‘The Art of Flower and Garden’ at Burra

 One of the little gems of the mid north of South Australia is the Burra Regional Gallery, which is about half an hour from the Clare. It has been operating successfully for twenty years and is a perfect model of how a community gallery should work. Housed in the towns original telegraph and post office, the presentation space is large enough to provide ample space for the display of a variety of art forms throughout several rooms. The works are always presented in a professional manner, with due consideration for each piece and as a result the gallery often attracts artists from throughout the state and beyond. It has a dedicated team of volunteers who generate a wide variety of exhibitions throughout the year, while ensuring that community involvement remains a high priority.

One of their annual exhibitions is ‘The Art of Flower and Garden’, which is open throughout October and is perfectly timed with the onset of spring. I currently have two paintings on display and there are a wide a variety other works by mostly local artists covering a range of media. Each piece provides a fresh perspective on the joys of the garden, which has historically been a favorite subject matter amongst artists. The exhibition certainly reflects the myriad of visual inspirations that can be found right outside our own backdoor.  

'Distant Horizons' @ Pikes gallery

For SALA (South Australian Living Artists) 2016, I was invited to exhibit with two other artists at the Pikes Winery gallery. The title of the exhibition is ‘Distant Horizons’ which is a reflection of the vastness of the Clare region with its diverse range of landscapes. In my mind, the title could also be interpreted as a metaphor of the journey of the artist…heading into unknown territory while moving toward an illusionary end point that never really comes.

The other artists in the exhibition are Merek Herburt and Jim Cook. Each of us have very different styles and interpretations of our regional environment, which makes the exhibition particularly interesting.  Indeed, curator Cathy Pike was very keen to display the works along side each other in order to emphasise this striking contrast. With each of the 30 landscapes on show, each of us have been selective in our vision and have taken something unique from what we have observed.

The Clare Valley has a way of inspiring artists through its subject matter, colour and light and through out  SALA month there will be many artists who will be displaying there own interpretation of this unique region in a series of local exhibitions that should be well worth visiting.

Exhibition at Annie’s Lane

I was recently invited to mount an exhibition of works in the gallery space at Annie’s Lane winery. This is a wonderful venue as it not only located in picturesque Watervale, in the heart of the Clare Valley, but the gallery space is situated within the beautiful, heritage listed Quelltaler Estate. The century old cellar provided the ideal venue for my paintings as many of them depict aspects of this historical wine growing region.

This exhibition of paintings was been inspired by the unique landscape of the mid-north of South Australia, capturing both its vastness and the beautiful details that can be seen within this natural environment. While the subject matter is very much inspired by the Clare Valley, the works also reflect much about my exposure to art in Europe and Asia over the past six years, in particular the use of light. These works continued my exploration of traditional oil painting techniques used to depict the changing nature of the local landscape and its timeless qualities.

The exhibition was opened to coincide with annual Clare Valley gourmet weekend, which again saw over 5000 visitors descend upon the region to enjoy the best of local food and wine. Hopefully, some of them they took time out to have a look at the works on display, if not the exhibition will be open daily over the next couple of months.

The 2016 Adelaide Park Lands Art Prize

The Adelaide Park Lands Art Prize is a biennial event organised by the Adelaide City Council to celebrate the city and its wonderful natural environment that remains an integral aspect of its design. Launched in 2014, this art prize is open to all artists, working in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art forms including photography, so the works on show are particularly varied, all inspired by various aspects of our unique parklands.

This year I was fortunate to have a painting selected for the exhibition and attended the opening at the Adelaide Festival Centre. It was great to see the event so well attended, with the quality of the creative works on show reinforcing our common passion for the subject matter. Both John Schumann and Ian Gilfillan added further gusto to the evening when opening the exhibition, both expressing their ongoing support of our parklands and the role of the visual arts in celebrating them.

Congratulations must go the Nick Mount as this year’s overall winner, with a beautifully crafted piece, ‘Wakefield and East: A Still Life’, but also to all of the 59 artists who contributed to a truly impressive and diverse exhibition.

Watercolour Impressions

One of the great supporters of the visual arts in the Clare Valley is Pikes winery, which has a lovely little gallery upstairs, above the cellar door. Proprietor Cathy Pike continues to introduce a range new and interesting exhibition to the region, reaffirming the long-standing relationship between wine and art.

I recently attended an exhibition of ‘Watercolour Impressions’ by Alan Ramachandran, which proved to be an enlightening reflection upon an artist’s process of working. During the opening of the exhibition Alan chose to depart from the traditional artist speech by expressing his thought processes through demonstration.  It must be said that for an artist this is a particularly brave option, as there are obvious time factors and the possibility of it all going wrong under the pressure of public gaze. However, Alan’s years of experience, combined with his relaxed and jovial nature enabled it to all go off without a hitch. Within just over half an hour he had effectively led the audience through his choice of composition, tonal values and brush techniques to arrive at a suitably impressive sample of his landscape style.

While watercolour is generally not my chosen medium, I have often used this technique particularly while traveling. With a small watercolour kit, it allows you to set up quickly to produce an image with a delicate sense of immediacy. In his demonstration Alan showed this to great effect as well as providing insights into a few of his own particular tricks of the trade. As he said, ‘it’s all about sharing’ and he certainly shared much about his passion for watercolour over a glass of wine on a very pleasant Sunday afternoon.