Toowoomba gallery’s time to shine

An art exhibition in Feather & Lawry Design is sure to attract plenty of interest because of the unusual angle taken by the artist in his works.

Storm damage closed Toowoomba’s Feather & Lawry Design until October last year when the design and architecture team was able to return – and now the adjoining gallery has re-opened with a suitably titled exhibition, Reflect & Shine.

This gallery is a pocket of intrigue that aims to delight and surprise Toowoomba locals and visitors to the region, and Stephen Baxter’s joyous work delivers.

Baxter’s art-making practice responds to his immediate environment – the view from a window, creatures in our suburban garden or holiday adventuring.

He includes found objects in sculpted works that radiate joy, an element also present in the large vivid paintings featured in this collection.

Baxter’s penchant for collecting things to include in his work began in Toowoomba during his Fine Art studies with the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education (DDIAE) - which is now the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) - in the early eighties.

Now living on the Gold Coast, Baxter says his own reflecting on past challenges often teaches the most valuable lessons, as

Plant Shop

does the creative process.

In the current exhibition he includes many experimental approaches developed over the four decades of his art-making journey.

Reflect & Shine continues at Feather and Lawry Gallery, 4 Russell Street, Toowoomba until June the 8th and is from 8.30am until 5pm on week days.

ABOVE: Stephen Baxter, whose exhibition continues at Feather and Lawry Design in Toowoomba, until June 8, pictured with opening night speaker Evan Hollis.

BELOW: An interior view of the recently re-opened Feather & Lawry Design studio and Gallery.

Photos, Cam Murchison