EXHIBITION PROGRAM JULY – DECEMBER 2020
Double Vision: Euan Macleod and Ron McBurnie The Friends Gallery Until 15 November 2020 Euan Macleod and Ron McBurnie spent time in the Tweed Valley region making new work en plein air in Murwillumbah, Uki, Stokers Siding, Cabarita, Fingal and Brunswick Heads. Their different approaches, observations and responses present a dynamic double vision of landscapes across the Northern Rivers region. "Direct observation and the immediacy of working en plein air is core to the way each of us approach our art practice. This residency has allowed us time to explore the area without preconceived notions or finished works in mind. It has been about exploration, discovery and response. We hope our interpretations of these landscapes will bring audiences new views of familiar places." Euan Macleod & Ron McBurnie View a video tour of Double Vision by Curator Ingrid Hedgcock. A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative.
Ron McBurnie (left) and Euan Macleod painting en plein air at the Tweed Regional Gallery, March 2019. Photo: Justin Ealand
You are here: art of the region Withey Gallery Until January 2021 You are here: art of the region is an exhibition comprised entirely of works in the Tweed Regional Gallery collection and highlights one of the Gallery’s four collection focus areas: artworks of regional relevance. The exhibition explores artists’ different interpretations of the unique landscape and characteristics of the region, which extends from the Northern Rivers of New South Wales to South Eastern Queensland, as well as the work of artists living or working in our region. Artists include Margaret Olley, William Robinson, Angus McDonald, James Guppy, Karla Dickens, Guy Maestri and Hiromi Tango. A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative.
Margaret Olley (b.1923, d.2011) Low tide 1963 ink and watercolour on paper Purchased through the Tweed Regional Gallery Donations Fund, 2016. Tweed Regional Gallery collection.
Arm of the Sea and the Fertile Tree Sally Anderson The Anthony Gallery 3 July – 29 November 2020 “To help my son sleep we put on white noise of a small river in Scotland and Llyn Gwynant waves in Wales. The toponomy of Lismore indicates it was named after Isle of Lismore which lies in Loch Linnhe, an arm of the sea, on the West Coast of Scotland. I was born in Lismore early 1990, an experience I hadn’t intimately considered until the birth of my son a couple of years ago. My son was conceived in the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio at Tweed Regional Gallery. There’s a pair of hoop pines (aka Richmond River Pines) that dominate the side view from the residency verandah. I often use these trees, along with banksias, within my work to represent the Northern Rivers region, my transition to motherhood and European exploration/invasion of Australia. The works in Arm of the Sea and the Fertile Tree use landscape metaphor rather than subject. Intimate personal experience and collective experience are translated into paintings, bedspreads, windows, still lifes and stages.” Sally Anderson Courtesy of Olsen Gallery in Sydney. A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative.
Sally Anderson Bundjalung Boormans Birth Banksias and the Piano lesson with Laying Tweed Tree 2020 acrylic on polycotton, 274 × 168cm Photo: Michelle Eabry.
LIFE, DEATH, innocence AND GUILT Shannon Doyle Macnaughton Focus Gallery and Kelly Wall 10 July – 13 September 2020 “My intention is to explore the notions of innocence, guilt, life and death in relation to current events. By producing topical work about subjects such as climate change, the extinction crisis and coronavirus, I want to evoke an emotive response from the audience. My intention is to encourage the audience to emotionally invest in the work and therefore participate in a topical discussion about the work. I want to facilitate this discussion by creating work subtle in nature; subtle yet impactful to encourage self-reflection. As a sense of urgency bubbles away under the surface, a wave of change breaks above; a result of informed people expressing beliefs and acting on those beliefs. It all starts with a discussion about change, that’s what these works are – ‘conversation starters’ – encouraging others to acknowledge the urgency to contribute to a cultural shift away from archaic beliefs and attitudes towards change.” Shannon Doyle An outcome of the Community Access Exhibitions Program.
Shannon Doyle Vanitas Plastica 2020 acrylic on canvas, 80 × 105cm Image courtesy the artist.
Surreal Nature Dave Groom The Boyd Gallery 10 July – 13 September 2020 “The title ‘Surreal Nature’ is a nod to an art genre I have always been fascinated by, but it also suggests that nature has a strong sense of the surreal. It can be dream-like and bizarre. Its shapes and forms and ways of evolving are incomprehensible to us at times. Our traditional viewpoint of the landscape is one with a horizon line. We see the sky, mountains and valleys, trees and pastures, but the detail of nature is hidden from view. It's not until we imagine the viewpoint of a bird flying or an ant crawling that we realise nature can be seen in very different ways. When I began work for this exhibition, there were no fires or floods or pandemics on the horizon. These events turned our world upside down. Nature’s surreal elements suggest now, more than ever, that maybe we need to look at our world from different perspectives.” Dave Groom An outcome of the Community Access Exhibitions Program.
Dave Groom Ghosts Beneath the Canopy 2020 oil on canvas, 90 × 120cm Image courtesy the artist.
John Mawurundjul: I am the old and the new The Temporary Exhibitions Gallery 10 July – 13 September 2020 John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new reunites works of art made across a 40-year period. The artist has led the development of this exhibition, which describes in Kuninjku (and English) his places of special cultural significance known as kunred, as well as the sacred places and spirits – or Djang – that resurface time and time again in his art-making. We also encounter the animals and spirit beings that populate these locations including female water spirits (yawkyawk), rainbow serpents (ngalyod) and mischievous mimih spirits. The places around western Arnhem Land that recur in his work include spring-fed creeks such as Milmilngkan, sandstone escarpments including Ngandarrayo and the white clay quarries of the seasonal creek called Kudjarnngal. The materials used by Mawurndjul to make his art come from these places: the stringy bark eucalypt skins that form the body of his bark paintings; the white clay, yellow and red ochres mined from sacred deposits that become paint; and the manyilk, the paint brush sedge that makes the single strand brushes that the artist uses to make cross hatching or rarrk. The Mardayin ceremony, comprising rituals of a sacred nature, and informing so much of Mawurndjul’s work, remains a timeless narrative thread that links the past to the present, and sheds light on Kuninjku future – embracing the old and the new. This exhibition was developed and co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the Art Gallery of South Australia, in association with Maningrida Arts & Culture. View the full length documentary John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new.
Exhibition organised and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program.
John Mawurndjul Ngalyod 2012 earth pigments on Stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta) Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2015 © John Mawurndjul/Copyright Agency, 2020, photograph: Jessica Maurer.
Brunswick Sky Cedar Jeffs Macnaughton Focus Gallery and Kelly Wall 18 September – 8 November 2020 Cedar Jeffs is an emerging artist currently studying at the Byron School of Art, Mullumbimby. Her practice encompasses a range of mediums, with a focus on oil painting and drawing. Jeffs’s interest lies in exploring the traditional genres of portraiture and landscape within a contemporary content. Her subjects are chosen with the intention of drawing closer to an initial response to a momentary encounter. The prolonged act of painting allows me to extend these initial impulses into hours of quiet reflection, with the resulting painting a documentation of my experience. In this series Brunswick Sky Jeffs has featured Brunswick Heads beach as her subject. Living in this coastal area she constantly inspired by the subtlety of colour and changes in light. An outcome of the Community Access Exhibitions Program.
Cedar Jeffs Tempest I 2020 oil on linen, 61 × 92cm Image courtesy the artist.
How Soon Is Now? Bruce Reynolds The Boyd Gallery 18 September – 8 November 2020 “How Soon Is Now celebrates a physicality that is frequently bypassed in our growing digital environment in a language of compressed space. It alludes to how we arrived at this point from the archaic into a refreshed space of representation. Its materials and processes bridge disciplinary categories and combine the physical with narrative and image with object so as to question the tableau of history. Carving and casting subdued or colourless reliefs counter the two dimensional inlaid works that fit together linoleum from recent urban contexts in a language of pattern, colour and outmoded styles. Together the cast works and lino panels invite consideration of the ancient in relation to the recent. My work has been described as playful, inventive and highly original. Bruce Reynolds
Bruce Reynolds Wedgewood Curiass 2018 cast HydraCal and pigment, 85 × 65 × 8cm Image courtesy the artist.
Just Not Australian The Temporary Exhibitions Gallery 18 September – 8 November 2020 Just Not Australian presents Australian practitioners at the forefront of national debate and practice. Drawing together 20 artists from diverse cultural backgrounds, their differing ideas and perspectives on nationhood coexist within this timely thematic show. Showcasing the common sensibilities of satire, larrikinism and resistance so as to present a broad exploration of race, place and belonging, Just Not Australian interrogates what it means to be Australian at this challenging point in time. This exhibition was developed just prior to the official 250th anniversary celebrations for Captain Cook’s first voyage to Australia. This is an opportunity to engage critically with this moment in Australia’s colonial history and to examine the meaning of ‘arrival’ as a continuum within this country that has seen ongoing immigration historically and contemporaneously. Artists include Abdul Abdullah, Hoda Afshar, Tony Albert, Cigdem Aydemir, Liam Benson, Eric Bridgeman, Jon Campbell, Karla Dickens, Fiona Foley, Gordon Hookey, Richard Lewer, Archie Moore, Vincent Namatjira, Nell, Joan Ross, Tony Schwensen, Raquel Ormella, Ryan Presley and artistic duo Soda Jerk. Just Not Australian was curated by Artspace and developed in partnership with Sydney Festival and Museums & Galleries of NSW. The exhibition is touring nationally with Museums & Galleries of NSW. Watch an interview with Talia Linz, Curator, Just Not Australian.
Installation view of ‘Tony Albert: Visible’ at the Queensland Art Gallery, 2019 featuring exotic OTHER 2009/2018 Photo: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney | Singapore. Collection of Tom Snow, courtesy of Annette Larkin Fine Art, Sydney.
Mary Shelley – A Seditious Heart Justin Ealand and Wendy Powitt The Boyd Gallery 13 November 2020 – 28 February 2021 Photographer Justin Ealand and embroiderer and sculptor Wendy Powitt bring together an enchanting exhibition that highlights the difficulty of life, when as individuals, we are not completely in tune with our communities belief system of acceptable behaviour. This exhibition will re-create three imaginary rooms from the house of Mary and Percy Shelley that foster radical ideas and communicate social difficulties to inspire audience contemplation on today’s society. Mary and Percy Shelley were writers and poets of the early 19th century, with Mary writing the legendary gothic tale Frankenstein at the age of 18. Mary and Percy lived a radical, passionate and itinerant life in Europe, and were complex and interesting individuals. An outcome of the Community Access Exhibitions Program.
Image left:
Image right:
Justin Ealand
Wendy Powitt
Wahla as Mary Wollstonecraft 2019 (detail)
The Eyes Have It 2020 (detail)
giclee cotton rag print, 61 × 81cm
Image courtesy the artist.
Image courtesy the artist.
embroidery, 45 × 45cm
Margaret's House Margaret Olley I Nicholas Harding I Pam Tippett I Adam Pyett Margaret Olley Art Centre 30 October 2020 – 2 May 2021 Margaret’s House includes some of the finest examples of Olley’s still lifes and interiors, from public and private collections, alongside new work by three contemporary Australian painters. Nicholas Harding, Pam Tippett and Adam Pyett were invited to explore the re-creation of Margaret Olley’s home studio, and made new work in response to its intriguing interiors and the incredible collection of objects that Olley collected as subject matter for her paintings. This intersection of Olley’s home studio, her paintings and the contemporary responses, presents a renewed context for Olley’s practice and the genre of still life painting in Australia today. A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative.
This page:
Opposite page:
Nicholas Harding
Pam Tippett painting in the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio, June 2019.
The poppy rider 2020 oil on linen, 152 × 168cm Collection of the artist, courtesy Philip Bacon Galleries. © The artist.
Photo: Justin Ealand.
ROCK FACE Gabriela Soelkner Macnaughton Focus Gallery and Kelly Wall 13 November 2020 – 28 February 2021 “Thirty-eight years of exploring the caldera of an extinct, ancient shield volcano that erupted twenty-three million years ago. Thousands of opportunities to gather information. Hundreds of memorable and inspiring details collected on every walk through the bush and rainforest , along many creek beds, touching countless textured, weathered rock surfaces on every mountain climb. Seeing eroded faces in profile on giant rock formations and headlands. Contemplating what fossils could be suspended in the compressed mud, silt and sediment lines of extraordinary shape and colour. Often beginning with clear candle and white oil sticks to create a barely visible layer of first impressions, I then draw with earth coloured pencils dipped in black and sepia ink, using soft and hard charcoal for sharp and smudged lines. Powdering the surface with loose graphite and ground pigments of lamp black, caput mortuum, cassel earth and titanium grey. Painting with opaque copper, iridescent nickel, flat black and white gesso. Scraping, scarring and scratching back the layers exposing earlier hidden marks as the process opens a cache of collected memories and stories. While reflecting on the permanency of a rock face and the temporary nature of human life, I have combined my interests in anthropology, archaeology and geology into an exhibition of work revealing my relationship stories about the land and the people that have created intimacy in my life and art practice.” Gabriela Soelkner An outcome of the Community Access Exhibitions Program.
Gabriela Soelkner SISTER TRACKS 2019 gesso, ink, charcoal, oilstick on 300 gsm paper, 70 × 100cm Image courtesy the artist.
Archive Victoria Reichelt 4 December 2020 – 9 May 2021 Gold Coast-based artist Victoria Reichelt has been practising art for over fifteen years. Known for her stunning realist paintings, Reichelt documents endangered artefacts and transitional spaces, both technological and temporal. Featuring works spanning Reichelt’s career, Archive brings together works that explore contemporary detritus, from stacks of books and magazines and empty public libraries, to plastic cups and takeaway containers. The exhibition will also feature works from her latest series of balloon-constructed images, that Reichelt describes as ‘sarcastic landscapes’. Reichelt said, “if we’re not careful they may be the only landscapes we have.” Victoria Reichelt studied Fine Art at the Queensland College of Art, graduating in 2005 having completed her Doctor of Visual Arts. She was awarded the Sulman Prize (Art Gallery of New South Wales) in 2013, and is a recent finalist in the Portia Geach Memorial Award 2019, the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize 2019 and Still: National Still Life Award 2, 2019. Her work has been exhibited at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, and Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art. Her work is included in the collection of Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Deakin University, Artbank, Tweed Regional Gallery and Gold Coast City Gallery. Reichelt was awarded a doctorate from Queensland College of Art in 2005. Victoria Reichelt is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and This Is No Fantasy, Melbourne. A Tweed Regional Gallery initiative.
Victoria Reichelt Australian landscape (trees) 2019 oil on linen, 91 × 130cm Tweed Regional Gallery collection. Gift of the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc., 2019.
Gallery At Home Taking inspiration from the exhibitions on display, Gallery At Home offers art lovers another way to engage with what’s on at the Gallery. Featuring hands-on activities, online events, educational resources and more, Gallery At Home can be your digital portal to the Gallery’s program and enhance your visit to the Gallery as we re-open our doors. Featuring a growing collection of art making ideas and challenges, curator and artist videos and virtual insights into our collection and exhibitions, Gallery At Home is a free resource available to all. For creative inspiration or to learn more about the exhibitions and collection head to the Gallery website.
MOAC Curator & Collection Manager Ingrid Hedgcock, from Unlocking Duxford St: Hyacinth Still Life Challenge.
Above:
Below:
Annie Long
Rae Saheli
Antarctic Beeches 2019
Layered 2019
stoneware with glaze, enamel and lustre, 48 × 50 × 40cm
12 gauge shot fired at encaustic on board, 30 × 30cm
Image courtesy of artist.
Image courtesy of artist.
Fragmented Cohesion Annie Long Brisbane Street Gallery 10 July – 5 September 2020 The ‘Wood Wide Web’ acknowledges the communal and communicative nature of plants and microbes within the structure of a forest. Our local native forests are dynamic and evolving communities where survival dramas are played out daily despite their interconnectivity being disrupted since colonisation. This has resulted in increased isolation and stress, making them vulnerable to changing climatic conditions such as drought and fires. This body of work imagines the elements of a forest. Time spent in the forests of the Northern Rivers has allowed me to see how communities build resilience, adapting to the fragmentation of these ancient networks. While my art practice is centered around ceramic sculpture, painting and video allow me the freedom to explore other perspectives. Annie Long
Gauge Rae Saheli Proudfoots Lane Gallery 10 July – 5 September 2020 Based on the ‘process movement’, Rae Saheli creates a body of work that represents both chaos or chance elements juxtaposed with her planning of intention or intervention. Saheli explores the intersection between random and controlled elements by shooting at the surface of the artwork with a shot gun, setting fire to materials and the manipulation of wax upon a surface. Gauge explores the notion of variation and texture inspiring the viewer to reflect on the processes involved and the impact of that on the finished work. Further, Saheli’s intention for the viewer is to feel and respond to her work with the invitation to enjoy a sensory and sensual experience.
Above:
Below:
Chelle Wallace
Watson Wisler
Blue Vase and Orchards 2020
To the one I Love 2019
photograph
cyanotype, A3
Image courtesy of artist.
Image courtesy of artist.
Portals of the Inanimate Chelle Wallace Proudfoots Lane Gallery 11 September – 28 November 2020 In the earliest fixed canon of painting genres still life was given the lowest rank; regarded as mere recordings of inanimate objects. Portals of the Inanimate seeks to celebrate these domestic scenes, and their much-loved influence on Chelle Wallace’s own photographic expressions, while inviting inquiry into the curated objects they embody. For many post-war daughters expected to relinquish their job and thus role in public life upon marriage and pregnancy, the home provided a conduit for identity; bearing qualities such as sanctuary, higher purpose and pride. Far from inanimate, the objects it heldbecame cherished portals for enticing the imagination.
There is a Language, Little Known Rose Watson & Caroline Wisler Brisbane Street Gallery 11 September – 28 November 2020 Floriography (language of flowers) is a type of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. “There is a language, little known” refers to this symbolic language of flowers which has been recognised for centuries in mythologies, folklore and sonnets, where nearly every sentiment conceivable can be conveyed. During the 1800s Victorian homes had guidebooks for deciphering this figurative language in which flowers were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings that otherwise could not be spoken. With Caroline Wislers’ love of the traditional photographic process Cyanotype and Rose Watsons’ passion for digital mediums, they deliver an alliance where historical techniques merge with the contemporary. Each image conceptualises a message or sentiment through combining light and shadow allowing a visual representation of the flowers meaning to be conveyed. Through this exhibition Watson and Wisler aim to highlight and reinvigorate this little known language and showcase the enchanting and secret ‘Language of Flowers.’
TWEED REGIONAL GALLERY & MARGARET OLLEY ART CENTRE A Tweed Shire Council Community Facility
A PO Box 816 (2 Mistral Road) Murwillumbah NSW 2484 P (02) 6670 2790
/tweedregionalgallery
E tweedart@tweed.nsw.gov.au
@tweedregionalgallery
W artgallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au Open 10am–5pm (DST) Wednesday – Sunday Admission free
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
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This exhibition program is subject to change. Gallery visitors are encouraged to join the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc. to receive up-to-date notification of all Gallery programs and events.
Cover: From the exhibition John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new John Mawurndjul, Ancestral Spirit Beings Collecting Honey, 1985–87, earth pigments on Stringybark (Eucalyptus tetrodonta), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Maningrida Arts & Culture with financial assistance from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board of the Australia Council, 1994 © John Mawurndjul/Copyright Agency, 2020, photograph: Jessica Maurer.