Aesthetic combos interest viewers
AN EXHIBITION that has a story to tell, an eclectic historical collection that rewinds time, and a specialist gallery that celebrates clay as an expressive medium linking form and function in aesthetic combinations have much to offer the interested and discerning viewer.
Feather and Lawry Gallery, 4 Russell St, is presenting the exhibition Looking Back, Moving Forward, the latest series of paintings by Febe Zylstra.
The universal portraits include waif-like young faces, hard boiled ladies of a certain age, and women who could have stepped out an Anne Carson poem.
Nebulous smiles and down-turned, disillusioned mouths suggest an aura of sadness, yet the introspective gaze is not that of victim but of wary watcher.
The inscrutable expressions become protective masks enabling the figures to stand and confront rather than fleeing to a safe harbour. The faces seem disconcertingly familiar. They look like people we know.
With recognition comes the knowledge that we are seeing aspects of ourselves. Zylstra has included birds in some works and they appear as guardian spirits, familiars that speak of hope, freedom, and communication.
Painting for Zylstra is a safety valve that allows her to address mental health issues. It is a means of telling a story, sharing experience and showing that colour, light, and nature are metaphors of survival for all of us.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery houses the Fred and Lucy Gould Collection, a remarkable and eclectic miscellany of paintings and objets d’art.
The paintings afford the viewer an opportunity to ponder cultural capital as a repository of aesthetic values that reflect the taste of an era. Landscapes that depict natural scenery as subject such as Daniel Sherrin’s On the Arun River, Sussex, H R Hall’s charming study of highland cattle, the dramatic seascape by William Williamson, classical hydrangeas by Lloyd Rees, the glimmer of Modernism in Francis Caddell’s Winter: Loch Fyne, and the courtly pomp of Joseph Hayer’s depiction of Queen Elizabeth crowning Shakespeare are given further impact through their lavish frames that so complement the styles and enhance their historical significance.
Parkside Ceramics, the gallery space of the Darling Downs Potters’ Club at 145 West St is showing a wide range of work by Club members.
With Christmas just around the corner these colourful handmade artworks are practical gift suggestions.
Youngsters won’t break their budget with a heart-shaped spoon rest for Mum or a favourite teacher.
The versatility of clay is seen in the elegant functional work by Shirley Wilkins, the colourful platters by Janet Geisel, and in the beakers by Kris Lyons.
There are whimsical animals by Terry Spinks whose sculptural talents extend to wood as in his ironbark whale carving and the fanciful Gnome Home. Paintings on clay and tall graceful vessels attest to the skills of Wesley Denic.