Blue Mountains City Art Gallery

Kayo Yokoyama: My Story 13 Jun – 26 Jul

In this exhibition Kayo Yokoyama explores her Japanese cultural heritage, focusing on aspects of Zen philosophy which played a significant part in her upbringing. Initially struggling with her Japanese heritage and strict cultural values, Yokoyama moved to the United States to embrace contemporary Western society before moving to Australia, where she started to re-connect with her cultural identity and Zen philosophy. Now based in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, her work often results in physical manifestations of her search for a sense of home and belonging across the different countries and cultures she has lived in. Delicately etched trees are a recurring motif which hint at the universal comfort of nature even in unfamiliar places. The moon and waterfalls are recent additions to her artistic language representing nature’s beauty and companionship.

A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Exposé Program exhibition

KAYO YOKOYAMA Show me the Way 2019, glass, rosewood, aluminium, 60 x 63 cm. Photo: Neil Stevenson

STILL IN MY MIND: Gurindji experience, location and visuality 11 Jul – 23 Aug

Inspired by the words of revered Indigenous leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘that land ... I still got it in my mind’, this exhibition considers the ongoing impact of the Gurindji Walk-Off, a seminal event in Australian history that continues to resonate powerfully today. The Walk-Off, a nine-year act of self-determination that began in 1966 and sparked the national land rights movement, was led by Lingiari and ngumpit (Aboriginal people) working at Wave Hill Station (Jinparrak) in the Northern Territory. Honouring last year’s 50th anniversary, curator and participating artist Brenda L. Croft has developed this exhibition through long-standing, practice-led research with her patrilineal community with the assistance of Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation.

Still in my Mind incorporates photographs, an experimental video installation, newly commissioned history paintings, contemporary and historical prints and drawings, textiles and found objects, digital platforms and archives, in a richly diverse exhibition that reveals the way Gurindji community members maintain cultural practices and kinship connections to keep this history present.

Curated by Brenda L. Croft, in partnership with National Institute for Experimental Arts, UNSW Art & Design

PAULINE RYAN Kilingarri Namija, Miker Yard 2015, acrylic on Belgian linen, 99 x 99 cm. Image courtesy the artist and Roxana Sherry.

Developed in partnership between Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation, UNSW Galleries, UNSW Art & Design, UQ Art Museum, with support from the Australian Research Council Discovery Indigenous Award, and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, UQ.

MAPBM: BLUE 1 Aug – 20 Sep

Blue is the most popular colour in contemporary Western societies, a colour with profound social and historical associations and symbolism that resonates throughout art, language, history, religion, gender, science, psychology and more. The exhibition BLUE presents the works of MAPBM artists exploring the notions of blue through a variety of media – painting, video, photography sculpture, installation and performance art.

Exhibiting artists are: Susan Andrews, M Bozzec, Kris Peta Deray, Tom Isaacs, Beata Geyer, Tom Loveday, Naomi Oliver, Katya Petetskaya, Rebecca Waterstone, Miriam Williamson and Brad Allen-Waters.

A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Exposé Program exhibition curated by Beata Geyer

M BOZZEC Blue Notes 2 2020, coloured pencil on paper, 63 x 59.6 cm. Image courtesy the artist.

FAYE WILSON Front and Back 2018 – 2019, digital montage from hand drawn and collected elements including a map of the 1957 bushfires in Leura and Katoomba, 59.4 x 84.1 cm. Image courtesy the artist.

Black & Blue II 29 Aug – 27 Sep

Six years after its first edition in 2014, Black & Blue returns to continue the creative exploration of dark and mysterious stories from the Blue Mountains.

Artist and curator Faye Wilson has paired visual artists, writers and historians to respond to tales – tall and true – collected from the region’s folklore and history. The creative responses include artist prints, installations and multi-media work, shining a light on curious events, fascinating figures, and crime or misdemeanours uncovered from a range of historical archives, and are complemented by a selection of historical objects from the surprising collection of the Mount Victoria Museum. The original prints from the first Back & Blue exhibition, which were acquired for the Cultural Centre’s Collection will also be on display.

Participating artists and writers are: Craig Billingham, Emma Brazil, Stuart Clarke, Brendan Doyle, Kate Fagan, James Gordon, Kathy Hale, Vanessa Kirkpatrick, John Low, Judith Martinez Estrada, Peter Minter, Beth Norling, Mark O’Flynn, Annabel Pettit, Michelle Rickerby, Tohby Riddle, Michael Robinson (aka STRANO), Nancy Sarno, Mandy Schöne-Salter, Michel Streich, Marty Walker and Faye Wilson.

A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition. Developed and curated by Faye Wilson

critical mass: the art of planetary health 3 Oct – 6 Dec

The health of humanity is intrinsically linked to the health of the environment, but by our own actions we now threaten to destabilise the Earth’s key lifesupport systems. The threats that our species faces are not just abstract physical risks, but lie within ourselves and the societies we have created. Based on the principles of Planetary Health, critical mass examines the relationships between ecological, economic and social change, and explores new modes of living needed to restore and stabilize our planet and to ensure the health and wellbeing of future generations. The exhibition encompasses works by Australia’s most significant 20th century and contemporary artists alongside collaborations by artist-activists and social change leaders, who are driving the conversation around new and more sustainable practices relating to our environment, food, energy, and resource sharing.

Featuring Russel Drysdale, Simryn Gill, Fiona Hall, Hans Heysen, Janet Laurence, Sydney Nolan, Daniel O’Shane and Louis Pratt alongside Blue Mountains and regional NSW artists Locust Jones, Heidi Axelsen & Hugo Moline, Ona Janzen, Andy Merry, Alexander Boynes & Mandy Martin, Rachel Peachey & Paul Mosig, Joan Ross and Dean Sewell. The artists provide reflections on anxiety yet also hope for the state of the world and its future: concerns about destruction of natural environments and eco-systems, resource depletion, climate change, waste production and over-population are examined with view to the roles that technology, science and human ingenuity can, and must play in stabilising our environment.

A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition curated by Sabrina Roesner

DEAN SEWELL In the Line of Fire 2019, digital print on Hahnemuehle photo rag, 80 x 102 cm

Jacqueline Spedding: Biome 26 Sep – 29 Nov

Clay, found objects and locally collected organic material form the basis of Blue Mountains artist Jacqueline Spedding’s sculpture and installations. Her new body of work is based on the concept of a biome – a finely tuned, self-sustaining environment of flora, fauna, soil and climate. Spedding will create a series of installations in the gallery that interweave images of domestic nature, human habitation and wild environments into a dreamlike setting.

A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Exposé Program exhibition

JACQUELINE SPEDDING Biome (detail) 2018, installation view. Photo: Ona Janzen