Art & Alchemy Gallery & Studio

​​Dr Karly Edgar is an experienced teacher and facilitator with a background in the arts and aged care and she has a particular focus on the engagement with creativity as a means for wellbeing and expression.

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Education

PhD (Public Health), MACP, GradCert Res Methods, GradCert TESOL, BCA (Theatre), Cert IV Leis & Health CHC43415, Cert IV TAE40122.

 

PhD Thesis: Witnessing the Theatre of Life: The EPC Biography Program and Life Storytelling in Palliative Care

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Karly's academic path started with a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Theatre where she focused on production icluding directing and stage managing, followed by a Master of Arts where she focused on art and spirituality and art within community. After teaching individual units, she soon moved into a Lecturer of Art role, developing and coordinating two majors/minors; a Bachelor of Dramtic Arts and Visual Arts. She also taught a variety of the art units including drama, art theory and history, and art and spirituality. In her Graduate Certificate in Research Methodologies, her thesis was an autoethnographic exploration of how engaging in ritual, myth and imagination impacted her experience and spiritual understanding of being chronicly unwell. 

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​She later expanded her education doing a Cert IV in Leisure and Health, going on to work in lifestyle positions in aged care. This aged and disability care experience led to receiving a PhD scholarship from La Trobe and Eastern Palliative Care to research EPC's volunteer facilitated Biography Program. ​This research process deepened her expertise in life‑storytelling, person‑centred engagement, and the therapeutic value of creative expression while also expanding her understanding of palliative care and demonstrating the value of the arts and creativity at any age and at any stage.

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Karly has held academic faculty roles, taught at a masters level, mentoring students through their qualitative research projects. She also has a Cert IV in T&A, and has taught in the Cert IV in Leisure and Health at Holmesglen combining her knowledge and experience of the importance of creativity, the arts, spiritual engagement, aged and palliative care to train workers in aged care. ​

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Karly's creative practice developed from theatre to visual arts when, after completing her BCA, Karly was diagnosed with the chronic condition fibromyalgia which impacted her ability to work in the industry (and do almost anything for periods of time). During this substantial change of life, the visual arts and creativity  become a place of rest, recovery and personal and spiritual expression. Her first solo exhibition 'Pieces of Self: feelings of fibromyalgia' deeply reflected this coalescence of creativity, spiritual engagement and physical experience and she has continued working in this integrative space. She moves between mediums and materials to reflect the feelings she is trying to find within herself and convey to others. Karly's main focus is in abstract expressionism and process art as a means to express and share feelings and experiences.

 

Her academic experience, combined with her creative practice and experience, all contributed to her personal perspective that highly values the continued engagement in meaningful engagement as a vital element to life. She now brings this experience to Art & Alchemy Gallery & Studio, creating an inviting space that balances the complimentary fine art tradition within the gallery space with the creative exploration of art classes and courses.

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You can read more about Karly's creative work here.

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