Visit our galleries
Sandy
Pottinger explores both sides of the ‘crowded house’ coin.
WHILE Crowded House is the catchy name for a pop rock band, the notion of a crowded house in art gallery terms, unless intrinsic to the nature of a group exhibition, implies the lack of a selection criterion and questionable exhibition design strategies.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is currently featuring two exhibitions which illustrate both sides of the crowded house coin.
The Darling Downs/South West Queensland Regional Exhibition of the Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Arts presents work by senior high school students.
It is a large, cumbersome collection of an amazing assortment of artworks, and the fact that it succeeds as a vibrant, coherent, and visually exciting exhibition is a profound credit to the skilful juggling and inspired exhibition design by the gallery staff.
Stunning works range from Lily Pepper’s assemblage and projection, Zak Magnussen’s sticker covered wheel rim, Makaela Brown’s clever clam-shaped reinvention of a toilet bowl, and Madison McNaughton’s tea bag tea cups, to Danielle Van Den Bosch’s creative application of printmaking, the shredded digital photography in a work by Sophia Young, photographic documentation by Aziza Bamberg and Darcy Foott, and the splendid cutlery rooster Mr Red by Connar McLaren.
This impressive exhibition suggests the future of visual arts is in good hands!
The Cam Robertson Gallery at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is presenting In the Third Dimension, an exhibition by a group of nine artists specializing in the making of handmade books.
The congested presentation begs a more stringent selection policy, with perhaps a specific limit of works from each artist, so that the inspiration, ingenuity, individual beauty, and the innovative use of materials can be more fully appreciated.
The low setting of some displays denies the intimate view that the attention to detail and finish in these intricate works demands.
Rosalie Gallery in Goombungee has welcomed the exhibition Release, a series of paintings by mother and son artists Rosalie and David Eustace. The works offer both extroverted and introspective aspects of a shared familial journey.
The pictures are very different in style and content, yet through a careful reading of the gallery space, the exhibition design has allowed a sympathetic communication between the artworks.
Rosalie’s paintings are an exuberant celebration of life, age, and experience in vibrant colours, and an almost 1970s stylistic freedom.
David’s works are more cautious, in that they seem to internalize the thought process, which is translated in symbolic imagery that is in turn wistful, lost, and self- possessed.
The guest artist in the Foyer of Rosalie Gallery is Lionel Doyle who combines traditional Indigenous styles with interpretations of contemporary landscape painting.
The works are dynamic, yet subtly modulated in colour and tone. Doyle has made and decorated the didgeridoos, clap sticks, boomerangs, and woomeras which are also on display.