Where Adelaide’s next generation of artists are finding their creative groove
From bedroom oil paintings and anime sketches to city studios and gallery walls, Adelaide Central School of Art is helping emerging artists turn creative obsessions into serious practices.
For Kate Hendry, it started with Pokémon, anime characters and a box of old oil paints.
Today, the Adelaide Central School of Art (ACSA) BVA graduate is spending her Honours year deep in the world of detailed, figurative oil painting, while also teaching the next generation of young artists at the school.
It’s a pretty fitting evolution for someone who first fell hard for art history in Year 8.
“My work aims to romanticise and elevate everyday experiences such as scrolling on Instagram reels and making mi goreng,” Kate says of her practice, which draws on the Baroque, Dutch Golden Age and Romantic traditions while giving them a distinctly contemporary spin.
“I wanted to attempt to work in a similar style but use contemporary subject matter.”
And when she’s not painting? Kate is in the classroom, teaching ACSA’s short courses for teenagers.
Her students are embracing everything from anime and still lifes to landscapes and portraits – with Billie Eilish proving a particularly popular muse.
“I love that young people are still interested and motivated by representational painting,” she says.
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“When given the freedom to pursue their own work, they have amazing attention spans and really push themselves to execute their visions on canvas.”
From graduate to working artist
That journey from student to practising artist is one ACSA is keen to make feel less like a cliff edge and more like a natural next step.
Just ask Angela De Palma.
After years working across the arts – from State Opera of South Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia to touring with Disney Australia’s Aladdin in Singapore – Angela eventually decided it was time to pursue the dream she’d had since childhood.
After completing Honours at ACSA, she was awarded a year-long residency at Floating Goose Studios as part of the school’s 2025 Graduate Exhibition.
Now, she’s spending her days in the city studio, developing new work across painting, printmaking and photography.
“Most days you will find me at FGS: music on, pushing paint around in ways that energise me and bring me joy,” Angela says.
The residency has given her more than somewhere to work. It has provided a creative community at a moment when stepping out of art school could otherwise feel daunting.
“I now have more than just a place to breathe, make, and continue developing my work,” she says. “I have entered a ready-made community of artists with different ages, experiences, disciplines and perspectives.”
Come for the art, stay for the community
That sense of community will be on full display when the 2026 ACSA Graduate Exhibition opens on December 5, showcasing the work of this year’s 42 graduating students.
Expect everything from painting, textiles and sculpture to collage, moving image and installation, with projects exploring subjects as varied as migrant labour and the experience of surfing.
For ACSA CEO Penny Griggs, the exhibition is designed to give graduates a genuine taste of professional life.
“The exhibition is professionally curated and installed, and graduates are encouraged to speak to gallery patrons, including special industry guests and other gallery curators, about their individual art practices,” she says.
It’s an approach that reflects the school’s broader studio-focused philosophy – and its plans are about to get even bigger.
The heritage Erindale building, dating back to 1877, is currently undergoing an adaptive transformation that will add artist studios, a social enterprise café, a Kaurna edible garden and community garden, with the new facility due to open in early 2027.
For aspiring artists wondering whether an art degree can actually take them somewhere, Kate’s answer is simple: “Being an ACSA graduate opened up many incredible opportunities in the arts.”
Applications for ACSA’s 2027 programs are now open, including the Bachelor of Visual Art and Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours), with Round 1 applications due November 2.
So if your sketchbook has been sitting around gathering dust, perhaps it’s time to give it a little more room to grow.
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