Melissa Loughnan

Melissa Loughnan founded Utopian Slumps as a non-profit curator-run gallery in 2007. The gallery shifted to a commercial model in 2010, operating for eight years in total, until the end of 2014. During this time Utopian Slumps participated in numerous local and international art fairs, including Melbourne Art Fair, Sydney Contemporary, Auckland (Aotearoa) Art Fair, Art Stage Singapore, Art Forum Berlin, Art Fair Tokyo and Art Basel Hong Kong. Melissa shifted the business to a consulting agency in 2015, through which she performs public and private art advisory and freelance curatorial work.

As an independent art advisor, Melissa has developed and implemented numerous large-scale public art installations and private art projects. Previous projects and clients include Citadines Hotel, Melbourne, 2009; Tourism Victoria Lost and Found Hotel, 2010-11; temporary activation of the Docklands Harbour Esplanade, a tender awarded by Places Victoria (now Development Victoria), 2012-16; consultant to Lend Lease for Craigieburn Central, 2013-14; consultant to Melbourne Central for the GPT Group, 2014; consultant to Little Projects and Hickory Group, Central South Yarra, 2015; consultant to Anna Schwartz Gallery, Urban and Capital Alliance for M Docklands, 2010; art consultant to Right Angle Studio For the Three Thousand Apartment, 2010; consultant to Neometro, BKK Architects, VicTrack and Moreland (now Merri-bek) City Council, Jewell Station, Brunswick, 2016; consultant to Six Degrees Architects and City of Dandenong, Dandenong Masonic Hall, 2017-19; consultant toThe GPT Group for Melbourne Central and Highpoint Shopping Centre, various projects, 2010-present; consultant to Neometro, Kerstin Thompson Architects and Besen, Alma Development, 2023-24; ongoing art advisory to private clients.

Melissa self-published Utopian Slumps: The Collingwood Years in 2011 and authored Australiana to Zeitgeist: An A to Z of New Australian Contemporary Art, Thames and Hudson, 2017. She has presented at various curatorial symposia and participated in panel discussions across Australia and internationally, and served for six years on the West Space Board as General Member, Co-Chair and Chair of Marketing and Development.

Prior to founding Utopian Slumps, Melissa held positions at the Australian Commercial Galleries Association and Melbourne Museum; she has undertaken internships at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Ian Potter Museum of Art and Queensland Art Gallery. She holds an MA, Art Curatorship; Postgraduate Diploma, Art History; and BA, Creative Arts from The University of Melbourne.

Leslie Rice

Born in the suburbs of western Sydney and raised in North Queensland, Leslie Rice spent the first of his creative years working as a tattooist in studios around the country, before attending Sydneys National Art School. Here he learned that everything he had ever loved was in fact tasteless kitsch. Intrigued by the distinction between High and Low, his life as a painter began.

His skilfully executed black velvet paintings, their metamodern pendulum swinging between irony and sincerity, ‘gothicky’ affect and critical distance, would see him win two Doug Moran National Portrait Prizes, be a finalist in many major prizes, and are hung in public and private collections around the country.

Rice is now a lecturer at the National Art School , where he teaches Painting with his signature mix of humour and an earnest belief in the value of technical merit and of play with the history conventions of the craft. He is currently completing a Doctorate in Fine Art, and is represented by Nanda/Hobbs Gallery, Sydney.