Art offers insight into existence
SOME regional exhibitions offer an insight into how the minutiae of existence shape and define our lives.
Sometimes small moments snatched from adversity provide a degree of normalcy to extreme situations.
In created environments tiny details give cunning authenticity, while random symbols add visual emphasis to aspects of survival.
The Warwick Art Gallery is hosting an enthralling exhibition on tour from the Australian War Memorial.
Remember Me: The lost diggers of Vignacourt offers a fascinating and emotional experience that should be required viewing.
The small northern French town of Vignacourt became a pocket of salvation for Australian soldiers entering the hellish battles of World War I.
Farmer Louis Thuillier and his wife Antoinette shared a passion for photography and set up a studio in their barn complete with a painted backdrop.
Here they photographed the soldiers relaxing, interacting with local folk, cuddling puppies, sharing wine and friendship in settings that offered a modicum of normalcy in a world gone mad.
The photographs from glass negatives were made into postcards to send home to family.
Fast forward almost a hundred years: the old farm is to be sold and any possessions dispersed. Enter Peter Burness, an Australian war historian and a TV team on a quest to find WWI memorabilia.
In the barn’s attic they find three trunks containing thousands of glass negatives and rolled in the rafters the hand-painted backdrop.
Thanks to the generosity of businessman Kerry Stokes AC, this treasure trove of human history has found a home at the Australian War Memorial.
The exhibition documents the find as well as displaying some 75 crisp images printed from the glass negatives. Although the names of the soldiers were not recorded, during the exhibition’s tour family members have come forward and identified some individuals.
This valuable archive is about mateship, loyalty, humour, bravery, and sacrifice. It is the human face of disaster. It is why we say each year on Anzac Day, ‘We will remember them’.
The atrium and Orange Wall Gallery at the Warwick Gallery are presenting an amazing series of architectural dioramas by local artist Barry Blaikie.
These miniature environments include barns, farm houses, and old stores in various degrees of dilapidation. The attention to detail is breathtaking, especially considering the scale and the fact that Blaikie has handmade each tiny piece.
A particular favourite is the table top wrecker’s yard of old cars, sheds, weeds, a tree with a crow’s nest, and a profusion of assorted wrecker’s yard detritus
The Crows Nest Regional Art Gallery is featuring Adherence an exhibition by Rhi Johnson.
The artwork documents hope, anguish, and medical trauma in a visual narrative shaped through personal perspective.
Symbols scattered across the imagery process experience in an obscure secret language that balances memory, imagination, and vivid reality.