VERA MÖLLER - SEA.LIQUID.SENSATION.FLUX.SPACE

Upcoming exhibition: sea.liquid.sensation.flux.space
Dates: 3 June - 3 September 2023
Where: Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
 
This show will bring together new small and large-scale works. It will include an array of diverse materials ranging from drawings and watercolours to collages, objects, and paintings. It will also feature a selection of works from Möller’s studio collection. She utilises close observation, new scientific research, and somatic material exploration, to devise multi-layered immersive installations that invite reflection on the impact of humankind on ecosystems.
 
“I am captivated by the idea of some slippage between those life forms that actually exist in our natural environments and entirely fictitious organisms.” 
– Vera Möller
 
Often working in response to a specific site, in the last two decades Möller’s creative projects have ranged from: an investigation into the undergrowth of the Kings Wood in Kent, UK; a botanical exploration of the sub-alpine heath lands of Skullbone Plains, Tasmania; wetlands in Goulburn Valley, Victoria; the Great Barrier Reef in the Northern climates of Australia; cold water marine environments of the Victorian coast; as well as the vast underwater environment of the Great Southern Reef.

VERA MÖLLER ANNOUNCED AS A MENTOR AT VCA ACCESS  

Internationally recognised as a breeding ground for artistic talent, the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) has nurtured some of Australia’s most successful artists. Each year, the VCA Access community funds the mentoring program. Up to five second year Art Masters students are selected by VCA Faculty on application, for the Masters Mentoring, VCA Art Award. Each student is matched with an established VCA Alumni artist and their representing gallery, for a one-year mentoring program in their third year of study.

VCA Access have now announced their student and mentor pairings for 2023, one of which is artist Vera Möller who will be mentoring Marion Harper.  

VCA Access hosts regular events throughout the year to provide opportunities and behind the scenes access to meet VCA students, mentors and galleries. They welcome all art lovers and invite you to donate, join our events, and spread the word.

We look forward to seeing how Vera and Marion work together during their pairing. 

VERA MÖLLER SUBMARINE GARDEN

Vera Möller's Submarine Garden is installed and on display to the public at at Flinders Pier, curated by David Cross & Celia Mallard.

Submarine Gardens responds to the growths and constellations of sponges and seaweed attached to the piers wooden piles underwater. These carpet-like growths are expanding vertically all over the pylons and are fully visible in their intricacy and complexity only to divers and snorkelers. The purpose of the work is to draw attention to these stunning but relatively ‘secret’ sites and invert what’s going on below sea level to make the invisible visible. With this artwork Moller seeks to draw attention to the rich diversity of these exciting, living submarine communities that remain hidden from view for most of us.

"I am so sorry to hear of the threat to the habitat of the weedy sea dragon on the Mornington Peninsula, I do indeed think that it’s a most wonderful creature and if I find an opportunity to draw attention to the changes that threaten its survival, I will take them. Yours sincerely, David Attenborough”

Through her work Submarine Gardens, Vera Möller delivers on Sir Attenborough's promise, drawing attention to Flinders Pier as a threatened habitat of the Weedy Seadragon. Whilst such a rich submarine ecosystem exists below sea level, so much remains hidden from general audiences, its splendour reserved for divers. Möller’s aim is to draw attention to such unique local underwater spaces and to make the invisible portion of Flinders pier visible to the visitor.

Vera Möller
Submarine Garden
4 - 27 November 2022 at Flinders Pier

VERA MÖLLER AT RACV WITH FRONT BEACH BACK BEACH

On November 18 at Cape Schanck Resort Vera Möller spoke at a long lunch event hosted by RACV and Front Beach Back Beach. along with two other artists. Guests enjoyed a locally inspired long lunch from award-winning executive chefs whilst each of the artists as they delved into their practice and the background behind their projects.⁠
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Vera Möller is interested in the boundaries between the real and the imagined. Möller creates paintings and sculptures by placing fictional hybrid plants in existing terrains. Bright colours and patterns, coral-like and succulent-plant forms and toadstool shapes describe her depictions of dreamt-up specimens that evoke the natural world. Möller’s ‘fantasy specimens’ demonstrate the way in which her science background and art practice have steadily converged. After training as a biologist in Germany, Möller migrated to Australia in 1986. She later completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts and a PhD at Monash University. Her work has been exhibited in the USA, Japan, Finland, France, Germany and the UK, as well as throughout Australia.⁠

VERA MÖLLER IN STILL LIFE AT BUXTON CONTEMPORARY

Focusing on symbiotic relationships and interspecies entanglements, these artworks consider the underground mycelial networks that connect forests, the giant termite mounds that provide a home for mutualistic communities, and the microorganisms that inhabit human bodies and are integral to our existence. 

Curated by Jacqueline Doughty, this exhibition features artists including Mikala Dwyer, Nicholas Mangan, Angelica Mesiti, Clare Milledge, Vera Möller, James Morrison, Isadora Vaughan, Jahnne Pasco-White, Adele Wilkes, Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley.

Still Life will be on view upstairs at Buxton Contemporary from Friday 3 June 2022, and is exhibited alongside Susan Jacobs: The Ants are in the Idiom.

VERA MÖLLER AT SHEPPARTON ART MUESEUM

Vera Möller is interested in the slippery boundaries between the real and the imagined in the natural world. Möller creates paintings, collages, photographs and sculptures of fictional hybrid plants and organisms. These are inspired by her observations gathered during fieldtrips into freshwater terrains or marine environments.
Liquidarium will bring together a new sequence of large-scale collages to be shown in conjunction with an installation of hundreds of plant-like small sculptures. 

VERA MÖLLER SELECTED FOR THE MORNINGTON PENINSULA REGIONAL GALLERY'S NATIONAL WORKS ON PAPER PRIZE

Vera Möller has been shortlisted for the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery's National Works on Paper Prize (NWOP).

The NWOP exhibition will be held at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery from 5 December 2020 until 21 February 2021.

To enquire about works, please contact the gallery.⁠

Image: Vera Möller, memoriama, 2019 (detail)

VERA MÖLLER VIDEO INTERVIEW ON ART COLLECTOR

Vera Möller recently spoke to Art Collector's Louise Martin-Chew on Zoom about her work and the influence of 'entirely otherworldly and also incredibly beautiful and intricate' reef phases on her work, and the importance of paying attention to these natural phenomena.

The video of their conversation can be viewed online. Möller's solo exhibition, aquafleurelle, is on display at the gallery until 30 May 2020. View the exhibition online or contact the gallery to make a private appointment to view these works in person.

Image: Vera Möller, maramella, 2020

VERA MÖLLER AT SHELL COVE

Vera Möller is known for her colourful, coral-like forms of dreamt-up specimens that evoke the natural world. 

Working with UAP Company, Frasers Property and Shellharbour City Council, Möller created a site-specific artwork for the new Shell Cove development in New South Wales.

Her series of sculptures, The Dragonettes, 2020, lead visitors into the heart of the town centre.

Her next solo exhibition will open at the gallery in May 2020. To request a preview, please contact the gallery.

Image:Vera Möller, The Dragonettes, 2020, installed at Shell Cove, NSW, courtesy of UAP