MAIN and FOYER GALLERIES

Meander

Peter Osborn

Unfortunately we have had to close our Main Gallery for health and safety reasons as a COVID19 precaution. You can view all the works in Peter's exhibition below. 

Introduction

70% of the world’s population live in an urban environment. Each day everywhere people rush from one place to another and back again in robotic motion staring at their phones and listening to manufactured music, switched off from the world around them. To meander is to take time to connect with nature and experience the time passing, the harshness and beauty of the physical and the spiritual world. It is to appreciate that each moment is a destination that arrives and passes. This exhibition is about this connection we make when we wander and are present in the moment, happily mindful of place. It is finding small detail, colour, form and atmosphere that allows our minds to open and unravel.

Peter has collected soils from the inland and wood ash to mix with pigments and clay to create a series of works, both ceramic and painting. The works seek to reflect the ephemeral passing of time, the roughness created by the elements contrasted with the stillness and peace inherent in the natural world.

Several journeys have contributed to this work. The first journey was from Warwick to Broken Hill following the Darling River from Bourke to Wilcannia and visiting the Gundabooka National Park. The red soil of Gundabooka features in the ceramic works and paintings. Here Peter made drawings, collected samples of soil and viewed the vibrant indigenous rock art. The second journey was to Japan where he visited the Ceramic Museum at Mashiko and viewed a current exhibition of ceramic art. The simple beauty of the forms enhanced by the ancient traditions of Japan made a deep impression. This experience provided impetus to find his own expression of nature through Australian ceramics. This exhibition is an increment of that exploration and creativity.

Download the catalogue

ORANGE WALL GALLERY

Coastal Dreaming by the Warwick Potters Association

(5 March to 24 April 2020) Unfortunately we have had to close our Orange Wall Gallery temporarily for health and safety reasons as a COVID19 precaution.  

The Warwick Potters Association was formed in 1973 and is one of the most beloved recreational groups in Warwick. This exhibition is a showcase of the current member’s ceramics.

Exhibiting artists: Pat Almond, Raye Batham, Arlene Bird, Susan Creed, Robert Cullen, Dianne Gray, Cathy Holmes, Sue Keong, Penny King, Jan Laws, Jennifer Shergold Michele Smith, Kaz Thorpe and Sue Whitton

Image: White Swirl by Sue Whitton Stoneware with carved decorations and glaze $180

Official Opening: Friday 6 March at 6.00pm by Cr Sheryl Windle

 Plan your visit to Warwick Art Gallery using our Exhibitions Calendar.

Our three unique exhibition spaces are updated every 4 to 8 weeks.  We are open 10 am to 4 pm Tuesday to Saturday.

The Main Gallery will be closed on the following days in 2020 for exhibition installs:
18/19 February | 31 March/1 April | 12/13 May | 30 June/1 July |  18 August to 11 September | 27/28 October | 8/9 December

9 January – 15 February 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
You Are Here 2 (The Incredible Lightness of Being) by Susan Lincoln

Crystal, high-gloss reflective surfaces, video, works on paper and performance come together to create a uniquely immersive installation-based exhibition, by Brisbane-based artist Susan Lincoln. Through her use of light, reflection, refraction and repetition, Susan’s meticulously crafted works create ethereal spaces for mindfulness and meditation.

9 January – 29 February 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
A Portrait of Australia: Stories through the lens of Australian Geographic

A Portrait of Australia: Stories Through the lens of Australian Geographic is touring the country as part of an unprecedented partnership between the National Museum of Australia and Australian Geographic. The stunning display of large format photographic prints unites the expertise of Australian Geographic’s acclaimed photographers and the National Museum’s interpretive storytelling experience.

20 February – 28 March 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Meander by Peter Osborn

5 March – 25 April 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
  Coastal Dreaming by Warwick Potters Group

2 April - 9 May 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
From Here to There by Borderline Art Group

The art practice of Borderline Arts Association members is highly diverse and includes watercolour, drawing, print making, fibre, fabric, jewellery design, stone and bronze sculpture, ceramics and painting.

30 April – 6 June 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
 Reflections by Tom Benkendorff

14 May – 27 June 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
 Place and Time by Warwick Artists Group

4 June – 11 July 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
Baltic Miniatures

2 July – 15 August 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Craftivism – in partnership with NETS Victoria

Craftivism. Dissident Objects and Subversive Forms presents the work of 18 contemporary Australian artists who utilise craft based materialities with a political intent. Broadening our understanding of craft-making traditions, the artists in this exhibition subvert and extend these forms into the realm of activism and social change, reflecting on the world in which we live. 

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, as well as receiving development assistance from NETS Victoria’s Exhibition Development Fund, supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

16 - 26 July Jumpers and Jazz in July

16 July – 22 August 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
The Front Room by the Warwick Art Gallery Yarntopians

18 August – 11 September 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Closed for facility maintenance

27 August – 3 October 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
Warwick State High School Visual Art students

12 September - 24 October 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Robert McPherson Boss Drover 

A touring exhibition of works by Robert MacPherson, one of Australia’s most highly regarded contemporary artists.The exhibition tour will feature works that continue a lifelong project he calls the ‘Frog Poem’ series, an investigation that has previously focussed on juxtaposing everyday objects with the Latin names of frogs that have somehow suggested, in some way, the frog’s own characteristics. His ‘Frog Poem’ series has evolved to refer to the unreliability of descriptive systems to capture the diversity of their subjects, and the happy coincidences in language that can occur through colloquialism, slang, and truncation, like the shortening of words to fit road signs as drivers pass by rural landscapes, towns or local markets.

‘Robert MacPherson: Boss Drovers’ is a touring exhibition developed by the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.

8 October – 14 November 2020 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
 The Cherry on Top by Jayde Clacy

29 October – 5 December 2020 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Nikki Wood

19 November 2020 – 9 January 2021 (ORANGE WALL GALLERY)
Southern Downs Miniatures 2020

10 December 2020 – 23 January 2021 (MAIN AND FOYER GALLERY)
Reasonable and Necessary

ORANGE WALL GALLERY

A Portrait of Australia: Stories Through the lens of Australian Geographic

9 January to 29 February 2020

A Portrait of Australia: Stories Through the lens of Australian Geographic is touring the country as part of an unprecedented partnership between the National Museum of Australia and Australian Geographic.

The stunning display of large format photographic prints unites the expertise of Australian Geographic’s acclaimed photographers and the National Museum’s interpretive storytelling experience.

National Museum director, Dr Mathew Trinca, said, “This is a marvellous opportunity to take Australian stories to venues around the country by combining the National Museum’s exhibition and curatorial expertise with Australian Geographic’s 30 years of unparalleled photographic coverage of Australia’s land, nature and people.”

“This exhibition celebrates the bush, the outback, the coast and the people who live and work there. Featuring photographs from the Australian Geographic archive, it will transport you to some of the most rugged and remote parts of the country where you will discover the remarkable stories of ordinary Australians,” Dr Trinca said.

Australian Geographic’s editor in chief, Chrissie Goldrick, said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with the National Museum of Australia. Both organisations strive to tell authentic Australian stories using the very finest storytelling methods, whether it be words, images or objects. These beautifully presented exhibitions transform our words and pictures into a truly immersive experience.”

The photographs will tour Australia for the next two years and were drawn from a book A Portrait of Australia, which was produced to celebrate 30 years of Australian Geographic’s magazine.

Venues around the country can select from a collection of 60 photographs to tell their own regional stories – and the stories of the nation.  Warwick Art Gallery Director Karina Devine enlisted the help of two Southern Downs photographers, Chris Johnson and Karen Johnson, to select 18 images for the Orange Wall Gallery.

A travelling exhibition from the National Museum of Australia developed in collaboration with Australian Geographic

Official Opening: Saturday 11 January at 1.00 pm

Public Programs: to be advised

Image: Along the Birdsville Tracknear Birdsville, Queensland photo by Colin Beard

MAIN and FOYER GALLERIES

You Are Here 2

(The Incredible Lightness of Being) by Susan Lincoln

9 January to 15 February 2020

Crystal, high-gloss reflective surfaces, video, works on paper and performance come together to create a uniquely immersive installation-based exhibition, by Brisbane-based artist Susan Lincoln. 

Warwick Art Gallery is excited to host Susan Lincoln’s YOU ARE HERE 2 (The Incredible Lightness of Being), the artist’s first ever survey exhibition.

Through her use of light, reflection, refraction and repetition, Susan’s meticulously crafted works create ethereal spaces for mindfulness and meditation.

Susan has a rich connection to regional and rural Australia, and it is the nostalgia and familial connection to these places that has left a signature mark on her artworks over the last decade.

Susan Lincoln says, “All of my oeuvre is a testament to childhood memories as a girl, completely spellbound by the light refractions around the room from my mother’s crystal bracelet in the unique light of outback Queensland”.

A key work in the exhibition is TRR (Light Vehicle). Standing at just under three metres tall, this immersive space gently draws audiences in to sit and explore what mindfulness has to offer without any stigmatisation. It allows participants to quietly pause and reflect, and to momentarily escape today’s fast-paced society and life pressures. In this space, light is reflected through lead crystals, acting as prisms, to scatter rainbow colours over the work and its participants.

Official Opening: Saturday 11 January at 1.00pm

Public Programs: Workshop, Artist Talk and Performance Saturday 1 February 

Image: Susan Lincoln, TRR (Light Vehicle), detail, 2014-2019, moulded fibreglass, polycarbonate, acrylic, lead crystals, paint, timber offcuts, laser cut acrylic, monofilament, rug, 360 x 420 x 420 x 270 cm. Photo credit: L. Grosmann.

TOURING

A travelling exhibition of work by Loani Prior and Mark Crocker 

Warwick Art Gallery was the producing gallery for the exhibition Portraits of a Tea Cosy. 

Work on this exhibition started in 2012 when Queen of Tea Cosies Loani Prior and photographer Mark Crocker travelled to six towns in three states meeting tea cosy guardians and recording their stories.    From these meetings Mark has produced 40 black and white portraits of the interviewees with their tea cosies in colour.  Their stories have been turned into an audio presentation and delightful quotes about family, friendship and the joy of owning something handcrafted. 

This exhibition also stars 20 exuberant TEA COSIES created by Loani Prior, author of three best selling books, Wild Tea Cosies, Really Wild Tea Cosies and How Tea Cosies Change the World.  They are knitted objets d’art, woolly sculptures; clever and funny, like nothing you will have seen before. 

The exhibition was displayed first in Warwick during Jumpers and Jazz in July 2013.  The tour includes the following locations: Mittagong, Northern Territory, Hervey Bay, Miles, Longreach, Bundaberg, Ballina and Canberra. The tour was completed in 2015.  Mark Crocker's prtraits are now part of the Warwick Art Gallery collection.

This project is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian state and territory governments and by Arts Queensland in the Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts.

This project has also been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

From time to time we participate in exciting one off projects.  Click on one of the links below to find out more.