27 May to 27 June 2010

A Brush with the Land
The land, with all its personality and spirit, was the inspiration for Warwick artist Dawn Marriage whose first solo exhibition opens at Warwick Art Gallery this week.  Dawn has been painting for 11 years and has exhibited before in group exhibitions.  She has also inspired many new artists by teaching her unique technique in several popular workshops in 2009. 

 “The effects of the elements and time, along with the cycles of life, leave designs and shapes that continually stimulate my imagination” said Dawn, “my paintings are influenced by nature and the reactions I have to it”.  Dawn’s technique involves using traditional materials such as acrylic paint and charcoal which she combines with sand, small seeds, modelling compound, rice paper and tissues.  The lusciousness of the textures she creates is what makes her paintings so popular with the viewers.

Where Rainbows Live
Our local children will adore this exhibition.  The Gallery is very pleased to be able to exhibit the 13 original artworks that were created for the delightful children’s picture book Where Rainbows Live by Denise Vanderlugt from the Whitsundays in North Queensland.    Her inspiration for the book was her local environment – the rainforest, the reef, wetlands and open spaces.  She has been a full time quilt maker since 1982 and her work is recognized in Australia and overseas.  The book was published in 2007 with the story illustrated by the quilts and the text embroidered onto linen.  In 2008 the book won two International Awards, a Bronze medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards and a Gold medal for a Spirit Award in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. 

Denise has also developed a technique for making three dimensional forms such as baskets from fabric.  The baskets feature in her book and these will also be on display.  Denise has been invited by Warwick Art Gallery to be a guest tutor at this year’s Jumpers and Jazz in July festival.  All places in her class are taken but you will be able to meet her in Warwick on Saturday 17^th July at 10 am and 2 pm when she will do a special reading of her book at the Gallery.  You will also see her spectacular jelly fish artwork in a palm tree for the tree jumper exhibition which starts on Thursday 15 July.

A Dogs Life
Many people will be familiar with Dion’s work from the Cheeky Dog tee shirts that adorn the backs of Northern Territorians and tourists alike.

Dion Beasley is a 19 year old Indigenous artist from Canteen Creek near Tennant Creek in the N.T. Dion was born profoundly deaf and has muscular dystrophy. With his friend and mentor Joie Boulter, Dion has been producing Cheeky Dog images for tee shirts and bags for a number of years.

This exhibition sees a whole new side to Dion’s work. Ten large limited edition hand coloured prints give a humorous and astute observation into the community life of Canteen Creek’s camp dogs and introduces several new characters. The works were printed at Julalikari Arts in Tennant Creek under the guidance of Alan Murn.

These works captivate and delight and highlight the wonderful contribution artists with disabilities make to our cultural and artistic life. Murn says

“The works on print are more than very, very good drawings of dogs. Dion’s line work is very confident and very skilful. His use of space that he works within is very clever, and his perspectives and perceptions are highly developed for someone without any training.”

A Dogs Life is a touring exhibition from Artback NT:  Arts Development and Touring in conjunction with the Australia Council for the Arts, and supported by the Northern Territory Government through the Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the ARTS and Arts Access Australia.  It is on display at Warwick Art Gallery from 27 May to 27 June.

1 July to 8 August

Second Life Mary Elizabeth Barron

Artist Statement

"When making art from recycled materials the work retains a memory of the materials original function. The pieces in this exhibition are made predominately from my old clothes and those of my family and friends. In their first life they were clothes, utilitarian and practical and their purpose in this first life helps to inform their second life as art. Our clothes are very personal and intimate and in using them to make these sculptures they embody the work with these qualities. Also being made predominately from the clothes of loved ones they are embedded with their memories and our shared experiences. Both the physical form and the emotional memories guide and inspire the form of these sculptural pieces.

The exhibition represents second life not only because I use recycled materials but also on a personal level. I spent my ‘first life’ being a wife, mother and home educator now that my children are grown I have embarked on my ‘second life’ as an artist. This exhibition is the current embodiment of my ‘second life’ which of course builds on and is informed by the first."

Then to Here Liz Stuart

Artist Statement

"For the last five years I’ve been collecting found objects and photographing interesting surfaces changed by weather and time such as rust, stones, fungus and old partially buried machinery from horse drawn drays, ploughs and car wrecks to old iron bed ends and other household items, as I roam around the paddocks on my parents’ farm.  This property was once smaller farms on my father’s side, going back several generations.I look for irresistible pieces of glass, ceramics and metal shining in the sunlight where these homes once were. 

The fragments are traces of their domestic lives long gone.  I feel like I’m on an archaeological dig, dusting off little artifacts from the dirt, piecing together their stories and finding new places for them in my art.  That is how I came up with the title Then to Here: from way back before my time (then) to now (here).

 The wire I use to bind the objects together symbolises our lives bound through blood and place.  I also collected red dirt and stones from Toowoomba and old crochet cottons to bring my mother’s side of my family in.  I’ve combined these in my three dimensional hangings and charcoal drawings of Mother Earth, who has the double symbolism for all the mothers of those generations who created families down the line to me here now.

These art works have been the gathering and interpreting of little moments of identity and place in time, through the parallel world of my imagination."

15 to 25 July

30 September to 14 November

Fantastic Fibres Warwick Quilters and Textile Artists

The talented members of this group share their recent work with us, representing a broad spectrum of textile art and quilting techniques.  As part of the exhibition, the participants were challenged to produce a piece of work celebrating a particular colour in the spectrum.

18 November to 21 January