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Three Decades: celebrating the Tweed Regional Gallery collection
Friday 24 August 2018 to Sunday 30 June 2019
The Withey Gallery; Peter and Judy Budd Foyer
2018 marks the Gallery’s 30th anniversary. To honour this milestone, I have curated an exhibition from the collection which celebrates its development since 1988 and surveys the four focus areas that inform acquisitions.
Like many regional galleries, the gifting of artworks is a crucial element in the development of permanent collections. The support of private donors and artists has generously afforded the Gallery the opportunity to build a collection, of which visitors can enjoy and be proud.
This exhibition includes significant works of art that acknowledge the Gallery’s reputation in the arts sector and recognise the talent of artists living and working in our region. The exhibition also embraces our enviable geography, shares artists’ ideas and raises some issues that deserve to be raised – all of which bode well for the next thirty years.
Through the collection, Three Decades celebrates the realisation of an art gallery for the Tweed and the remarkable achievements of the many people who transformed a dream into reality. The exhibition celebrates a vibrant future ahead for the Gallery and our programs, and the continued, exciting development of your collection.
Susi Muddiman OAM
Gallery Director
Kenneth Macqueen (1897-1960)
Mount Warning and the Tweed River c.1930s
watercolour on paper, 32 × 40cm
Gift of the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc., 2017.
© Reven Macqueen
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Confessions
Graeme Drendel
Friday 28 September 2018 to Sunday 10 March 2019
The Boyd Gallery
My regime in the studio is just to paint, and rarely do I think in terms of an overall theme for a body of work. However, the work produced over a period of time seems to somehow have a sense of connectedness in spite of there having been no great need for this to be the case. It does stand to reason that as the canvases accumulate in the studio that they do in themselves influence one another and this of course does encourage a sense of dialogue from one painting to another.
I view the small works on paper in this exhibition as virtual short stories, featuring characters and objects that could possibly feature at some stage in a multi figure composition. Both the larger canvases and the small studies, I think, hone in on physically and psychologically isolated characters where communication, or lack thereof, is exposed as something with which many of us can identify.
Graeme Drendel, 2018
Graeme Drendel is represented by Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney, and Beaver Galleries, Canberra.
Graeme Drendel
The Piper 2014
oil on canvas, 122 × 92cm
© The artist
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Australia’s mangroves: living on the edge
Deirdre Bean
Friday 12 October 2018 to Sunday 17 March 2019
The Anthony Gallery
I developed a fascination for mangroves as a child when I swam amongst them in the Myall River, NSW. On learning more of their ecological importance and vulnerability, I undertook a self-funded project to document these unique plants.
A mangrove is a plant that thrives in the intertidal zone. They play an essential role in our tropical and subtropical coastal ecosystems as the breeding grounds for fish and crustaceans. Described as the lungs of the sea, mangroves form a protective buffer between ocean and land against runoff, storm surges and cyclones. Recent scientific research confirms that mangroves are vulnerable to increasing temperature in seawater and rising sea level, and so face a problematic future.
I studied 34 of Australia’s 47 species over a seven-year period. Each species was located in the field, collected, and painted from life. I encountered many hazards: torrential rain, mosquitoes, ants, heat, mud, dehydration and, of course, crocodiles. My equipment included my camera, water, insect repellant, collecting bag, and phone - with variable coverage. Once my specimens were secured, many hours were spent in the studio developing a botanically accurate watercolour painting, the results of which are featured in this exhibition.
Deirdre Bean, 2018
Deirdre Bean is represented by Mitchell Fine Art, Brisbane, and Stella Downer Fine Art, Sydney.
Deirdre Bean
Sonneratia caseolaris 2015
watercolour and graphite on Arches 300 gsm hot pressed paper, 48 × 40cm
© The artist
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Margaret Olley: from the collection
Friday 19 October 2018 to Sunday 16 June 2019
The Margaret Olley Art Centre
This exhibition showcases the Tweed Regional Gallery’s outstanding collection of artworks by Margaret Olley as well as artworks relating to Olley such as portraits of the artist and responses to her famous Duxford Street home studio. Margaret Olley: from the collection includes paintings and works on paper from across Olley’s enduring career including a still life painted when she was just 15 years of age, and a magnificent view of Sydney Harbour painted in 2009/11 – the final years of her life.
The development of the Gallery’s collection is reliant on the generous support of donors. This exhibition will include recent gifts to the collection such as Danelle Bergstrom’s Conversation with Margaret Olley 2003 (Gift of the artist through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, pending), Robert Barnes’ Portrait of the artist, Margaret Olley 1999 (Gift of the Tweed Regional Gallery Foundation Ltd. with funds contributed by the Gallery Donations Fund, 2017), Margaret Olley’s Sydney Harbour from The Rocks 2009/11 (Gift of Andrew Greig through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, pending), and Early morning 1997 (Gift of the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc., 2018)
Don’t miss this extraordinary collection of works celebrating the life and work of Margaret Olley – Australia’s most renowned painter of still life.
Margaret Olley (1923-2011)
Early morning 1997
oil on board, 61 × 92cm
Gift of the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc., 2018
© Margaret Olley Art Trust
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Dis/closures - Sienna van Rossum
Friday 22 February 2019 to Sunday 19 May 2019
The Peter and Judy Budd Foyer
Sienna van Rossum’s paintings explore the eye and its complex navigations across spaces and surfaces. For van Rossum, seeing is not absolutely transparent but rather embodies a strange uncertainty that she ironically evokes through the familiar. Worn and loved objects from her home are intimately rendered with a combination of meticulous realism and effacing abstraction. In these observations of the overlooked, ‘unimportant’ things in life, van Rossum asks the viewer to reflect upon her imagery’s intelligibility and ambiguity, proximity and distance, absence and presence.
Born in 1995 in Murwillumbah, Sienna van Rossum is a recent graduate from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), she has relocated back to the Tweed Valley to continue her art research and practice on the condition of the image. Dis/closures is Sienna van Rossum’s first solo exhibition.
Sienna van Rossum
Untitled #4 2017
33 × 22cm, oil on wood
© The artist
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Self-made: zines and artist books
Friday 1 March 2019 to Sunday 19 May 2019
The Temporary Exhibitions Gallery
Delve into do-it-yourself culture – from limited run artist books to cut-and-paste photocopy fanzines, explore the evolution and diversity of these radical publishing alternatives.
Celebrate the power of self-publishing to communicate directly with readers, create community and support counter-culture movements. Self-publishing empowers makers of all abilities and backgrounds to become creative producers, challenge dominant models, and make work that anyone can appreciate and collect.
State Library Victoria has one of the finest collections of artist books and zines in Australia and Self-made showcases original rare objects from the collection, as well as a selection of contemporary zines and artist books. Discover science fiction fanzines from the 1940s, groundbreaking 1970s punk zines, Australian underground press publications and artist books designed to circumvent commercial gallery systems.
The exhibition features works by leading international artists including: Swiss German artist, Dieter Roth; Pop Art influenced American artist, Ed Ruscha; pioneering conceptual artist Sol LeWitt; and renowned Australian painter, sculptor and printmaker, Robert Jacks; alongside works by contemporary artists and zine-makers.
More than 170 works will be on display, including a dedicated reading lounge, revealing the breadth and beauty of artist books and zines.
Self-made: zines and artist books is presented by State Library Victoria in partnership with Sticky Institute, and supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the Visions regional touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.
This exhibition will tour to seven national venues throughout 2018 and 2019.
See slv.vic.gov.au/self-made for details.
Dominic Forde
Ramps, pools, ponds and pipes, 1975–1985, Melbourne, self-published, 2015
Photograph of Stacey Peralta courtesy of the Peninsula Surf Shop, Rare Books Collection, State Library Victoria
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