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Showcasing her true colours
Robe & Bordertown hosting two very different exhibition by Mount Gambier based artist Gina Raisin
“You have to let go of your old expectations to make room for new possibilities.” It is a mantra that encapsulates the past few years for Mount Gambier artist Gina Raisin. The disruptions of COVID aside, her life too an unexpected turn and her journey over the past three years is now showcased on the walls of Karatta Wine Room & Gallery, in Robe, and Bordertown’s Walkway Gallery. They are two very different exhibitions – a culmination of mentorships and residencies under a Country Arts SA grant – but both reflect her personal and professional experiences.
It was in 2019 that Gina secured the $10,000 Step Up grant from the Australian Regional Art Fund, though Country Arts SA.
“This good fortune coincided with a life changing event when my husband Mick and I became permanent kinship guardians to our three grandchildren,” she said.
“Our world was tipped upside down and I thought my art practice had finished before it had even started.”
But it wasn’t. The staff at Country Arts SA worked closely with Gina to still allow her to undertake her funded project and time with mentors James Dodd and Heath Franco ensued, along with a 10 day residency at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE).
The newly formed young family then headed south to Tasmania at the beginning of 2020 but that sabbatical was cut short and in November that year, Mount Gambier was again home for Gina, Mick and the children, now aged 9. 7 and 5.
The time in Tasmania was prolific for Gina, though. Lockdowns might have meant she could not access her studio but eventually opportunities presented themselves.
“It was just nuts but when we came out of lockdown there was a café that said I could have a space in their shop and there I was painting for an audience,” Gina said.
“It was a new experience for me but I loved the interaction with the kids and others and I sold a considerable amount of work from there.”
It also meant she was putting into practice the work she had done alongside her mentors – Adelaide’s James Dodd and Sydney’s Heath Franco, who has previously exhibited in Mount Gambier.
Those two mentorships along with her 10 day residency at ACE, where Gina was able to immerse herself in her work, laid a solid foundation for what became preparation for two exhibitions – the Karatta Wine Exhibition, which is inspired by her time in Tasmania, and the Walkway Gallery, where she is the first Limestone Coast based artist to have a solo exhibition, which is an in depth study of the personal and professional challenges of the past three years.
“The process for both exhibitions was completely different for both of them and I painted them both quite separately,” she said.
“Although at the start of the process the feeling was the same – I have to paint two exhibitions in amongst raising three children.”
Gina’s acrylic and oil paintings hanging in Karatta Wine Room & Gallery are all about her time in Tasmania.
“It is inspired by the things I loved and the people that I loved in Tasmania,” she said.
“When people live on an island they are quite different – they are resourceful and they are interested in people, especially when new people come to the community.
“We lived in a fantastic little neighbourhood and we’ve been back since and stayed with both lots of neighbours – that’s how close we became. It is definitely a place I love.”
The Robe exhibition is titled Earth, Sea and Beyond and runs until February 26.
The Walkway Gallery solo exhibition is arguably even more personal and is rooted in the death of her mother.
“When I collected her belongings from Boandik there was a crochet rug,” Gina said.
“One day I pulled at a thread and it started unravelling so I made a ball of yarn out of it and that has come with me everywhere I go – it has become a symbol of life.
“If you pull at a thread, things can unravel very quickly. What I thought my life was going to be and what it has become is very different. The exhibitions is all about unravelling and ravelling.”
It sees an exhibition where the works are either in pairs or groups of three as they explore the polar opposite of the human experience – the sublime and the ridiculous being just one example of the polarised human condition.
