29 July – 20 August 2017
Glass art is a varied form open to a huge range of expressions of creativity and skill. Rose Mary Faulkner and Catherine Newton have exhibited several styles of glass in their show at Belconnen Arts Centre. Catherine Newton produces brightly coloured blown glass on crafted wood stands. Rose Mary Faulkner has almost sandblasted toned sections of undulating glass. Both artists are skilled and there are examples and gallery materials below.
29 July – 20 August 2017
Small targeted exhibitions are often surprisingly interesting. Martin Rowney has five works on display at the Belconnen Arts Centre around the lives of four people. Each of the art works have unique elements in them that speak to the life and individual and reflect the back story that is displayed on the wall. Each of the works has an artistic interest and merit in itself but become richer with the person’s brief bio in mind.
Rowney is an archaeologist who uses art to communicate elements of his work. The pics and gallery materials are below.
A recent exhibition at Craft ACT was an explosion of gorgeous creativity and craft skill. All participants are classed as emerging but none of them are inexperienced in bringing to exhibition remarkable works of art. The range of materials used was wonderful and the integration of different materials into the same work was impressive. Sample pictures and gallery materials are included below.
6 April – 13 May 2017
Highly crafted timber furniture is always attractive. Pete Bollington has 14 gorgeous functional creations made from various fine timbers. There is a credenza, some mirrors, some tables, stools, and an entertainment unit and a shelving unit. The wonderful craftsmanship woven into each of these constructions make all of them very attractive. All of them are for sale and the prices are on the gallery sheets below. Pics give an insight into the quality and style of the works.
Till Sept 20th 2017
Plan to take a few hours or several visits if you want to take in this exhibition. The range and complexity of the works on show means it takes lots of time to engage with the abundant creativity.
There were grand explorations of traditional.arts from both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sources. They are joined to huge numbers or works of modern and technological styles of creations.
In the entry way to the NGA is a Rolls Royce painted in tradition art style. In the exhibition is a video of the artist driving that car and that activity brings together lots of remarkable visual traditional elements. The driver turns into a large area of red dust and by driving in various circles at high speed he digs up the red dirt creating patterns and a vast amount of red dust. The beauty and layered elements of the video production and were wonderful.
I will go back as we only had 90 minutes today. The exhibition is hard as it traverses complex territory of history, political comment, layered cultural interaction and many aspects of the underbelly of human society. I have included a few pics below but the only sensible thing to do with this exhibition is to go – it is free.
18 May – 4 June 2017
Julian Laffan creates gorgeous representations of place in delicately prepared woodcuts. The two tone natural looking creations are supplemented with a small flash or two of bright colour to highlight a feature but for me the beauty is in the craftsmanship of the wood work. Many of the scenes were familiar with Laffan’s take on how they were carved in the wood.
I did not have my camera with me so I have only included the gallery materials but as usual the high quality sheets from Beaver have some of the images included.
Collaborations across artists working in different materials are always stimulating. A master glass-worker and an excellent craftsman in wood have works on display in the one exhibition at the Canberra Glass-works.
Tom Rowney makes beautiful glass items that have remarkable lined internal decorations woven into the fabric of the glass.
Zeljko Markov makes blocky creations of varied coloured timber and he has accompanied them with lined prints.
