both graduate and postgraduate programmes. When working on video projects, she regularly collaborates with Brett Studholme, and they exhibit in Australia and Europe as A+B Studholme.
CV
EDUCATION
2023 Doctor of Fine Art (DFA), National Art School, Sydney, Australia
2020 PhD in Arts & Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia
2012 Diploma of Ceramics, Lismore Technical College, Lismore, Australia
2011 Certificate IV in Ceramics, Lismore Technical College, Lismore, Australia
2010 Certificate III in Ceramics, Lismore Technical College, Lismore, Australia
EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTS /AWARDS
2026 Group Exhibition, Makers, Third Space, Darlinghurst, Australia
2025 Highly Commended (with Brett Studholme), Onirica Film Festival, Carrara, Italy
2025 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Exhibition HOME GROWN; Bound by Place, Art Space on The Concourse, Chatswood, Australia
2025 Joint Exhibition (with Susanna Chen Chow), Reflected in Nature, The Shop Gallery, Glebe, Australia
2025 Finalist (with Brett Studholme), Burwood Art Prize, Burwood, Australia
2024 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Moving Waters: Artist Moving Image Programme, curated by A Sometimes Project, 19 October, Plymouth Art Cinema, UK
2024 Finalist, 14th GreenWay Art Prize, White Bay Power Station, Sydney, Australia
2024 Finalist (with Brett Studholme), Burwood Art Prize, Burwood, Australia
2024 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Video Art Screening Opposite Flow, 2nd edition, IFOD, Izmir, Turkiye
2024 Selected (A+B Studholme), Solo Exhibition North Sydney Vignettes, Ridge Street Window Gallery, Funded by Arts & Culture North Sydney Grant, North Sydney, Australia
2023 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Opposite Flow Screening Programme, International Short Film, Video & Photography Symposium, Kadikoy Manco Cultural Center, Istanbul, Turkiye
2023 Invited, group Exhibition Belonging – In celebration of diversity and social inclusion, Willoughby City Library, Chatswood, Australia
2023 Invited, Civic Park Inside Outside Sculpture, Ted Mack Civic Park, North Sydney, Australia
2023 Editor of Pamela Leung;s Film Why does God allow this things happen to us? Exhibition Entwined Within, Art Space on The Concourse, Chatswood, Australia
2023/24 Recipient of North Sydney Creative Grant (with Brett Studholme), Arts & Culture North Sydney, Australia
2023 Shortlisted, IOTA – Indian Ocean Craft Triennial 2024, Perth, Australia
2023 Finalist (with Brett Studholme), Burwood Art Prize, Burwood, Australia
2023 Finalist, Muswellbrook Art Prize, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, Muswellbrook, Australia
2022 N.E. Pethebridge Award, National Art School, Sydney, Australia
2022 Group Exhibition, The Postgrad Show, National Art School Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2022 Invited, Group Exhibition, Le Petit Salon de Sculpture, Q Station, Manly, Australia
2022 Solo Exhibition, Lunar Landscapes of a Poetic Mind, Rayner Hoff Project Space, National Art School, Sydney, Australia
2022 Finalist, North Sydney Art Prize, The Coal Loader, Waverton, Australia
2022 Editor of Pamela Leung’s Film Red Line Story, Exhibition Parallel Wanderings, Chatswood Year of the Tiger Festival, Willoughby City Council, The Concourse Urban Screen + Space on The Concourse, Chatswood, Australia
2021 Selected, Group Exhibition, Contrasts, Millepiani, Rome, Italy
2021 Invited, Group Exhibition, Project 2060: Homeward Bound, The Coal Loader, Arts & Culture North Sydney, Waverton, Australia
2020, Joint Exhibition (with Brett Studholme and Terhi Hakola), Tears of Things, Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby, Australia
2020 Invited (with Brett Studholme), Group Exhibition, Retracing, Art Space on The Concourse, Chatswood, Australia
2020 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Onirica Film Festival, La Spezia, Italy
2020 Selected, (with Brett Studholme), Group Exhibition, The Sensation of Home, FaB Festival, Bath, UK
2020 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Group Exhibition, BEAUTY/?, K.L.8 Exhibition Space, Brussels, Belgium
2020 Finalist (with Brett Studholme), Artists of Mosman: 2088, Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman, Australia
2020 Finalist, Muswellbrook Art Prize, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, Muswellbrook, Australia
2019 Finalist, Blacktown City Art Prize, The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre, Blacktown, Australia
2019 Finalist, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown, Australia
2019 Finalist (with Brett Studholme), The Willoughby Visual Arts Biennial: The Tenacious Realm, Group Exhibition, Home Grown, Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby, Australia
2019 Finalist, North Sydney Art Prize, The Coal Loader, Waverton, Australia
2018 Invited, Group Exhibition, The Red Project, North Sydney Council, The Coal Loader, Waverton, Australia
2017 Group Exhibition, Share House, Byron Bay School of Art Project Space, Mullumbimby, Australia
2017 Solo Exhibition, A Year at the Coal Loader, Coal Loader Art Studio, Waverton, Australia
2017 Drawing Design (panel no. 1) in Landscape of the Mind, VIVID, Sydney, Australia
2017 Solo Exhibition, Self-Portrait as a Landscape in White, TWT Creative Precinct, St Leonards, Australia
2017 Finalist, Hunter Hills Art Exhibition, Hunter Hills, Australia
2017 Finalist, Artists of Mosman: 2088, Mosman, Australia
2017 Finalist, Harbour Sculpture, Indoor Selection, Sydney, Australia
2017 Finalist, Harbour Sculpture, Outdoor Selection, Sydney, Australia
2017 Narrative & Voice in Claudia Núñez-Pacheco’s Installation Storytelling the Felt-sense: SOUL, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2017 Finalist, North Sydney Art Prize, Waverton, Australia
2016 Finalist, Mandorla Art Award, Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth, Australia
2016 Finalist, Hidden Sculpture Walk, Rookwood Cemetery, Rookwood, Australia
2016 Finalist, Tom Bass Prize for Figurative Sculpture, Darlinghurst, Australia
2016 Solo Exhibition, Accreation II: Ontological Transmutations, Verge Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2016 Finalist, Verge Awards, Verge Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2015 Selected, Group Exhibition, Accreation: Un-becoming and the Surface as Sight, Verge Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2012 Group Exhibition, All Fired Up, Space Gallery, Lismore, Australia
2012 Best Student Award, Ceramics Department, Lismore Technical College, Lismore, Australia
2012 Invited, Group Exhibition, Tandem 10, Space Gallery, Lismore, Australia
2011 Group Exhibition, Ouvre – A Substantial Body of Work, Lismore Technical College, Lismore, Australia
2011 Best in Show Award (with Belinda Simone), Ouvre – A Substantial Body of Work, Lismore, Australia
LECTURING / RESIDENCIES / CONFERENCES
2026 Senior Lecturer, National Art School, Sydney, Australia
2025-26 Selected (with Brett Studholme), Alfred Street Artist Studio Residency, Arts & Culture North Sydney, Milsons Point, Australia
2024-26 Ceramics Lecturer, National Art School, Sydney, Australia
2024 Stop-Motion Animation Workshop, Arts & Culture North Sydney, Australia
2023-26 Ceramics Tutor, Redlands Senior Campus, Cremorne, Australia
2023 Selected, Artist in Residence (with Brett Studholme) at Bundanon Trust, Shoalhaven, Australia
2023 Commissioned Art Mentorship – 2023 Hexad Project, Artist in Residence Programme, Bradfield Senior College, St Leonards, Australia
2022 Creating Wellbeing Workshop – Inner Landscapes, Arts & Culture North Sydney, Australia
2017 Extended Art Residency, North Sydney Council, The Coal Loader, Waverton, Australia
2016 Selected, Art Residency, Coal Loader Art Studio, Waverton, Australia
2016 Speaker, History and Poiesis: Liminal Identity of Béla Hamvas, Annual Postgraduate History Conference Historical Identities, University of Sydney, Australia
2015 Selected, Art Residency, Brand X, TWT Visual Arts Studio, St Leonards, Australia
2015 Speaker, Aesthetic Experience in Art Practice: Creativity as a Pre-Linguistic Felt Quality of Establishing New Connections/Evaluations in a Brain-Body-Environment System, 2nd Conference on Aesthetics and the Embodied Mind, Birkbeck College, London, UK
AUTHORED PUBLICATIONS
2022 Wonderings of a Poetic Mind: Tracing Patterns of Sense, Non-sense and Meaning in an Art Practice Informed by Cognitive Sciences and Affect Theories, Doctor of Fine Art Exegesis, National Art School, Sydney, Australia.
2022 Lunar Reflections, Exhibition Catalogue Essay, p. 5, in “Pamela Leung: Longing for Home,” 6 April – 14 May, Gallery Lane Cove, Australia.
2022 Oceans in a tea cup, Garland Magazine (online), Issue G26, “Objecthood: Why we still need things,” 1 March.
2022 Pamela Leung’s Red Line Story, Garland Magazine (online), Loop, 1 February.
2019 Geng Xue’s Sensuous Worlds in Porcelain and Clay, Ceramics: Art + Perception/Technical, Issue 110, pp. 74-77.
2018 Being Fragmented and Being Whole: Explorations in Cognitive Sciences, Religious Contemplative Traditions, and Art Practice, PhD dissertation, Arts & Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia.
2018 Aesthetic Experience in Art-Practice: a Pre-Linguistic Felt Quality, in A. Scarinzi (ed.), “Recasting Aesthetic Experience: Emotions and the ‘Continuity Principle’,” Göttingen, Cuvillier, pp. 155-195.
2017 Homo Ludens: Michael Hallam, Ceramics: Art + Perception/Technical, Issue 105, pp. 16-21.
2017 A Circle: Being Fragmented and Being Whole, The Journal of Australian Ceramics, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 37-41.
2016 A Permanent Mark: Remembering Michael Hallam, The Journal of Australian Ceramics, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 10-13.
2014 Axis of Passion – Creative World of Amanda Bromfield, Ceramics: Art & Perception, No. 94, pp. 84-87.
2013 Sacred Art of Lena Logan, Ceramics: Technical, No. 36, pp. 32-35.
ACQUISITIONS
2024 North Sydney Council, Australia
2024 North Sydney Heritage Centre, Australia