Drawing Voices: Artist-Led Workshop
Unwind and make your mark in this meditation focused art session, led by Craig Dongoski to celebrate his first exhibition at the Hellenic Museum.
Time & Location
13 Dec 2025, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Hellenic Museum, 280 William St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
Event Details
Enjoy a relaxing, immersive morning art session and meet the artist behind the Hellenic Museum's upcoming exhibition, Waking the Statues.
The session begins with an introduction about the exhibition by artist Craig Dongoski, who will share his insights about his unique creative process. He builds his imagery through the repetition of dots, dashes, and circles - a meditative practice that allows images and ideas to emerge spontaneously. In this way, the process itself leads the art, rather than conscious intention.
Following this introduction, and surrounded by the tranquillity of the Museum, Craig will guide you in creating your own artwork using this meditative approach. As you let go of expectations about what art should be, you’ll have the opportunity to tap into your subconscious and explore the transformative images – and other selves – that emerge.
Book quickly, spaces are limited!
About the exhibition
Waking the Statues presents a compelling exploration of repetition, ritual, and transcendence in the work of contemporary artist Craig Dongoski. In Waking the Statues, Dongoski's musings on solitude, mythology and today's political landscape culminate in a striking visual language which fuses the archaic with the technological. Ancient Greek forms converse with systems of modern communication like Morse and binary code, whose repetitions generate visual noise akin to television static.
The resulting works operate as portals, inviting the viewer to explore new perspectives. This exhibition is an immersive experience, a journey into the intersection of art and mythology, wherein the works themselves become conduits for dialogue and introspection. This body of work aims to provoke thought and emotion, rather than to enlighten or educate. It is intended to awaken the creativity latent within each viewer, to spark dialogue about the role of art in contemporary society, and the ways in which ancient cultures continue to shape our understanding of the world.
About the artist
Craig Dongoski is an Atlanta-based artist and Professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Rooted in a decades-long investigation into altered states of perception, Dongoski’s practice engages deeply with the mystical and subconscious, territories that recall the surreal dialogues of Jean Cocteau’s seminal 1932 film Blood of a Poet. In Cocteau’s vision, an isolated artist, Orpheus, converses with a living statue, blurring the boundaries between creator and creation.
A shift in artistic trajectory, precipitated by the pandemic years, Dongoski’s recent projects, Dust & Dreams and Testament, contemplated the solitude and uncertainty of isolation. His subsequent exhibition, Land of Heroes / Hand of Zeroes, marked a pivotal evolution in his work, a deeper engagement with the intersection of art and mythology, using ancient Greek culture as a lens to explore the complexities of today’s political landscape.
What's included
General access to the Museum and its exhibitions on the day
20-minute artist introduction to the exhibition Waking the Statues
70-minute guided meditative art session with the artist
What to bring
Sketchbook – maximum size A3
Greylead pencils – 2B preferred
Sharpener
Eraser