JANUARY 12 – MARCH 17. 2024
DIRECTORS COLLECTION
Reopening for 2024 with a group show including some of our favourites
BOYD McMILLAN – CHERYL McCOY – GARRY PETTITT – ANA GRAZYBOWSKI – NATASHA DANILOFF – MICHAEL BOURKE – LEO CREMONESE – JOY ENGELMAN – WILL HAZZARD – KELLY HAZZARD – RALPHE COOMBES – SONIA COX – ANNIE JOSEPH – RAY HARRINGTON – DAVID NEWMAN-WHITE
March 28 – April 28
LISE EDWARDS – PAULINE WELLFARE – MELISSA KELLY – PETER WILSON – ROS AULD – CATHERINE PHILLIPS – GREG DALY – JOHN DALY – GEOFF THOMAS – PAM WELSH – SUE FOLDHAZY – SARAH O’SULLIVAN and guest artist JAYANTO TAN
Gang Gang Gallery is thrilled to be hosting our 4th collection of ceramic works by a number of talented potters, pushing boundaries with function and form in this energetic and creative exhibition.
OPENING EVENT – Saturday March 30th from 2pm
Meet the Artists in the Gallery Dates:
LISE EDWARDS – Saturdays and Sundays throughout the exhibition. 10.30am to 4.30pm
CATHERINE PHILLIPS – Saturday 6th April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
PETER WILSON – Friday 12th April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
GREG DALY – Saturday 20th April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
JOHN DALY – Sunday 21st April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
MELISSA KELLY – Saturday 27th April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
SUE FOLDHAZY – Sunday 28th April, 10.30am to 4.30pm
LISE EDWARDS
“I’m interested in the shape of clay. What it was and what it can be…”
IGNIS Clay is chemically decomposed igneous rocks. In a way, firing clay returns it to a stone like state and as such it will weather and decompose like stone.
PAULINE WELLFARE
I started potting over 38 years ago, and completed Certificates 1, 2, and 3 at Lithgow and Orange TAFE colleges.
After working by myself for a number of years, I enrolled in the Distance Education Ceramics Diploma course offered by Australian National University, Canberra. I was awarded, under the ANU’s Emerging Artists Support Scheme, the National Gallery’s Product Development Award, and the Canberra Potter’s Society’s Exhibition Award. During my years of pottery I have engaged in one solo and many group exhibitions. These group exhibitions have been local, once at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, and as far flung as Nexus Gallery, Bellingen NSW, and Walker Street Gallery, Dandenong, Victoria.
For most of the 38 years, I have worked with students of Wallerawang Public School, teaching them pottery, as well as engaging in 4 mural installations. I also have adult pottery students coming to my studio, starting their own personal pottery journeys with me.
During my time at ANU, I discovered my fascination for and love of carving and polishing porcelain. There is a tactile quality to the surface that attracts me to continue with this work. With some of my pieces, I challenge people’s perception of how things are meant to look, often by sitting them at an angle.
The work I have made for this exhibition are examples of both these themes.
MELISSA KELLY
Melissa lives and works in Gilgandra – Wiradjuri place meaning Long Water Hole.
Always creative, Melissa began her ceramics journey at the Coonamble Ceramics Collective in 2015, learning to throw and sculpt clay with other creatives. She set up her home studio in 2019, as has had several regional exhibitions including Homeground at the Western Plain Cultural Centre in Dubbo in 2022.
Melissa explores feminist themes within her work – focusing on her own identity and experiences as a woman. Her work contains a playful curiosity and seeped in magic realism. Her figurative works explore women undergoing transformative zoomorphism in ways that express their emotions. For example, Nest Woman symbolises the transformation (identity crisis) women undergo as their children grow and leave home. Others wear a crown, symbolising their empowerment and triumph (being comfortable in your own skin). Melissa brings natural elements and found objects into her works representing the wildness of nature and a childhood reared on outdoor spaces – the Warrumbungle mountain range and the Barr (Castlereagh) River. The carved urns are vessels in which her young girlish hopes and dreams are laid to rest and the “body” of the urn are the scars from life-experiences she lives with moving forward with her life.
PETER WILSON
Peter Wilson’s pots are represented in the National Gallery of Australia (in collaboration with artist John Olsen) and public collections in Japan, the UK, Canada, Pakistan and several regional galleries in Australia. His works are held in many private collections around the world. He holds a doctorate in ceramic glazes and materials and has a keen interest in geology.
His works mainly with vessel shapes and these demonstrate a strong craft base and manifest his interest in the explorations of the materiality of ceramics, much of which is sourced locally.
ROS AULD
Ros Auld studied painting and ceramics at the National Art School in Sydney and Newcastle, subsequently worked in the ceramic studio of John Piper in the UK, followed by teaching visual arts and ceramics at tertiary level. She has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and her work is represented in many galleries and private collections in Australia and overseas. She is represented in Sydney by Simon Chan at Art Atrium and Messums UK.
Ros has collaborated with other artists, notably John Olsen, Gabriella Hegyes and Tim Winters over a number of years.
CATHERINE PHILLIPS
Born and raised in Lithgow, is a potter who has been working with clay for the last 25 years. She has a studio in the central tablelands just outside of Orange and her work centres around domestic wheel thrown ware. Her abstract decoration is inspired by insects; either their morphology or the trail they leave in the environment.
She studied ceramics at TAFE in the 1990’s, has exhibited in group exhibitions in New South Wales and provided tuition to small groups of interested people.
My work is enjoyed on a daily basis by many people either having a drink, eating breakfast in a bowl, dinner off a plate or simply enjoying my linear perspective.
GREG DALY
I have always drawn inspiration from my surroundings. The surrounding land, sky, light, I see from my studio have been distilled into this work, from the grasses at the doorstep to the far hills seen across paddocks full of eucalypts, and beyond, upwards into the atmospheric realm. And across all this, the importance of light itself interacting with the lustre surfaces of the work. Light falling on, reflecting off and diffusing through all that surrounds me, bringing with it colour.
The work in this exhibition continues the exploration of light and lustre glazes. This work draws upon light and interaction with the atmosphere and environment. From dappled light seen through the tree canopy and grasses, where morning light is more reflected light off clouds, morning mist or the first gold light of morning. The blood red sky at sunset.
The surfaces are achieved through lustre glazes containing silver and copper that when reduced in a third firing transform giving colours from yellows, gold, silver, red and copper. With the use of other colourants an amazing pallet of surface and colours is achieved.
JOHN DALY
John Daly is a ceramic artist, living and creating on the unceded lands of the Wiradjuri people.
Growing up surrounded by his parents’ ceramic practices and the remnant native ecologies and altered agricultural lands of the Central West formed a deep connection to creative and environmental forces. After studying a Bachelor of Science in geology and environmental science John reconnected with clay, exploring the link between geology and ceramics, between his formal training and his familial education.
Central to his art making practice has been the quandary of creating in a world of ever dwindling natural resources, which over time has lead to personal guilt in the use of virgin materials and paralysis when faced with making ‘just more stuff’ with which to fill the world. This has resulted in the use of materials that have solely come from various waste streams. Waste clay from his father’s ceramic practice is reprocessed and thrown into new forms. Glass from a broken window is crushed, grounded and mixed with the waste clay to form a low temperature glaze. An old copper pipe, carelessly thrown into landfill, is ground up and added to the glaze to create colour and lustre. The time and manual labour required to process and transform these materials is akin to an atonement for all the moments of thoughtless consumption.
GEOFF THOMAS
I have been making pots since 1972 and firing with wood in both a Spring Arch bourry box kiln and an Anagama
I like to think I take a fairly direct approach to pots. The idea of being able to dig clay out of the ground, throw it into a pot on the wheel, formulate glazes with the inclusion of local material, build kilns and fire on wood holds a sort of fascination and mystery.
It is not always so straight forward!!
To quote others, making pots for wood firing“A little bit of tree, a little bit of me and several thousand years of Eastern philosophy.
PAM WELSH
Pamela lives in Mudgee, NSW. She has worked with clay sculpturally all of her career.
She taught Visual Arts after she gained her degree and began to produce work in ceramic, participating in local exhibitions and selling work from a Mudgee gallery. Her work has sold locally and overseas.
The first in the series that have developed in this style was shown at Mid Western Regional Gallery and called “The Princess and the Piano”.
The intricate, painterly works are drawn from the true story of Princess Alexandra of Bavaria who had the condition whereby she was utterly convinced she had swallowed a glass grand piano.
The group of works in this exhibition is titled ‘The Princess Sails to the Antipodes”. The viewer is invited to explore each transcendental world that the princess inhabits, capturing the artist’s fascination with duality-the dichotomy of reality and fantasy.
The princess “sails” to the Antipodes attempting to negotiate all the physical and intellectual challenges she encounters thus exposing for the artist interesting and amusing human conditions including pretension and the ridiculous.
SUE FOLDHAZY
My pottery studio is setup at home in my garden in Rylstone near Mudgee NSW. I have been working with clay for approx. 20yrs. I work with all types of clay from throwing functional ware to handbuilding & sculptural pieces.
I’m constantly experimenting with forms. In this series of vessels functional form, painted surfaces & sculptural form can come together in a variety of ways.
Australian landscape is my source of inspiration. I suggest the cracked earth, eroded surfaces and the iron & colours of the landscape with slips, oxide washes & glazes.
SARAH O’SULLIVAN
Drawing inspiration from the surroundings in the greater Blue Mountains, Sarah O’Sullivan began this collection by creating observational sketches of natural marvels encountered during bush walks. These sketches were then incorporated onto the surface of ceramic forms, executed using underglaze, the drawings reminiscent of early colonial images of Australia’s native flora and fauna. The delicate wash of pigment has been applied to mimic water-colour paint and to provide contrast to the raw unglazed ceramic surface.
JAYANTO TAN
Jayanto Tan is a Gadigal/Wangal based visual artist who was born and raised in a small town in North Sumatra, Indonesia. His practice draws on his family history and diasporic background, blending Eastern and Western mythologies with the contemporary world and current events. Using ceramic sculptures, found objects, authentic food, performance and installation, his work often investigates how hybrid cultures can create new identities of possibility and hope.
He is a contemporary artist who has exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in Australia and overseas. He won the 2021 Georges River Sculpture Art Prize, and Highly Commented for the 2023 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and Dobell Drawing Prize#23. He has conducted arts projects and workshops with diverse communities and museums, included the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Maitland Regional Art Gallery and WorldPride2023. Jayanto holds a Masters of Fine Arts from National Art School. He is represented by Art Atrium Sydney.
NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 31. 2023
We have something for everyone in the years Christmas Art Fair. A Gift in a Box with works 20 x 20cm and framed in an oak box. An eclectic selection of beautiful works by over 50 artist. From emerging to established and a myriad of mediums pop in for a look at this beautiful collection.
OPENING EVENT – Saturday 2nd December from 2pm. ALL WELCOME
Entertainment provided by “Lounge Catz” with Boris & Lucius Hunt
RACHAL SZALAY – NATASHA DANILOFF – ANNIE HERRON – KAYLENE BROOKS – COLETTE JONQUIERES – SONIA COX – SANDY FULLERTON – BOYD McMILLAN – JANE CANFIELD – JENNIFER TREZISE – GEORGINA HART – TRACY DODS – SUGANTHI CHALK – ANNIE JOSEPH – TIM JONES – RONALD HORSTMANN – KRISTIE HUNTER – CATHERINE BARGWANNA – RICHARD BARGWANNA – DAVID NEWMAN-WHITE – ALIKI YIORKAS – RAY HARRINGTON – BLAK DOUGLAS – LISE EDWARDS – WENDY ANNE HAWKES – SILVIA Übelhör – DAVE CARROLL – CHRISTINE HYDE – ELAINE FAULSHAM – JENNY SEWELL – ANA GRZYBOWSKI – CATHERINE WHITTING – JO ALBANY – GARRY PETTITT – MICHAEL BOURKE – PLEASANCE INGLE – ANNABEL MASON – LYNDA STARKEY – HEATHER MALONEY – WARWICK FULLER – TILLY COSTA – ELIZABTH O’DONNEL – SELENA SEIFERT – LINDEL SHEFFIELD – NICKY BARUCH – KAY BOOKER – GABRIELLA HEGYES
NOVEMBER 2 – 26
IDEAL STATES AND SACRED PLACES
We carry with us, both internally and externally, physically and mentally, memories, learned experiences, cultural differences, spiritual values and expectations and through these we form ourselves.
As a female, I look very much to the internalization of these complexities and my art is informed by my debate. There is something intrinsically humanly female about the need to make spaces which reflect the desire to make comfortable and safe places.
The paintings and sculptures explore the notion of personae and cultural mythologies and the poetry of the spaces between the self and its manifestations. They are related through a common theme.
The imagined towns and cities and ancient settlements manifest in the paintings and constructed within the safe confines of the cloches, are reminiscent of places remembered, experienced and dreamed of.
The works are informed and shaped by cultural differences, which are heightened by the very nature of displacement, migration or journeying from one place to another. I have brought them into existence.
They are of nowhere and yet they are everywhere.
DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR
November 3rd – VIP OPENING, 5pm tp 7pm REGISTER ATTENDANCE HERE
November 4th – OPENING EVENT – Official opening by Dolla S. Merrillees, writer & curator, 3pm
November 18th – Artist Talk, 11am to 11.45pm
November 18th – Workshop, 1.30pm to 4.30pm. More info soon
PENNIE STEEL
Pennie Steel was born in the United Kingdom in 1947 and emigrated to Sydney in 1969 where she completed a post-graduate and Masters degree.
After retiring from teaching, she lived in South Australia and Queensland before returning to NSW in 2011. She now lives and works with her husband and fellow artist Brian Reid in Cathkin Braes, Lurline Street SteelReid Studio is at Cathkin Braes.
Cathkin Braes was built by stone mason and architect John Howie in 1912 in the Queen Anne Federation style.
Howie was the builder and stonemason for many significant Sydney buildings including the General Post Office and Central Station.
Sense of Place
“My work is based in mythology. I am interested in the link between History and Myth and the artefacts associated with stories. Currently my body of work consists of 3D structures, some in domes, fabricated from recycled card, paper and styrofoam. These I called Ideal States and Sacred Places. A natural progression was to indicate these ‘places’ realised in 2d form on canvas panels.
“Subsequent motivation comes from reading texts which link the history and mythology to a sense of place.”
“To live as an artist in an artisan’s building is quite wonderful. There is an ambience in Cathkin Braes which reflects excellence of design and workmanship.
“The garden is an ongoing project. When my Mother bought this property, the garden was pretty ordinary and new turf covered poor unworked soil. The trees are a reminder of the age of the house and stand majestically along the edges of the property despite being savaged by the electricity company.
“When the power has been moved underground as part of the Treeline Lurline project and new plantings and street furniture placed strategically, the streetscape will reflect the value of this legacy. Both residents and visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy and be proud of the First Nations and subsequent Settlement History.”
AUGUST 17 – SEPTEMBER 17
WOMAN, My Own Point of View
OPENING EVENT – Saturday August 19th from 2pm
Come and join us to celebrate the launch of Rebecca Wilson’s new narrative collection: Woman.
Rebecca takes a humorous but sharp look at language, beauty, ageing, mental health, Feminism and the history of women artists. Referencing Virginia Woolf’s ‘My Own Point of View’, these paintings are a personal expression of the artist’s female experience and voice.
Join host Jenny Barry, author Kim Kelly, and artist Rebecca Wilson for a fun and engaging chat about all things Woman.
Sunday September 24th – ARTIST TALK with Rebecca Wilson – Join Rebecca as she talk about her work and all things WOMAN – 11am to 3pm
REBECCA WILSON
In the 1990s Rebecca Wilson studied her B.A Fine Arts at the National Art School, Sydney, and she went on to complete her M.A. Fine Arts at the College of Fine Art at the UNSW in Paddington, Sydney (2002). In 2001 and 2007 Rebecca was a finalist in the Blake Prize for Religious Art and her work was included in the Blake Tour 2001-2.
In 2007 Rebecca’s Australianism exhibition was the start of her investigation into Australian myths and icons such as Ned Kelly. From 2010 she started researching the life of Kate Kelly, the sister of Australia’s most infamous bushranger. From 2015 to 2022 her Kate Kelly Collection toured from Sydney across regional NSW and into Victoria. In 2018 Rebecca was invited to a London art fair where she exhibited some of her Kate Kelly paintings and presented a talk at London’s Central Library about her Kate Kelly research and paintings. She continued to develop and tour her Kate Kelly work which culminated in her fictionalised biography, Kate Kelly: the true story of Ned Kelly’s little sister, published by Allen & Unwin in 2021.
From 2011-2016 Rebecca taught art and design at TAFE Western Institute in Bathurst and Orange. At the beginning of 2016 Rebecca completed an artist residency at Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, China. In 2017-2018 she worked as Communications & Project Officer for the regional arts development organisation, Arts Out West, in Bathurst.
Across 2018 and 2019, Rebecca’s series of narrative works and accompanying self-published catalogue, A Portrait of Landscape and Time in Hill End, toured Sydney, Grenfell and Lithgow and was shown as the solo exhibition Mythmakers, Heroes and Villains at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2021. Extensive media coverage about Rebecca’s work can be located online.
AUGUST 3-13
MELINDA SCHNEIDER & SONIA COX
More information soon
OPENING EVENT – Saturday August 5th from 3pm – Officially opened by Mayor MAREE STATHAM
Including a special performance by Melinda Schneider
Each of our featured artists will be spending an entire day in the Gallery, we would love for you to join them
MELINDA SCHNEIDER – TBA
SONIA COX – TBA
MELINDA SCHNEIDER
Who are you, really? Which traits are natural? Which ones have been nurtured… moulded? If you’re anything like me, these questions are unsettling. For the answers, I needed to explore a medium devoid of words. You see, words and melodies were the artistic tools I’d employed for decades – but to unpick the stitches of perfectionism, which had come to imprison me – I craved visual abstraction. Abstract Expressionism, in fact. This fluid style, wielded so eloquently by artists such as Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Barnett Newman, inspired me to break free from the unrelenting standards that kept the real me hidden behind a shiny smile and a veil of ‘perfect’ celebrity fog. Behind the fog, I was lost in a deep sea of depression. Painting was my lighthouse. It led me to be free and express myself without the critical inner voice.
I created these works by applying acrylic to plywood with brushes, twigs, rollers, rags and sponges. I adore plywood for all it’s gorgeous flaws. My techniques are akin to the rhythmic pulse of song writing. I draw inspiration from the fauna, flora and ancient spirituality of the Bouddi Peninsula (GuriNgai Country) – my home. When I started these paintings, I’d hoped to convey my frustration, and speak to other trauma survivors. What eventuated was quite different. These works have uncovered an organic, gentle strength – perhaps, this is my true nature. The one I was born with… whole, complete, unique. My hope is that you see your own journey in these works and feel a sense of resolution. My hope is that you see, and embrace, your natural self.
SONIA COX
We all inherit some traits from our parents but how these develop and shape the person we are to become depends on how well we are loved, how safe we feel and how much we are encouraged to be our best self. I believe we are the sum of our spiritual, emotional and physical experiences. Our earliest memories and our perception and the feelings we attribute to them leave a road map or, perhaps, a life map, in our minds. How we choose to use this map, and what directions we choose to take, will depend on how safe, supported and loved we feel at any given crossroad. I have been extremely lucky to have always felt loved, safe and encouraged to be the best I could be.
I am a local woman who proudly embraces both my rural and Wiradjuri heritage. My artworks reflect the importance of nature to my own wellbeing. Both my painting and sculpture depict native flora and fauna. The paintings are imbued with vibrant colour that represent my emotional response to the subtle tones of the Australian landscape and the subject matter I have chosen. The artworks are painted directly onto layered paperbark that I have collected from a variety of sources. They have inbuilt texture and depth. Images appear and disappear through colour and pattern prompting the viewer to spend time with the painting. This time is not dissimilar to the mediative qualities of nature.
The bronze sculptures have been cast using the lost wax method. Their construction generated sensations of play reminiscent of a happy childhood and the simple joy of creating and being.
I have a strong interest in the connection between the healing qualities of nature, the act of creating and our own sense of wellbeing.
JUNE 15-25
JENNIFER BURNS & MICHAEL COMERFORD
“Flipside” brings two diverse artists together, with two very different styles, who are literally splitting the gallery down the middle.
Jennifer Burns takes over the Eastern side of the gallery, with unique works on a variety of materials, including subtle recycling of everyday materials such as teabags, tin lids and dominos.
On the opposite side, Michael Comerford is filling the Western wall with saturated reinterpretations of panoramic photographs in a unique style that invites the viewer to look deeper, to determine the hidden origins of the piece.
OPENING EVENT – Saturday June 17th from 2pm
Each of our featured artists will be spending an entire day in the Gallery, we would love for you to join them
JENNIFER BURNS – TBA
MICHAEL COMERFORD – TBA
JENNIFER BURNS
Jennifer is an artist of many mediums, primarily working in pencils and ink and has been creating for many years. She is inspired by colour and nature, usually mixing the two and creating vibrant landscapes and uniquely quirky portraits of Australian birds and flowers. Her love of drawing is reflected in the personalities of the artwork she brings to life.
MICHAEL COMERFORD
Michael has over 20 years or professional photography behind him, building his craft through portrait and wedding photography while photographing the great Australian landscape just for pleasure. Putting aside professional portraiture in 2015 he has continued with his love of sweeping vistas and big skies, always seeking a slightly different perspective to scenes already well known to the observer and developing some unique ways of presenting a scene that has likely been seen before in a new and evocative way.
JUNE 1st -11th
JAN MELVILLE & KYLIE BLAKEMORE
Exploring photography, collage, mixed media and assemblage
OPENING EVENT – Saturday June 3rd from 2pm
Each of our featured artists will be spending an entire day in the Gallery, we would love for you to join them
JAN MELVILLE – Saturday 3rd – 11.30am to 4.30pm
KYLIE BLAKEMORE – Sunday 11th – 2.30pm to 4.30pm
JAN MELVILLE
I appropriate images into my collage works to create works that make one believe in the unbelievable.
Working in collage, mixed media, and assemblage was for me a natural progression from being a full time printmaker and teacher of printmaking for over 25 years.
Once again certain images caught my eye women, dresses, birds. Works were created on paper, canvas and finally into 3D assemblage works in boxes, at times adding small objects and ephemera. I liked this cross over in the working mediums and a small body of works was in the making.
An inspiration for a number of works in this concept come from the Frozen Charlotte dolls that held a fascination for me. This carried into a 3D assemblage work. As well there were also childhood memories of circuses and performers and side show alley. Many child hood memories are held within these works resulting in Circus ImaginARY.
Jan Melville is a printmaker, collagist, assemblage and book artist who has been an invited artist-in-residence in Italy, Ireland and the UK (Sidney Nolan Trust). She has also been a guest printmaker on a short visit to Singapore in 2017 at the Tyler Print Institute. She has exhibited in both solo and group shows for many years and is an invited tutor in workshops both in Sydney and The Blue Mountains..
KYLIE BLAKEMORE
Painter, photographer, writer & filmmaker with an eclectic and nomadic artistic career spanning over 20 years and almost as many relocations, I sometimes find my best work comes from ‘unlearning‘ all my formal training and previous successes and being open to finding inspiration in the most unlikely of places.
The aim of my most recent work is to try capture that elusive feeling of spontaneity, creativity and pure joyful childish abandon of ‘play,’ while paying homage to some of my favourite bygone eras of film, painting and photography.
My style varies between expressionist, abstract, impressionist and just a dash of realism to shake things up a bit from time to time, and liberal does of whimsy.
All my photographs are either limited edition or original mixed media works printed on archival photographic or cotton rag papers and often hand painted with my own mix of acrylic or oil based paints.
MAY 4th – 28th
NATASHA DANILOFF, ANNIE JOSEPH, ALIKI YIORKAS, JANETHA LYON
Four exceptionally tallented ladies come together for an exhibition celebrating women and their art.
OPENING EVENT – Saturday May 6th from 3pm
Each of our featured artists will be spending an entire day in the Gallery, we would love for you to join them
JANETHA LYON – Saturday May 6th
NATASHA DANILOFF – Saturday May 13th
ANNIE JOSEPH – Saturday May 20th
ALIKI YIORKAS – Sunday May 28th
NATASHA DANILOFF
Is an Australian artist specialising in drawing, painting, mixed media and installation. Her work embraces a broad thematic framework referencing her Russian heritage, Iranian cultural motifs acquired when her family lived in Iran and fuses these with her experiences in the Australian landscape. These themes are explored through layers of materials and meanings.
The recipient of several prestigious residencies – Bathurst Regional Gallery Hill End Residency and Launceston City Council’s A.I.R. – she has been able to experience Australia’s diverse landscape and explore further aesthetic possibilities that can visually connect culture and context.
‘This landscape is simultaneously potent and strong, fragile and vulnerable. Tree roots cling to rocks creating their own rhythms, becoming powerful metaphors for co-existence and survival.
I paint what I feel, what I remember- a sense of place, rather than the actual image or objects connected to people and memories. I like to use the poetry of light and shadow to suggest the half remembered; that point when one state of being slips into another.’
She has had numerous solo and group shows in Australia and overseas and her work is in collections in the U.S. Britain, Denmark, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia.
ANNIE JOSEPH
Annie loves the beauty of landscape, from the hills and valleys of Lithgow to her heartlandon the plains of the Central West. She works in watercolours, pen and wash, charcoal and acrylics.
Annie exhibits at local Art Shows many local art shows and the Sydney Royal Easter Show. She has had several successful solo andgroup exhibitions.
As well as commissions, involvement in the Lithgow Tidy Towns Laneways group, Annie also prepared the illustrations for Loreto Normanhurst, A Century of Memories, Resting Beneath the Rainbow by Tess Elliot, and the illustrated maps of Rydal Village for the Daffodil Festival and Lithgow Landmarks for the Lithgow Small Arms Factory
ALIKI YIORKAS
Alikis’ practice is focused primarily on printmaking, drawing and artists’
books. Her work is auto-ethnographic and is a consideration of post-memory as it relates to place and materiality. Bringing attention to the things we use and collect, and approaching things at their level of sensuous specificity, Aliki endeavours to bring an awareness of the ability of objects to affect us. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from the National Art School, Sydney 2020.
JANETHA LYON
Janetha was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1969. From an early age she had an interest in art, especially drawing figures and portraits which came naturally to her.
After marrying the well-known South African artist, Marc Poisson ( www.marcpoisson.com ), over 20 years ago, over time she became adept at painting in oils.
Her subjects included figurative works with strong narratives, then branching out to large flower studies, and capturing the beauty of our beautiful Australian birds in their natural habitat.
Janetha is currently enjoying success exhibiting her work at Artist’s school exhibitions such as Portland near Lithgow NSW and looking forward to exhibitions in Thirroul, Scarborough, Wollongong and Shellharbour.
She is also becoming well known on social media selling countrywide.
As a mainly self-taught artist, Janetha paints subjects that touches the emotions of mostly women who enjoy the beauty of our surroundings, emphasising strong draughtsmanship in a fluid style with a warm, colourful palette.
Her chosen subject matter evokes the charm, colour and excitement we find in nature and which brings the joy that enriches our lives.
OCTOBER 6 – 30
JENNIFER TREZISE & LIVONNE LARKINS
OPENING EVENT – Saturday October 8th from 2pm. Officially opened by Susan Templeman – Member for Macquarie and Special Envoy for The Arts
IN CONVERSATION with MELINDA SCHNEIDER
Thursday October 13th – 10am to 11.30am
.Join us for a Morning Tea in conversation with Melinda Schneider as she shares her inspiring story and how art shapes her wellbeing.
ARTISTS
JENNIFER TRZISE
Jennifer Trezise was born, lives and works in Australia. She is a full-time artist with a studio in Winmalee, NSW. Her work often takes her to Europe, where she has completed two international residencies, one in Venice, Italy and one in Vaasa, Finland. She has also completed two art residencies in Australia, one at Riversdale and one at Bundanon.
She is driven to passionately explore the materials of her studio in the Australian bushland, using recycled papers, graphite and gouache with heavily textured surfaces, often in conjunction with text in the form of her original poetry. In addition, she incorporates what nature discards. By reading the landscape, she renews, values and interprets found materials from her bush surroundings.
Her body of work is a metaphor for her adaptability to life’s challenges. She deconstructs social issues through her poetry and uses nature’s detritus which drops to the earth or is washed up by the sea.
Jennifer, at times, is a voyeur, a disconnected viewer of strangers, particularly those people in trains or cafés. She reflects on voices in the dark, dreams and nightmares, existentialism and the human condition. The decision to incorporate poetry is quite recent because it uses a different creative process, a separate, impulsive, abstract part of the psyche.
Her artworks are solid, but her poetry is liquid.
FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS
This body of work entitled ‘Falling Through the Cracks’ by Jennifer Trezise is part of a creative collaboration.
As nature discards, so does humanity.
These artworks reveal the rescue and valuing of that which is thrown away, objects and people who have fallen through the cracks. Ironically, in order to find their potential, these objects must be discarded before being rescued, hence the parallels to life and the artist herself.
Conceptually, this exhibition is driven by the failure of systems which should support humanity, but which intrinsically fail. The health system, legal system and education system in particular leave countless thousands of people unsupported in their times of greatest need. Family law fails to protect the most vulnerable and the mental health system discards victims who are unable to have a voice when they should be shouting out for help.
While the resultant artworks use disparate media, they in fact, through describing lived experiences, the imagination and skill of the artist, demand, through their unique stories, to be heard.
Jennifer has a story to tell, a strong narrative. She is an artist and a poet. Her poetry will accompany her works in the art space.
Her work is a correlation of found object, pencil, poetry and brush.
LIVONNE LARKINS
A self-proclaimed late bloomer and fairytale fanatic, Livonne is an artist and storyteller, both in pictures and words. She had always dabbled in creative pursuits, but family responsibilities were the priority in her life. Approaching fifty however, the yearning to seriously create could no longer be ignored. Completing an introduction to Fine Arts, she went on to study photography as she was always enthralled by the romance of old photographs. After completing at Diploma level, she voraciously studied everything she could about compositing and digital manipulation of images which took her from taking photos to making imagery.
Heavily influenced by the colours, textures and romance of the Renaissance artists, she strives to bring the same ethereal beauty to her imagery. Just as every good fairytale has light and shade or evil and goodness, it is essential to her that even the darkest of subjects should have a glimmer of hope to inspire and empower. ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after’ are words which influence every piece of art she creates.
She makes theatrical settings and costumes from recycled materials to ensure her work tells the stories that she is inspired to tell. Those images tell the stories that she struggles to find words for.
Having lived through several traumatic and life changing events, art has filled many of the cracks caused by these traumas and has become her voice after years of not being able to speak her truth. She often uses the fairy-tale genre to tell harrowing stories as she finds the same sense of safety and comfort in fairytales as she did as a child. She is a passionate advocate of de-stigmatising mental illness and domestic violence.
Livonne has completed a residency at Bundanon and has had her work displayed in the Victorian Arts Centre, AGNSW and the National Trust Woodford Academy. She has also had solo exhibitions at Chrissie Cotter Gallery Sydney and other private galleries. Her work has been awarded numerous art prizes and published in art magazines nationally and internationally.
FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS
This body of work entitled ‘Falling Through the Cracks’ by Livonne Larkins is part of a creative collaboration. The artist explores Kintsugi applied to the soul.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi is a physical manifestation of resilience. The practice which literally means gold mending, emphasise the beauty and utility of breaks and imperfections.
The artist Livonne explores this concept when applied to the human psyche. If we can find the gold which will fill the cracks we develop through trauma, it makes us stronger, more resilient & fuller of beauty.
Could this mean the human frailties that were once seen as a downfall might actually make a damaged person more valuable than before?
This series shows a before and after image of each model, depicting a variety of social and world issues including bushfires, climate change, political depreciation of the arts, institutionalised abuse and many other subjects. Just as the artist has recovered from trauma through art, she is intrigued by other people’s experiences in mending their souls.