Aoife Billings (she/her) is a Narrm/Melbourne-based visual artist from a textiles and filmmaking background. Since graduating from RMIT with a Bachelor of Fashion Design and Technology in 2019, her practice has largely centred around ceramics, particularly ceramic painting, and oil painting.
At the age of sixteen, she began the art collective Bats of Leisure with her brother, Aaron Billings. Together they created hand-made embroidered garments, and taught many textile workshops through ACCA, various councils, Signal (City of Melbourne), and in their own studio. Aoife also co-directed ‘Wilderness,’ a fashion film for a Bats of Leisure collection, which was a finalist for Melbourne Fashion Festival’s ‘Fashion on Film’ competition in 2014.
In 2018 Aoife founded Pink Ember Studio (Coburg), a queer artist-run initiative with Frances Cannon, Gemma Flack and Aaron Billings. Housing up to fifteen artist studios, as well as a shop and gallery/workshop space, Pink Ember functions as a place to support and showcase local queer artists, foster community, and provide workshops to the public. Aoife considers maintaining and developing this community project to be part of her art practice.