Artworks become statements
THIS weekend is the last opportunity to see two local exhibitions that mix and match traditional media and new technologies.
One exhibition draws on works from permanent collections to establish an historical perspective that salutes both older and more current processes.
The other presentation offers a fresh approach to surviving in an uncertain world as seen by a group of emerging artists using different manipulative techniques.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery’s exhibition, Artificial Paradises: Botanical Art in the Age of Plastic does not quite deliver the challenge implied in the title, however, despite a lack of coherence, it provides some intriguing visual links.
The works are drawn from the permanent collections and it is a joy to see Hydrangeas by
Lloyd Rees, a series of wood engravings from Lionel Lindsay, a watercolour by Vida Lahey, and the flower studies of Ellis Rowan liberated into the large downstairs gallery space.
Hand-coloured copperplate engravings from Joseph Banks’s Florilegium taken from original drawings by Sydney Parkinson on James Cook’s voyage of discovery are complemented by the impressive digital photographs of parrots from Joseph McGlennon’s Florilegium series.
John Weeronga Bartoo’s intricate storylines No. 302, Sequel to Paradise, offers an offbeat dialogue with KellyMarie McEwan’s Fairy-ring emergence textile series.
A subtle connection is made between the wall installation of artificial foliage by Tiffany Shafran and the exquisite etching of a tree fern by Conrad Martens printed by Lionel Lindsay.
Further rewarding visual communication occurs between works by Tate Adams, Frank Hodgkinson, and Estelle Thomson.
The Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery is hosting Ambient/
Existent/ Emergent: 2020 Biennial Emerging Artists Award Exhibition featuring a selection of works by Jennis Ardern, Georgia Haywood, Agnes Hughes, and Celeste Sherwood.
The artists have explored physical, social, and individual constructs that isolate as well as include connections within the built environment.
Art history, cultural theory, architectural details, and random acts of kindness inform, shape, and define a world under stress.
The artworks become statements of identity and survival.
Jennis Ardern’s Each precious drop combines text in liquid blue resin “droplets”.
They are positive re-enforcements of human charity recounted by friends, neighbours, and members of her community, and as such, are small messages of hope.
Georgia Haywood’s photomontage peeps into lighted windows to reclaim glimpses of domestic normalcy in the lonely isolation of social distancing.
Agnes Hughes has referenced Renaissance portraiture and the object of the gaze through her manipulated “selfies” that make oblique allusion
to the narcissistic galleries of social media.
The configuration of architectural structures softened by neutral washes in the monotone works by Celeste Sherwood have created an urban setting for a personal narrative in which human habitat is both sanctuary and battlefield.
The intimacy of the exhibition is well suited to the space which allows singular appreciation as well as collective impact.