Chloë Waddell is a maker of jewellery, objects and art. Although she started her artistic life as a painter and a sewer and then trained as a jeweller she now finds herself working across all three areas and often filling the gaps in between. Primarily process driven, it is the materials she is drawn to work with which usually determine the final form. It is in a busy studio surrounded by materials and in the midst of working on an exciting project that Chloë feels happiest and most at home. It is the pure love of making which drives both her studio practice and her teaching. She is hopeful that just a little bit of that love will transfer into the objects she creates and to the students she teaches.
Chloë gained her Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours from Sydney College of the Arts in 2005. In 2008, she co-founded Breathing Colours Gallery – a multi-disciplinary exhibition and retail space with a focus on contemporary jewellery. After selling the gallery and moving to Melbourne in 2012, she began focusing on her own art practice again and became a regular stallholder at Melbourne’s many arts and crafts markets. She returned to Sydney at the start of 2014 and spent a wonderful year working as the Jewellery Technical Officer at Sydney College of the Arts helping students develop the technical skills required to turn their ideas into reality. In 2015 Chloë moved to Brisbane where she currently resides and spends her time balancing her art practice with raising two young kids. A current resident at Vacant Assembly (a shared artist studio and exhibition space in West End) Chloë has enjoyed staying in the one spot and becoming part of the local community after moving around so much in her recent past.
Since graduating from SCA, Chloe has regularly exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions and sold her work at numerous shops and galleries. As well as her technical teaching at SCA, she has taught jewellery classes at community college and independent art schools and currently teaches kids holiday art classes and the occasional workshop for adults at Vacant Assembly in West End, Brisbane