Born in Melbourne, Australia, Cally Lotz grew up in Zimbabwe. After attending Bath Academy of Art, Great Britain, she obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts (hons) from the University of South Africa in 2009. Following this, she completed a Professional Practice in the Visual Arts at Artspace/Art Source in Pretoria, South Africa and made her Master in Fine Art at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) in 2019.
Since 2006, Cally has participated in many group exhibitions, mainly in South Africa and Australia, but also in Germany, India and France. Moreover, she has had several solo exhibitions in Australia and South Africa and curated a group show at the Tatham Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She was awarded several times as finalist with different art prizes and granted residencies in Australia. Her works are represented in public and private collections such as St Vincent’s, Melbourne, University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, A.I.R Vallauris, France and Sasol, Johannesburg, South Africa. Besides, she is a volunteer at the Heide Museum of Arts, Melbourne.
With Trish Rodwell, Cally organises Art Tours for artists and art lovers. The stays are divided in painting workshops and excursions to art venues (Cally), enriched by regional meals in the residency (Trish) or in restaurants during the tours. Past journeys led to Sicily and the Provence. Also, the ninth Artist Dream Tour will lead to the South of France in September/October 2025.
In her work, Cally has the still-life on focus. She paints everyday objects: keys, containers, wrapping papers and foils or – like our Artwork of the Month / January 2019 – buckets. Her earlier paintings are mostly realistic or even photorealistic. There are rarely traces of usage and reflections are strongly highlighted. In the last years, this style modified to softer depictions, where the objects are arranged on velvety fabric, or the background is only a plan or a blurry space. Most recently, Cally made a series, where she repainted the same or similar objects in different arrangements and light incidences. Here she concentrated on the technique. Therefore, her style is more variable. In the resulting exhibition “Stop the Clock” in the West End Art Space, Melbourne in October/November 2024, there were still photorealistic pictures and slightly distorted images. Additionally, a more expressive style entered in her oeuvre. An example is “Conversation”, our Artwork of the Month / January 2025.
Cally lives and works in Melbourne.