Exhibitions
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Two unique and exciting exhibitions are currently running til Sunday 12 February 2012
Gradation - inks, oils and watercolours
by Chris Fletcher
"Painting
for me is a meditation. I like to feel the sensations of
line, tone and colour in the outside world and then relay these onto
the canvas."

above: 10 Mile Creek artwork by Chris Fletcher
Form Fire and Fruition
by Master Potter Geoff Crispin
Form Fire and Fruition Geoff Crispin: a regional practice in clay examines the interactions between an artist and local and remote communities with in Australia and overseas.
Form Fire and Fruition, is a Grafton Regional Gallery touring exhibition that is supported by Visions of Australia, the Gordon Darling Foundation and Arts NSW.




Exhibitions run to Sunday 12 February
10am - 4pm Tues to Fri • closed Mondays
10am - 1pm weekends
Weeroona Park, corner Lock and Marsh Streets, Stanthorpe
free admission, a $2 donation is appreciated
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
24 February - 9 April
Biennial Stanthorpe Art Festival 2012 exhibition
The festival attracted 116 artists from across the country and New Zealand, including 19 local artists. The judge, Davida Allen, winner of the prestigious Archibald Prize, will view all works just prior to opening night.
Our judge will be impressed by the eclectic mix of artworks across a wide range of genre and media that features in this exciting exhibition curated by Director Penelope Hillam.
All 19 local submitting artists were selected for the exhibition - such is the creative talent within the Granite Belt and Southern Downs communities.
12 April - 13 May
G.W. Bot: the long paddock - A 30 YEAR SURVEY
Internationally renowned artist G.W. Bot records the Australian landscape as a language - in the form of glyphs. These glyphs take on a metaphysical nature and become metaphors for language and landscapes within all of us.
Also Works from the Collection
17 May - 24 June
'Yesterday to Today' Historic Italian collection exhibition - Memorabilia Photos.
Thank you to the Dante Alighieri Society Stanthorpe for providing the newest addition to the Southern Downs Regional Council's permanent collection.
Cory Rossiter
Current look at the Stanthorpe Italian community uniquely captured through the photographer's eye bringing us up to date.
28 June - 5 August
Hidden Dimensions by Lyn Marshall
- provides semi-abstract landscape paintings evolved from an interest in Asian art philosophy. The artist seeks to capture the viewer long enough to have them consider the world through different eyes.
Rob Raymond - Interpreting Elements of the Landscape
- includes twisted apple gums and rock domes against an ethereal sky. The artist shares his joy of our local national parks through his drawings and paintings.
Also Works from the Collection
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Exhibition runs from Thursday 17 November - Sunday 1 January
Up close and very personal . . .
. . . is a collection of extraordinary portraits of some of Stanthorpe's characters. Quirky and confronting, these photographs by Cory Rossiter are refreshing in a world where image is often everything.
You have seen these faces. You may not have seen this side of their soul .....

Self Portrait
Current exciting exhibitions are Quilt! and Of the Land



QUILT! This exhibition of contemporary art quilts by internationally respected Australian artists gives the viewer a glimpse into their personal worlds. Their works incorporate new practices, but also refer to time-honoured quiltmaking traditions, extended and interpreted in a host of new ways. The result is a body of unique and striking works that incorporate a variety of concepts relevant to the life and time of each artist.
OF THE LAND Hand Embroidery by visual artist Judy Wilford

Judy references the natural world in its many and varied aspects: from the wide scale landscape to the intimacy of the habitats of birds and small animals as well as the minute patterns and elements of nature.
Exhibition runs from Thursday 6 October - Sunday 13 November
AUGUST - OCTOBER 2011
State of Flux
25 August - 2 October
PRESENTED BY BORDERLINE REGIONAL ARTS ASSN INC
JULY - AUGUST 2011
Ron McBurnie
14 July - 21 August
Gaye-Deanne Fraser
14 July - 21 August
SMALL OFFERINGS, TINY TREASURES
JUNE - JULY 2011
THOMAS SPENCE - RECENT DRAWINGS OF THE INNER & OUTER LANDSCAPES
June 2 - July 10

Thomas Spence, Heart in Orkeny, 2010, Graphite on paper, watercolour, engraving
This exhibition represents recent works expressing the inner and outer landscapes of Tom Spence's life. The inner landscapes consist of frantic chaotic movements with pencil and incline, followed by weeks of shading, bringing order to the chaos. The outer landscapes are expressions of moments observed during his life, and illustrations of human behaviourt in this contemporary world. Being an observer, rather than being judgemental, has left Spence no other option than to be an artist.
EVAN HOLLIS - VIEWS FROM THE SADDLE
June 2 - July 10

Evan Hollis, Tempest Over Bridge
This body of work is an exploration of the feelings of independance, isolation, revelation, transience, serendipity, exhaustion, enlightenment, sometimes despair but overall a sensation of fulfilment. Evan shares with the viewer some of the amazing experiences only possible when touring across country on a motorcycle. Printmaking techniques are such an involved method of image making, they suit this kind of narrative perfectly!
COLLECTION AQUISITIONS
from the Southern Downs Regional Permanent Art Collection
Curated by Joe Wilkinson
June 2 - July 10
The Cure, Richard Dunlop, 2008, Mixed Media on Archival Paper
Among the works selected for display are popular items from the 2010 Art Festival as well as others which have been gifted quite recently. These recent acquisitions, several of which are shown here for the first time, include works by Richard Dunlop, Ian Henderson and Jorg Schmeisser.
APRIL - MAY 2011
NADIA KLIENDANZE & NEVILLE FIELD - BUCOLIC EXTANT
April 21 - May 29

Neville Field, Asplenium Australasicum, 2010, Oil on canvas
This point exhibition by Kliendanze and Field explores the Australian landscape in ways which reflect each artist’s view of the art of landscape and traditions. Kliendanze’s detailed work comprises many layers which demand close inspection in order to engage with the imagery. She combines material from several sources to create new images which blur the perceptions of the read and the imagined. Field’s many years spent in the Northern Territory, learning from indigenous ways of seeing and respecting the land, influenced his development as an artist and print-maker. His works are a personal response to those few largely-unshaped areas of land which remain.
NORM CLAYTON, ALLAN ENGLISH, LOIS STRICKLAND - WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
April 21 - May 29

Norm Clayton, Sands of Time, 2010, Acrylic on Canvas
These three artists have compiled a display of locally inspired subjects, using various mediums, and combining influences from their countries of origin, i.e. England, Australia and New Zealand. Their exhibition is the result of many happy hours spent together exchanging ideas and knowledge, searching for, and discovering, subject matter and painting together. They continue to develop their own styles whilst being open to constructive (or otherwise!) mutual feedback. The viewer is invited to judge whether their personal interpretations of the subjects reflect the influences of the individuals artist’ homelands.
THE STANTHORPE POTTERY CLUB - TOWERS, TEAPOTS AND FIRES
April 21 - May 29

Maryke Miller, Teapot, 2010, Woodfired Clay with Shino Glaze
Under the guidance of the award-winning, accomplished tutor, Suvira McDonald, members of the Stanthorpe Pottery Club held a seven day workshop with the aim of making creative works to be exhibited in the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery, Upon completion, the goal was to fire the works in club's wood-fired and gas kilns, in order to become more familiar with the intricacies of these firing processes. The members benefited from Suvira’s expertise and will continue to explore his techniques. The club members are proud to be exhibiting their efforts.
LIZ POWELL - ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER
April 21 - May 29

Liz Powell, Urban Nesting Boxes 1, 2009, Mixed Media
Dealing with journeys of the imagination as well as the physicality of travel, Liz Powell’s “Armchair Travel” examines how different peoples layer the landscape and interact with it, often dragging their cultural expectations with them. Her recent works have focused on the varied navigational and mapping vehicles employed by dissimilar groups and how these reflect cultural paradigms. Using whatever techniques and media she feels are necessary for the transmission of her ideas, Powell creates works ranging in scale from wall sized installations to palm sized, hand-bound books and 3D forms.
MARCH - APRIL 2011
AUSTRALIAN ROBYNGRAPHS
March 10 - April 17

Robyn Hills, Aerial of Simpson Desert in Flood, 2010, digital photograph printed on canvas
An ardent photographer, Robyn Hills is seldom parted from her camera. Fascinated by light, texture and patterns in the earth, Hills produces intriguing, unusual images of her subject matter. The ability to visualise sections of reality as completed, framed works before she even takes out the camera enables the artist to present the viewer with abstract, often quirky, interpretations of the mundane.
PRIMARY EVIDENCE
March 10 - April 17

Bruce Muirhead, Bobae Untitled #4, 2009, photograph
Ultimately the body is primary evidence of who we are, of our mortality, our optimism, our presence. For this reason the nude - the human stripped of everything that is not essentially a person - is the primary subject of art. Muirhead’s intention in this show is to depict the body very simplistically, as something human to look at and enjoy for what it is when left to itself.
WINTER
March 10 - April 17

Peter Williamson, Emergent, 2006, digital photograph
Intrigued by the concept of time and its many forms of measurement, Peter Williamson has created works which mark and monitor the time’s passage. His installations, which use natural by-products and digital photography, depict and record the ephemeral member as well as the slow, inexorable changes which occur in natural and man-made materials. He asks us to value the passing moment, challenges our view of “waste” and hope that we will wonder at the potential of the cast-off products, the victims of time, that surround us.
CERAMICS TRANSITIONAL DISPLAY
from the Southern Downs Regional Council Permanent Art Collection
March 10 - April 17

Peter Ward, Lucky Country, Stoneware Clay
The items exhibited are just some of the treasures from the Southern Downs Regional Council collection. An extreamely eclectic selection, the workds by artists such as Gwyn Hassen Pigott, Anne Mossman and Julie Shephard, range from the very finely details to sheer whimsicality.
FEBRUARY - MARCH 2011
PRECIOUS TREASURES FROM THE COMMUNITY
February 7 - March 6

June Fiford, Minature Grids in Gold
These treasures are from a private collection. For some works it will be a first time exposure to the public. The exhibition will be augmented by sympathetic works from our Southern Downs Regional Art Collection.
NOVEMBER 2010-JANUARY 2011
TWELVE DEGREES OF LATITUDE: REGIONAL GALLERY AND UNIVERSITY
ART COLLECTIONS IN QUEENSLAND
November 19 - January 21

Et Arcadia Ego, Michael Zavros, 2006, Oil on linen © courtesy the artist and The Gold Coast City Art Gallery
This landmark exhibition makes available to Queensland audiences, for the first time and on an unprecedented scale, a selection of artworks from 27 of the State's regional gallery and university collections. Co-curated by Bettina MacAulay and and Brett Adlington for Queensland's 150th year, Twelve Degrees of Latitude features major Australian, Indigenous, Pacific and European artwork dating from the 17th to 21st century. Due to it's scale this exhibition is presented in partnership with the Warwick Art Gallery.

Twelve Degrees of Latitude: Regional Gallery and University Art Collections in Queensland
is a Museum and Gallery Services Queensland travelling exhibition.
M&GSQ acknowledges the assistance of Anna Bligh MP, Premier of
Queensland and Minister for the Arts, through the Queensland Government
Exhibitions Indemnification Scheme.
The regional tour of Twelve Degrees of Latitude
is proudly supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, The John
Villiers Trust, International Art Services and the Regional Galleries
Association of Queensland and has received financial assistance from the
Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
This exhibition
has received development funding from the Queensland Government's Q150
Community Funding Program. Q150 gives Queenslanders the opportunity to
celebrate and commemorate our state’s 150th anniversary. Twelve Degrees of Latitude
is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation, Phillip Bacon Galleries
and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian,
state and territory governments.
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2010
JUDY HOOWORTH - LIVING IN THE LANDSCAPE
October 7 - October 26

Judy Hooworth, Black Water #7, 2010, handpainted cotton, quilted
The new exhibition by renowned contemporary quilter, Judy Hooworth, reflects upon Dora Creek that flows near her home. Offering a microcosm of patterning and limitless colour combinations that reflect the subtleties of the Australian landscape, her quilts depict aspects of pattern and colour created by the movement of water, and changes in the natural environment from day to day.
MARY CAMERON - EMERGING ARTIST OF THE THIRD AGE
September 22 - October 19
Mary Cameron, Magnolias, 2010, acrylic on canvas
Beginning art after a life in an academic career, Mary Cameron in this wonderful exhibition shows that it is never too late to become an emerging artist. The fulfillment that she has derived from this creative hobby has prompted her to share her experience with other emerging artists.
FIBRE WORKS FROM THE SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL ART COLLECTION
October 7 - October 26

Glenys Mann, Rubber Stamped Signed J.B. Jeffery, mixed fabrics
Curated from the Southern Downs Regional Council's permanent art collection, this display of fibre works will complement and enhance Judy Hooworth's 'Living in the Landscape' exhibition.
AUGUST-OCTOBER 2010
KERRY CANNON - LOS CAPRICHOS
August 26 - October 3
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The Oysters Eaters, Kerry Cannon, 2006, Bronze
Inspired by the Los Caprichos suite of etchings of Francisco Goya, Kerry Cannon has reinterpreted for the 21st century the same capriciousness of human nature Goya commented on over 200 years before. Cannon presents his Caprices in bronze, using the formula of image, enigmatic message and roving commentary and in this unique way, Cannon notes some things haven’t changed. The Los Caprichos of Kerry Cannon satirise, lampoon and question with the same conviction and sense of humour as the Spanish master.
TOM & PAT BENKENDORFF - THE GRAIL QUEST
August 26 - October 3
Entrance, Pat Benkendorff, 2010, gold leaf, charcoal on paper.
The Arthurian quest resonates in today’s society with many layers of meaning. This exhibition is a representation of those meanings, layered and collaged into each work, from a philosophical and religious point of view to the personal journey of fulfilment.
ALLAN BRUCE - SCROLLS V - SOUTHERN DOWNS
August 26 - October 3

Stanthorpe, Late Winter, Allan Bruce, 2006, brush & ink on tyvek
Frustration with the limitations of the conventional landscape format, fascination with Chinese scrolls, and experimentation with tyvek have led me to combine the Eastern primacy of monochrome brushwork with Western principles of linear and aerial perspective on a scale which hopefully enables the viewer to experience my sense of place.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010
JOHN HARRISON - WORDS AND MUSIC
August 26 - September 21

'While the Lily white, shall in Love delight' - Blake, John Harrison, 2010
A fascination with how art, words and music intersect has culminated in a quirky and thoughtful exhibition of assemblages, watercolours and pen and ink drawings. Using references to music and poems we know and love John Harrison illustrates his personal artistic vision filtered through years as a Queensland Symphony Orchestra musician and illustrator of children’s picture books.
JULY-AUGUST 2010
MYSTICAL LIGHT - EMU SWAMP ARTIST GROUP
July 15 - August 22
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Absence of Light, Pat Benkendorff, 2010
Charcoal on paper
Unusual experiences of lines and cracks of light, a sparkling globe, light emerging from a room, sunlight and other forms of light. Mystical light is interpreted in this exhibition through the manipulation of various media to simulate light; mystical light exists even when there is no light.
CORRIE WRIGHT - ONE PAGE AT A TIME
July 15 - August 22

Queensland Arts Council, One Page At A Time, Corrie Wright
Leave your worries behind with this fun and interactive exhibition, touring with Queensland Arts Council’s Ontour onexhibition.Corrie Wright started the “worry doll” project in 2004, asking people from all over the world to contribute by making small worry dolls and writing their worry on the tag. Create your own worry doll to add to the exhibition!

HANNA KAY - UNDERTOW
July 15 - August 22

Undercurrent, Hanna Kay, 2008, oil and tempura on linen
180 x 350cm
Created by Hanna Kay, Undertow is an exhibition that is influenced and informed by the Jewish Cemetery in Maitland; one of only two ‘stand alone’ Jewish Cemeteries in regional NSW. Kays evocative style of painting figurative images of land and the influence of nature tells the story of displacement and migration in regional NSW during colonial times.
JUNE-JULY 2010
ALBERT VERSCHUUREN- PAST AND PRESENT
June 3rd - July 13
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Curated by Justin Bishop
Albert Verschuuren is a name that is synonymous with ceramics in the Granite Belt. This quiet achiever has been producing unique wheel thrown, wood fired stoneware functional forms for over 30 years.
This elegant retrospective by one of Australia's master potters sets out to shed light on the artist's experimentation with humble clay and a love of the wood firing process.
CREATIVE GENERATIONS
June 3rd - July 13
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Toowoomba State High School, Araminta Pearce, Waste is the Backbone of Society, 2008, Digital collage/film, copyright, courtesy the artist and M&GSQ
Youred by Museums & Gallery Services Queensland
The Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art and Design recognise and promote the outstanding achievements of visual art students from state and non-state schools throughout Queensland.
Previously known as the Education Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Art, this touring exhibition has been conducted annually since 1990 and has helped raise awareness of the diversity and standard of arts education in Queensland secondary schools.
The 2009-2010 touring exhibition showcases 38 works selected in 2008 from more than 500 entries submitted by senior visual art students across the state, including regional and remote communities.
APRIL-MAY 2010
THOMAS SPENCE - 35 YEARS OF EXPRESSING THE INEXPRESSABLE
April 23 - May 30

Angels on the Great Wall of Shellharbour
2008
Collection the artist, Courtesy the artist
On display at Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery
Graphite, pencil, scraping out on paper
‘Thomas Spence: 35 Years of Expressing the Inexpressible’ is a resonantly beautiful exhibition detailing the career of one Australia’s premier artists working within the discipline of drawing. This retrospective comprises works from three decades of the artists practice, borrowed from public and private collections across Australia and is held at two Queensland Regional Art Galleries simultaneously.
Spence’s highly unusual signature drawing technique of engraving and overworking is given life in his subject matter, which over the years has been wide ranging: from reflective works about growing up in outback Muttaburra (Qld), to presenting an outsiders view of the sins and sights of the big city, the voyeurism of the suburbs to the religiosity that Tom sees as underpinning our existence.
Filtered by his catholic upbringing, Spence’s deep sense of spirituality and his questioning of humanity are witnessed in pieces devoted to the lives of common people,(in particular farmers) and his later abstracts based on his observation of the land in combination with quantum philosophy. In examining Tom’s unique vision, technique and spirituality, ‘35 Years of Expressing the Inexpressible’, gives voice to an artist who has felt mute throughout his life.
Thomas Spence: 35 years of Expressing the Inexpressible is presented in partnership with the Redland Art Gallery and will be shown concurrently at the Redland Art Gallery from the 18 April - 30 May 2010.


