Next up at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery
9 March – 4 May 2024
Three new exhibitions open at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery on Saturday 9 March. Make sure to pay a visit before 4 May and also take in the monumental, gravity-defying Broken Obelisk sculpture by Barnett Newman, on loan to our gallery from the National Collection, and now gracing the forecourt.
Comfort Zone
Alison Mackay and Nicci Bedson
South Coast artists Nicci Bedson and Alison Mackay explore and celebrate the unique character of two different regions – NSW South Coast and Far North Queensland.
Both artists’ works capture the beauty and heritage that is all around us in our human-made landscapes, and how they reflect our personalities and history.
Bedson’s small paintings centre on South Coast house facades, pondering themes of home, belonging, heritage, and place. Nostalgic and familiar elements capture the essence of Australian suburban life.
Nicci Bedson, 2023. Pelican Road, acrylic on ply, 92 x 62cm
Mackay’s distinctive paintings on unfolded domestic packaging explore the eclectic interiors of ‘The Artists’ Houses’ in Far North Queensland, referencing concepts of recycling and consumer culture.
Alison MacKay, The Artist’s Treehouse FNQ. Sharpie, gouache on unfolded packaging 29 x 60cm
Alison has shown her work throughout Australia during this time, with 13 solo shows, many group shows and over 50 finalist places in major art prizes. These include 8 times in the Portia Geach Memorial Award for female portraiture, 4 times in the NSW Parliament’s Plein Air Painting Prize, 7 times in the Gallipoli Art Prize, along with other major prizes such as the Archibald, the EMSLA, the National Still Life Award, the Dobell Drawing Prize, the Mosman Art Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize, Percival Portrait prize, Muswellbrook Art Prize and the Black Swan prize. She was the winner of the 2020 Gallipoli Art Prize.
The Giver
Aidan Gageler
The Giver offers its audience an encounter with photography in its most immediate form, inscribed only (and slowly) by light, time, and chemistry. The series’ title borrows from a 1993 novel of the same name by American writer Lois Lowry.
Aidan Gageler, Old Skin.
Aidan Gageler employs antique processes to produce abstract works, allowing traditional substrates and exhausted chemistry to lend their quirks and failures to each image.
Made without a camera, these works avoid being read as pictures or symbols. Instead, they open up the possibility of being felt or experienced, rather than simply seen.
Aidan Gageler lives and works between Awabakal and Yuin Land (Lake Macquarie/South Coast, NSW). He graduated with first-class honours from Camberwell College of the Arts, University of the Arts London. Most recently, he has been a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Desert Jungle
Jeannie Baker
An exhibition of artworks by renowned children’s author and artist, Jeannie Baker, created for her book Desert Jungle.
In the remote Sonoran Desert in Mexico, a young boy visits his grandfather. The boy sees the desert as a frightening place and he’d rather play on his tablet. But later, with his grandfather’s guidance he begins to view this amazing environment in a profound new way. This is the story of a boy discovering that the desert he feared is actually a place of endless wonders.
Jeannie Baker, 2023. Desert Jungle #10 Collage 29 x 45cm. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Jaime Plaza
I don’t know any other way of achieving the results that collage can give me. I’ve always loved textures and started as a painter trying to reproduce textures using paint. Then I thought, why not use the actual textures and that is what I do now.
