Home in Time @ Canberra Museum and Gallery

A core job for the Canberra Museum and Gallery is to tell the story of Canberra and its region. The exhibition titled “Home in Time” does that with beauty and a sense of history. The story it tells is of a range of early housing styles and types that occupy the early suburbs of Canberra.

The pictures and the models and lay out plans are a fascinating insight into how people have lived before our much bigger current homes..

The webpage for the exhibition is as follows and has a great pictures from the exhibition on the page.:

http://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/home-in-time

 

Black @ National Gallery of Australia

One of the exhibitions in the complete rehang of the National Gallery of Australia is titled Black. The curators have collected artworks that feature arts relationship with black.  The artworks are not just black but they have a place for black as a dominant part of the work. The relationship between black and other colours in artwork is celebrated and the place of black in regard to either space is often quite striking.

This is a wonderful exploration of an important theme in all art and is an enjoyable set of artworks.

The webpage for the exhibition:has a gallery of thirty of the works in the exhibition.

http://www.nga.gov.au/Black/Default.cfm

Tyler Graphics at Work @ National Gallery of Australia

The Tyler Graphics show at the National Gallery  of Australia gives a great insight into the work of a diverse group of print makers. The exhibition weaves together the work of several artists creating images in print media. I loved the rich vibrant coloured abstraction each of them produced and the hang is light well clustered and a thoroughly beautiful coverage of the work of the group.

The website for this exhibition is below. It includes a link to the larger collection.

http://nga.gov.au/BehindScenes/

 

Encounters from British Museum @ National Museum of Australia

Encounters is a collaboration between the British Museum andsome Australian Indigenous people. The objects were chosen by Australian indigenous people to tell their stories. It  is a truly delightful experience to walk through the space and have stories told about indigenous life via objects taken from Australia over the last two hundred and 30 years.

I wept over some of the object linked stories

Here are some pics

 

Wendy Saddington @ Canberra Museum and Gallery

I was a teenage rock fanatic.Wendy Saddington was one of my idols. She sang blues with an awesome power and passion. There were lots of bands she collaborated with but in the presence of all she shone. It was wonderful to see a retrospective of her career in the open gallery of CMAG. The exhibition spans much more of her talent than I was aware of and I enjoyed the learning.

The web page for the exhibition

http://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/wendy-saddington-underground-icon

 

Capital and country 1900-1911 @ Canberra Museum and Gallery

The National Gallery of Australia curated an exhibition in 2013 to celebrate the centenary of Canberra in art. The works chosen were ones that celebrate the countryside around Canberra. The works are painted back in the foundation era and have a look of that rural and undisturbed Australian beauty. the works give a delightful insight into the sight of the Capital before the whole area was decorated with brick veneer, car parks and assorted buildings dotting the countryside.

As usual NGA exhibitions are dotted with the famous and the less so and include a great range of takes and styles of pictures. Sadly the exhibition closes this week.

Website below -I did not have my camera so did not take pics.

http://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/capital-and-country-the-federation-years-1900-1914

 

.

Birds in Paradise – Kerry Shepherdson @M16 Artspace

Blue and green dominate this set. There is a sense of tropical waters with that shimmery colour change as dappled sunshine hits the surface. The pictures below are a sample of a beautiful set that are titled Birds in Paradise. The exhibition was on until Feb 7 2016.

The blurb on the website reads as follows.

Canberran Kerry Shepherdson’s solo painting exhibition Bird in Paradise explores Paradise in an avian context with colour and abstraction.

In the intimate space of M16’s newly refurbished Gallery 2, Shepherdson aims for a multifaceted visual experience about being in but not of ‘paradise’. As a visual and conceptual starting point, Shepherdson refers to the astonishingly vibrant birds of the tropics.

“My idea of paradise as metaphor translates in my work to suggest a state of bliss or ecstasy and uplifted emotional state. This arises from the sense of joy bestowed on me through observation of the phenomenon of formation flight of birds,” says the artist.

The patterns of the flight of birds are translated in Shepherdson’s work into abstract compositions characteristic of her work to date.

 

Raintrees… Prudence Borthwick @ M16 Artspace

Stylised black and white versions of nature have a power to focus on different elements of nature due to the focus that comes from the removal of colour. Prudence Borthwick has created a fabulous set of explorations of trees in a wild environment. The pics below give a bit of a sense of the sheer striking energy of the pictures.

Dream Machine @ Belconnen Arts Centre

A big Canberra bus made out of cardboard is the centre of a recent  exhibition at the Belconnen Arts Centre. You can walk into it and admire the spray can artwork on the wall. The drivers’ cabin is very convincing also made out of cardboard. They have made a bus shelter out of cardboard..The group that generated this project has an aim to bring together several fringe groups to work together and be able to present product in a public space. It was a fun thing to walk through.

The website is: http://www.belconnenartscentre.com.au/exhibitions/dreammachine.html

 

Below are somepics.

Hardy Wilson’s Peking @ National Library of Australia

Hardy Wilson created a striking set of representations of Peking in the 30s. The gift Wilson has is for detail. These creations are not very colourful but they build clarity through use of line and contrast. Wilson understands the unique nature of built form in China and records the detail with care.

No Photographs allowed but the website page has a set of pictures from the exhibition so I have included it below.

https://www.nla.gov.au/node/8685