Mixed styles offer variety
A LITTLE history and some present day responses, the evocative edge of black and white photography, and the mixing of printmaking and textile art add variety and interest to local and regional offerings.
THE CAM ROBERTSON GALLERY AT THE TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL ART GALLERY is hosting Landscape and Memory: Frank Hurley and a nation imagined, an exhibition that is part of the 2018 centenary commemorations of World War I.
The project is an initiative of the University of Southern Queensland and involves eight artists whose works have been created in response to a selection of images by war photographer Frank Hurley.
Although the photographs are not part of the exhibition, they are included in the comprehensive catalogue and offer fascinating reference material for the artworks.
Michael Armstrong’s graphite and beeswax drawings of a straggling line of anonymous soldiers become a ghostly and moving homage to the symbolism of the Unknown Soldier.
Margaret Baguley’s construction with its crusader’s cross and tiles acknowledges the Battle of Jerusalem, 1917, but also recognises the location as a site of almost ceaseless conflict.
Beata Batorowicz’s (A)mending WWI History alludes to Hurley’s controversial composite photographs while her meticulous first-aid accoutrements offer a ‘band-aid’ to historical documentation.
Garry Dolan’s vertical triptych depicts a healed landscape shrouded in memory. The layered narrative by Neville Heyward becomes an apotheosis of human sacrifice played out in an Impressionist palette.
Abbey MacDonald engages an Expressionist approach with subdued swirling patterns of emotion and muted tones.
Anne Smith’s photo montage places a war cemetery and spectral soldiers with present day veterans in a vast Australian landscape.
David Usher’s Weight of the world is a bold, weeping, and devastated battlefield.
The exhibition becomes a landscape of memory which solicits an unspoken pact to remember. THE FOYER OF CLIFTON LIBRARY is presenting Monochrome, an exhibition by the Clifton Photographers.
The diverse imagery is enhanced by the elegance of black and white photography in which light and its shadows create visual poetry.
The inclusion of an exhibition statement gives an informative context for the show.
The height of the work is appropriate and offers some respite from the intruding reflections thus allowing a greater appreciation on the part of the viewer in this awkward exhibition space.
The Library foyer is also showing a fascinating display about reptilian carnivores and Pleistocene mega fauna that once lived on the Eastern Darling Downs as well as a detailed photographic document about the lavish leadlight windows in the St James and St John’s Catholic Church in Clifton. D’BECAS CAFE NEAR THE BLACK FOREST HILL CUCKOO CLOCK CENTRE, CABARLAH is featuring work by printmaker and textile artist Julie Sweeney, a member of the Artists of Crows Nest.
Birds and feather details feature in collagraph prints and textiles, including embroidered and embellished wall pieces. It’s not to be missed.