CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Linda Gibbs
I’m a painter living and working in South Gippsland. I previously worked in Melbourne as an Artist, Painting Tutor, Gallery Director, Curator and Arts Festival Producer. I have a long association with Gippsland with my forebears farming Stony Creek in the late 1800’s and my Grandparents and Uncle continuing the tradition in Fish Creek. While most of my life was spent in the city, South Gippsland was always my joyous school holiday playground. So, I made the move Gippsland has such diverse topography, ecology and microclimates so I’m never lost for inspiration. Ancient rainforests, mountains, waterfalls, lakes and wild coastlines all seduce the artist’s eye. As a landscape painter my practice always begins in the field where my mind stops and my eyes open. It can be challenging in windy Gippsland but it’s essential for bringing knowledge and integrity to my work. Immersed in the elements, my brushes struggle to keep pace with wild weather, subtle colour shifts, incredible atmospheres and overwhelming beauty. Nature does all the work for me with her perfect compositions and colour harmonies. I mix all colour from primaries and find a wonderful rhythm pushing and pulling hues trying to harness her truth. I’m attuned to the astounding seasonal colours of golds, greens, pinks and lilacs all glowing amongst the many neutral greys. I’ve been painting Wilsons Promontory for the past twenty years and living just 15 minutes away, I can rush down when I see dramatic conditions. Winter and Autumn are my favourite seasons when the light is soft, the skies perform miracles and mosses, fungi and wildflowers appear. There’s an inimitable energy in the field studies, they capture the true spirit of the experience. My heart still jumps as I enter The Prom. Sometimes painting vast panoramas, I imagine how incredible this country and its people would have looked before colonisation. But my joy is punctuated by sadness remembering the dark histories which lay just beneath the ground. This place is so much more than just “a beauty spot”. During the Melbourne lockdown I was often the only visitor to the Prom. Still and silent, I’m surrounded by animals and only the sounds of frogs, birds and the wind. A gentle mist dampens my watercolour paper, Nature, my trusted collaborator. My brushes are incidental when I’m transfixed by exquisite tiny details engulfed in massive mountains and thunderous clouds. My practice is a reason to be still, observing these wonders in soft fascination, and the hundreds of field studies serve as a diary of my very privileged life. Historically there is a profound link between Naturalism, Spiritualism, Transcendentalism, and Religion. Naturalists like John Muir and Henry Thoreau experienced ecstasy in the natural world which they claimed brought them closer to God. Solitary painting under vast skies can be divinely intimidating; nature is wondrous and forceful. My work harks to The Romantics’ notions of The Sublime, Awe and Delight. Their push against profit driven factory systems degrading our natural world is most pertinent today. Back in my studio the studies are flung across the floor and pinned to walls informing large scale, pared back oil paintings. The studio activity is slow and considered, all about the mysterious alchemy of paint and the act of painting in its own right. Paintings are worked and re-worked (and re-worked!) in thin layers over months and sometimes years. Much detail is removed to reveal only a whispered remnant of my vigorous, glorious landscape experience.
Mandy Gunn
I have worked as a fulltime artist for about 30 years since completing studies at Monash University and the Victorian College of the Arts, where I graduated with a master’s degree. Since then, I have had 35 solo shows around Australia - many of them in Regional Galleries, won a number of prizes, had work acquired for major collections and done quite a few art residences in interesting places.I have a very varied practice using painting, printmaking, weaving and construction techniques to make a lot of different works, however for this exhibition I have used acrylic painting to create impressions of the wonderful South Gippsland countryside that I have lived in for the past 20 years. For a few months I’ve been obsessed by the amazing variety of greens and growth during this last spring - my studio has been a mass of containers containing every mix of green - a colour I have never used so exclusively. Many of the works I’ve made are views from our own coastal farm property. I have travelled extensively around Australia and each time I return to beautiful South Gippsland I realise how lucky I am to live here.
Heather Shimmen
Expressionistic and figurative printmaker Heather Shimmen was born in Melbourne and completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT in 1978. Shimmen has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. Her work has been included in numerous group shows, including exhibitions at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Print Council of Australia, Melbourne. Shimmen was awarded Victorian Arts Board grants in 1983 and 1989, Print Council of Australia Member Patron print prizes in 1983, 1991 and 2000, and the silk cut award for linocut print press in 1998. She has taught at several institutions including the Lincoln Institute, Monash University and RMIT. Shimmens’ work is held by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Australian War Memorial, Canberra; Artbank, Sydney; the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne and several regional and university collections
Elise Judd
As a Seventh Generation Australian, my art explores my deep-rooted connection to this land, drawing inspiration from both traditional painting techniques and my background in textiles. Each piece tells the stories of my known history, reflecting the complex layers of displacement experienced by my convict ancestors and the lasting impact of colonisation on First Nations People. Through these works, I aim to capture the raw essence of the land, embedding elements that evoke memory, resilience, and loss. My practice is a fusion of texture, material, and narrative, creating spaces for reflection on identity, heritage, and the lasting imprints of the past.
Fiona Bilbrough
My teaching and painting careers have merged since graduating from university in 1990. I was awarded the Alice Bale Scholarship in 1995 followed by 18 months in Europe studying classical portraiture and still life, being greatly influenced by master painter of Britain and Spain.
I love teaching art to students, beginners and advanced, any medium, but the rules of casual observation and order of visual importance dominate my teaching methods. I encourage my students to work from life, exhibit, , study the master painters and take themselves seriously.
Nicky Fraser
Nicky trained in Ceramics and then later in Art Therapy. She has a broad creative and expressive arts background working with many different mediums. As well as her own making, she has worked therapeutically for many years supporting groups and individuals of different ages to create and exhibit works. Now she is returning to focus upon her own practice of making functional ceramics that are strong and fluid with a painterly quality to them. Her ceramics are imperfect, messy and playful. The work is directly inspired by the colour and movement of the rolling lush green hills and rugged pristine coast of South Gippsland where she lives and makes.
This body of work has grown out of Nicky’s exploration of movement, texture and colour that she experiences in the natural environment that she is immersed in. Each piece is an inquiry into her intuitive response to that landscape.
Janis Morgan
Janis Morgan’s artwork is inspired by the expansive space and magical beauty of the Australian coastline and our sense of connection to coastal places, not always a realistic depiction but one of wonder and beauty. These two paintings, Eagles Nest: Inverloch and Squeaky Beach; Wilsons Promontory, are specifically inspired by Janis’ connection to the local coastlines of South Gippsland, Victoria. The coastal landscape is a dedication to the strength of nature and how we feel in these places of refuge, serenity, calm and joy.
The aerial artworks portray recognisable and familiar landscapes, emanating patterns, forms, and colours when viewed as a whole. Close -up Janis’s technique reveals clusters of decorative elements, including intricate patterns and detail as well as bold plays of colour. These decorative elements are homage to her many cultural travels and love of textures and fibres. The artworks are a depiction of an idealised landscape - a vista of the mind.
A semi- abstract technique inspired by the art movements known as Pointillism and Decorative Art inspired these works. Janis starts with outlining the detailed coastal topography with pencil, then she uses layers of colour and design with acrylic paint, paint pens and golden embellishments. Janis aims to depict the evolving nature of coastlines through creating movement in her brushstrokes and lines.
Anne Miller
The Horse has been a lifelong inspiration, and it is a motif that I revisit regularly. In this body of work, I have explored the relationship of horses at play in parallel to my art practice as ‘perfectly imperfect play’. The dynamic energy of interacting horses inspired a series of spontaneous gestural’ sketches that were created using a lithographic process. Whilst they depict the energy, spirit, playfulness and instinct of horses they have been repurposed into a series of bold colourful high quality giclee prints. A subtle infusion of gold leaf is used sparingly and inspired by a palomino horse nicknamed “Goldie’ that runs with my herd.
Rebeccah Power
Power is a contemporary abstract painter who has developed an extensive Australian and International exhibition history and has been the recipient of several grants, awards and prizes. Her work focuses on discovering ways that she can elicit a sublime experience, through painting, using the sky as subject matter. Power creates works from her art studio based on the edge of Yallock-Bulluk Marine and Coastal Park in San Remo, Victoria. As Power states, “I am profoundly inspired by the immense sky that surrounds me, reflecting into and often becoming one with the endless sea of Bass Strait opposite my house. When contemplating the colour and light in the sky and sea, rainbows, fog and shimmering reflections, I have a heightened emotional and sensory response of awe and amazement.” Her paintings can be described as atmospheric, ethereal and hazy and they aim to create experiences where one vacillates between the boundaries of the world of formlessness and structure. Power is currently undertaking her Master of Fine Arts at Monash University where she is researching the topic of ‘The sky as a metaphor for matter: Seeking my own visual vocabulary for the sublime.’
Domenica Wallace
The aim of my work is to create visually interesting and engaging pieces that also capture aspects of our collective human experience. They celebrate the fusion of beautiful natural elements alongside re-purposed man-made objects and always include yarn, cord, twine or wool to bind or embellish the work. Each piece is unique in construction.
I have been creating sculptures for many years, am self taught and now practice my craft full time. My husband and I run the 'Wallace & Wallace Sculpture & Photography' gallery in Fish Creek, South Gippsland.
This latest series is inspired by meandering waterways and dusty tracks. Memories are recalled from my country childhood of long, hot summer days spent wandering carefree, in the rural landscape; of times exploring the creeks and rivers as they wound in and out of farmland; of weeping willows hugging the water’s edge; of building tree houses from old hessian wheat bags; of rustic campfires around old tree stumps; and of running barefoot along dirt tracks. I invite the viewer into a happier space - giving them a hint of my interpretation of the subject matter then urge them to complete their own story. Perhaps my work will trigger a personal experience or memory or connection to a special place.
“Land” is a series of works about regeneration, which respond to the destruction, loss and chaos that characterised the past few years; pandemic, war, fire, flood and, on a personal level, my own broken bones, (the result of a collision with a large dog). Both in the natural world and in our own lived experience, turmoil and loss are devastating. Yet, if endured, they can be the source of remarkable change and regeneration. The land we live on teaches us this.
Just before the onset of covid, I stumbled upon a forest of Australian native Xanthorrehoea at the Victorian-South Australian border. They were in full flower and stretched as far as the eye could see. The image of these remarkable grass trees, which flower in response to extreme stress (often fire) haunted me and became a metaphor for exploring the possibility of new growth and transformation in the wake of trauma. The act of weaving these forms has been an integral part of creating my own order in times when order was elusive.
Abstract expressionist Cristina Popovici explores the complexity of emotion and self through a kaleidoscope of colours, textures and lines, uniting these elements with an electric compositional undercurrent that pulses with life.
Classically taught in Fine Arts in Europe, Popovici blends the nuances of artistic language with internal emotional charge, creating a striking composition as body and brush connect with canvas, free from premeditation but with an overarching conceptual planning. In these moments, there is no separation between body, mind and spirit, allowing pure energy to take shape.
Popovici then plays with the energetic marks by adding to them. Highlighting them, deepening them, bringing them forward, letting them dissipate into the background and in this process, letting the paintings story emerge from her subconscious, layer after layer. What emerges is fabric-like, marks full of movement and depth - the fabric of feelings.
Unbound to a single art medium, you will see a spectrum of materials and supports, from perspex to metallic stencils, industrial glass paint and vibrant oil paints, that allow you to see the depth and complexity of her exploration.