THE WAUCHOPE CREATIVE CLUB IS AN ARTISTIC COLLECTIVE

STUART (STU) DOHERTY, WCH

Stuart (Stu) Doherty moved from Sydney to Wauchope during the COVID Pandemic to bring art back home to Wauchope. The Wauchope Creative Hub (WCH) made its debut on 10th July 2021 at 87 Cameron Street, Wauchope, giving artists an opportunity to display their work in a professional retail space.

“It will give the artists a regular, secure space to display their art,” says Stu. He wants to bring back the respect for art, where artists can charge what their talent and effort deserve. In today’s mass-produced-and-imported style of consuming, people are used to paying little and not thinking twice about what goes into creating something. It is a challenge to place art right in the happy medium where it is not cheapened and neither is it made ultra exclusive. Stu wants to give artists a place where they can be proud to display what they have created, and where their families and friends can also be involved in by coming to their exhibitions. Artists are not shy hermits who create and hide away. They want to share what they have created with others and there is nothing more powerful than to have one’s family walk in, point to an art work and proudly declare, ‘My mom made this! Is she cool or what?’ or ‘That is my husband’s work. I am so proud of him’. It is a way to build community, and to bring artists together, to give them their own artistic community. It gives people support, encouragement and inspiration.

Art often attracts people and WCH is going to provide another reason to visit the area, while serving as beautiful addition to the unique boutique shops that Wauchope is famous for.

Stu came from a fashion and workwear designing background. WCH is where he will display and sell his water colour paintings and run regular water colour painting workshops.

CONTROLLING WATER

Water colour is Stu’s favourite medium.

It is slow and gentle and suits his laid back personality. Stu may be an artist, but he is far from being wild and flamboyant. Stu is quite the opposite - calm, methodical and process driven.

For those who understand and appreciate the medium and behaviour of water colour, it is a beautifully slow process of building up of layers. It is not something you can splash on at one go and leave it to dry overnight and call it a day. Stu enjoys every single layer he applies, he waits to see how the colours behave and where they spread, how they unfurl or retract. It is very much a live, living process where you grow with the painting and the end result is like seeing the painting with new eyes.

It is not necessary to have formal training to get started on a water colour palette and a canvas. It is as much for people who want to explore their creativity or for those who favour a more therapeutic approach to relaxing with their paints.

Water colour uses different techniques and simply watching the water and colours move around on the paper with a mind of their own is rather mesmerising and even hypnotic.

CONTACT WAUCHOPE CREATIVE HUB

87 Cameron Street, Wauchope, NSW 2446

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