MARLEYxSH

Sydney <> Berlin

SELECTED WORKS

MARLEY is a creative technologist and illustrator based between Sydney and Berlin, with an interdisciplinary practice that spans painting, illustration, textile design, videography, publication design and blockchain experimentation.

Trained in oil painting at the National Art School Sydney, then studying publication and print media at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Melbourne), her work spans traditional media and experimentation with digital technologies. She founded Toy Frens, a blockchain-native NFT community on Ethereum, exploring the intersection of digital and physical realms through photography. Her work engages with the archive as a living, participatory experience, questioning how information is shared and reimagined. As a digital nomad, Marley shapes creative dialogues between technology, memory, and collective agency.

Toy Frens NFT [Metaverse]
6thouse Tattoo [Global]
Softwear [Fashion]
An offering of ones body as extraneous clothing [Melbourne]
Beheading of a Tall Poppy [Berlin, Residency]
Liminal Conversations, Gertrude Street Projection Festival [Melbourne]

Cafe Cartography: Shuffling Spatial Histories [proposal]

TOY FRENS NFT [Metaverse]

#blockchain #founder #photography #metaverse

Four free mint photography collections, following a three-hour sellout of a 666 NFT pfp promotion.

Featuring prominent Australian Fashion photographers Byron Spencer, Luke Schuetrumpf, Darren Macdonald and Nicholas Garcia.

Holders of the Toy Frens were able to mint each released collection, summounting to over 2600 one-of-one photography NFT’s created and produced from the project, more photographs than any four photographers would historically produce in their lifetime. What was created was arguably the first test case of it’s kind. A community model for the shared interest and vested experimentation of Etherium certified artworks.

6THOUSE [Global]

#business #graphicdesign #tattoo #storytelling

@6thouse (Instagram)

Softwear [Wearable]

#fashion #philosophy

An offering of ones body as extraneous clothing
[Melbourne]

#photography #textile #sculpture #textile
Shannon May Powell and MS.

The offering of one’s body as extraneous clothing (2017)

photographic print on satin

92 x 140cm.

how to behead a tall poppy
[ARTBiesenthal]

#residency #sculpture #berlin

ie.ms—

how to behead a tall poppy (2019)

Presented at ART Biesenthal, Berlin.

Cotton jacquard weave

How to behead a tall poppy (2019) depicts an imaginative vision of the destruction of ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and questions such systems that allow for its metastasis. Colloquially, ‘tall poppy syndrome’ is often used in Australia and refers to the idea of cutting a tall poppy to size, that is undermining the success of the other in favour of remaining the same. Suspended, the two panels (2030 x 1520) hang in conversation with the viewer, who was invited to fall into the altered realm of collaged image and the violent backside of inverted red chromatic thread. The tapestry reads: red-bottom stilettos worn by morphed bodies that mingle in the wild flower hordes; brought down to earth on the same geo-level as the soil from each poppy that grows. Monumental buildings, architectures reveal themselves in outer-rings of the cyclical composition suggesting the influences of established systems in the collective syndrome.

Liminal Conversations
[Melbourne]

#projectionmapping #publicart #festival #melbourne

Selected for the innaugual exhibition of Gertrude Street Projection Festival. A collaboration between Shannon May Powell, Louis Groupe and Marley Sheridan.

‘Liminal conversations’ is a short video projection commissioned by Melbourne art collective Proximity.

The work is a conversation between writer Shannon May Powell and graphic artist Louis Grope. The coming together of these two artists creates a new visual dialogue and interim of their two preferred mediums breaking down structures imposed by media that each artist is familiar. Played on a loop, the video scrolls through Powell’s words, creating a dream-like sense of nostalgia and touching on themes of self-reflection. Louis Grope subverts the flow of Powell’s prose with geometric shapes, very much alike to the chaotic disruption of buildings and architectural structures that form the city district skyline. This conversation of medium: words, graphic grids, architecture; and the metaphysical: the space between, the mind, illusions, memory; splayed on the exterior of buildings uncovers the coming together of interior and exterior worlds.

Cafe Cartography: Shuffling Spatial Histories

[proposal]

About the Project

Cafés, like ports, are spaces of transience and connection—living nodes where people, stories, and cultures intersect.

Cafe Cartography: Shuffling Spatial Histories maps the experiences of the 7artscafe community into an evolving visual and spatial artwork. Inspired by the idea that we are not distinct entities but shaped by our relationships, this project interweaves layers of time and space, revealing the intricate patterns of communal life in a dynamic and ever-shifting cultural landscape.

Project Overview

01 Interviews

Marley will conduct 10-20 interviews with community personalities (people, pets, or both) during the first week at 7artscafe.

02 Illustration + Painting

People’s personalities are illustrated and painted through observation, and rooms are created to represent their personailites and stories using traditional techniques of pen and gouache.

03 Physical + Digital Augmented Reality experience
Paintings are stored in a publicly accessible digital archive. Paintings are presented on the wall of 7artscafe and come alive through Augmented Reality (AR).

04 Book + Poster Publication

A collection of the illustrated coasters and their accompanying stories will be compiled into a book. A local publisher will be contacted to produce a final publication, preserving the artwork and narratives in print.

05 Exhibition

The final week features an exhibition, showcasing the illustrated cards and a time-lapse of the artworks as they are moved across the wall and repositioned in a mapping of the experiences of 7artscafe patrons.

06 Fundraising

Profits from Cafe Cartography are donated to future artists-in-residence for creating new artworks.

Workshops & Community Engagement

Workshop 1: Architectural Drawing & Perception

Exploring lines, axes, and movement in space. Understanding vanishing points and drawing on an isometric grid.

Workshop 2 Painting & Color Palette Selection

Expressing identity and memory through gouache. Developing a personal color palette based on color theory (monochromatic, tri-chromatic, etc.).

Workshop 3: “Mind Home” Exercise

Encouraging visitors to construct their own imagined architectural spaces, drawing from personal or collective experience.

Exhibition Impact

This project will culminate in a large-scale interconnected artwork housed within 7artscafe walls blending illustration, installation, and participatory storytelling.

The final piece will reflect the organic interweaving of human presence, conversation, and place—reminding us that cafés, like cities, are shaped by those who inhabit them.

Cultural Exchange

Brings together international travelling artist + her craft, together with a local community.

Digital Preservation

Combines traditional painting, architectural spatial observation, storytelling and book making with Augmented Reality technologies.

Innovation of Traditional Craft with Interactive Technology