CREATORS IN CONVERSATION
Panel 4: Text-Tiles
Sat 13 September 2025, 2:30โ3:30pm
Studio 01, Adelaide City Library, Level 3 Rundle Place,
77โ91 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, South Australia
Cost: FREEย (no booking required, butย RSVPing on Facebookย will help us know how many people to expect)
Claire Murphy (VIC), Elizabeth Marruffo (WA), and Samuel Luke Beatty (NSW), with Carly Snoswell (SA) (chair)
Is making comics with fabric as hard as it seams? Find out from three comics artists whoโve gone the extra yard and taken to textiles as their medium! Itโs sew and tell time with these panellists discussing their craft, inspirations, and challenges. Weโll unravel why our guests have chosen a needle rather than a pen, yarn about their creative process, and find out whether thereโs a common thread to their diverse works. With these creatorsโ comics appearing in art galleries, on clothing, and in internationally published books, weave got a lot of material to cover!
This session will feature sign interpretation in Auslan, provided by Deaf Connect.
BIOGRAPHIES
Claire Murphy
Claire Murphy (she/her) studied Illustration at Queensland College of Art, where she discovered a love of comic art and graphic novels that she has maintained ever since. In addition to online and print comics drawn traditionally or digitally, her practice also includes using textiles. This approach originated with LERP, an embroidered comic begun in 2020 during lockdown in Melbourne. She photographed the embroidered woollen panels and printed the result as a minicomic. Most recently, her experiments with fabric and format have led her to create That Time of Year, a screenprinted comic produced as a wearable bandana and as a wall hanging banner. That Time of Year will be launched at the 2025 Papercuts Market Day.
Claireโs work has been published by Penguin Random House and in several anthologies, including Cardigan Comicsโ Tango. She has also self-published comics such as Coral & Mackenzie (written by Edward Murphy). She lives on the lands of the Wurundjeri people in Melbourne with her daughter, husband, and rescue cat Buffy, where she works as a freelance illustrator. Her fascination with fashion history and what we choose to put on our body is reflected in her comic illustrations and her diary comics on Instagram, as is her interest in food/cooking and gardening. She also enjoys collecting vintage brooches and learning the bass.
Elizabeth Marruffo
Elizabeth Marruffo (she/her) grew up in the small town of Agua Prieta in Mexico, emigrated to England at 7 years old, and currently lives and works in Perth. Her upcoming graphic novel,ย Pup Pup is the Boss of the Starsย (Top Shelf, 2026), is an auto-fictional re-imagining of The Wind in the Willows, set in her hometown on the Mexican/US border. Illustrated through an experimental, mixed-media process of staged dioramas, needle-felted characters, and painted landscapes, the book utilises a whimsical lens to explore how conflict zones are experienced by those that live within them. Elizabeth also founded and edits the annualย Tale Townย literary comics journal โ a newspaper full of comics!
Outside of comics, Elizabeth is a highly commended painter who has won many awards and held several solo exhibitions. In her painting practice, she engages with ideas of self-representation and with the themes of collective grief, loss, and love. She also includes small sculptures alongside her dreamlike paintings.ย Pup Pup is the Boss of the Stars had its genesis in one of her immersive installations.
Elizabeth is the co-founder and Creative Director of the Perth Comic Arts Festival, and โ alongside her husband, fellow comics-maker Campbell Whyte โ the co-founder and co-director of the Milktooth School of Art and Stories. She is also a PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University and lives with her husband, son, mother and two Xolo dogs.
Samuel Luke Beatty
Samuel Luke Beatty (he/him) is a freelance illustrator and artist who uses graphic narratives and autobiographical storytelling to explore the intimate realities of being transgender. Over time, his comics practice has evolved from digitally-illustrated single prints, to bound comic books, to tactile embroidered and quilted pieces using repurposed materials of bedsheets and clothing. This current approach combines Samuelโs love for comics and the tenderness of textiles. He enjoys using very limited words in his work to capture super-complex feelings, through comics that explore themes of transition, trans identity and sexuality, masculinity, and childhood memories.
Samuel graduated from UNSW Art & Design in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours), and has participated in over 20 art exhibitions in Australia and Canada (including two solo shows in Sydney). In 2020 he worked with ABC News Australia, illustrating and directing the animation of an online comic adapting reporting from the Background Briefing podcast about a trans woman sent to a menโs prison. In 2021 he worked with Converse, creating a custom high-top Chuck 70 design, the sales of which supported Minus18 (an Australian charity improving the lives of LGBTQIA+ young people). He has also illustrated projects with Adobe, ACON Healthโs TransHub, Headspace, and Sock Drawer Heroes. Samuel currently lives and works in Sydney, on Dharug Country.
Carly Snoswell (chair)
Carly Snoswell (she/her) is an artist based on Kaurna Land, specialising in contemporary textiles. Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art in 2012, she has exhibited widely, including internationally. Her work has examined fandom and the creation of craft objects as an ode to pop-cultural phenomena through gendered and laborious forms of craft-making. Focusing on obsession and identity, her practice has broadened to explore more personal experiences of motherhood, fertility, and grief. She completed a Masters by Research at the South Australian School of Art with her thesis โBeyoncรฉ is a Port Supporterโ. Carly was Co-Director of FELTspace and has had studio residencies in Adelaide, Melbourne, India, New York, Japan, and Iceland.
Presented by CDW Studios
CDW Stuยญdios School of Visuยญal Effects and Enterยญtainยญment Design has been runยญning since 2011 and proยญvides artists Ausยญtralia-wide with the most up-to-date and relยญeยญvant eduยญcaยญtion availยญable to kickstart their career. You can find out more by visiting their website or by following them on Instagram or Facebook!
