2019 Past Exhibitions | Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery

Emerge 2019 is a showcase exhibition featuring artwork created by secondary school students from across the Bundaberg region.  

As the name suggests, Emerge 2019, is committed to fostering emerging talent, and strengthening public understanding of the integral role the arts plays in developing resilient, innovative and engaged community members.  
The exhibition includes a broad range of approaches and expressive forms, including ceramics, drawing, graphic design, photomedia, printmaking, sculpture, textiles and paintings. Bundaberg Regional Galleries encourage and acknowledge the importance of art in the community, and we are proud to offer a platform for the talented artists and creative professionals of tomorrow. 

Nest, explores the diversity of our local feathered friends. This watercolour showcase coincided with National Bird Week in October, 2019. It featured a stunning array of wildlife paintings as well as three-dimensional artwork highlighting how rubbish and predators can affect our natural environment.

What are the dangers of plastic to our marine birds and of domestic cats to our bird life?

Featuring works by Christine Smyth and John Evans. This exhibition explores it all.

© Annette Tyson, Nest, watercolour and gouche, 70cm x 70cm.

The touring exhibition, USE, is a partnership between the Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia (Queensland Chapter) Inc. and Museums & Galleries Queensland. USE curator, Lisa Bryan-Brown, has thematically focused on the concept of tools and processes to explore the conceptual breadth and layers of meaning that operate within this premise for jewellery practitioners and metalsmiths.

Images: Clare Poppi, Seed Bomb Necklace (detail), 2018, Sterling silver, hemp, clay, compost, seeds, string and Catherine Hunter, Colour Restore Tests 1-8: Test 8 (detail), 2016, knitted cotton string with deconstructed parcel twine, cat fur, USB cable, plastic aquarium coral, marine rope, sushi fish (soy sauce packaging), faux crystal, cable ties, needle sheaths, garlic bag, mother of pearl, rayon tassel, plastic plant parts. Michelle Bowden, Visuall Photography.

The idea of nature is a slippery one – true, wild places are hard to find because humans have permanently eco-engineered the environment through farming, urban sprawl and conservation management. The landscape is turning ‘grey’ with human development, fragmented with pockets of green space. Fading to Grey is an exhibition of printmaking, works on paper, installations and artist books that comments on human-initiated transformations of the landscape around us. It will have you truly questioning the ways in which we live.

Combining constructed photography and costume making, Gerwyn Davies’ work is an ongoing inventory of characters that are assembled, worn and staged for the camera in an expanded and performative approach to image making. The self portrait becomes a vehicle for transformation and masquerade.

Through the layering act of dress, the body is used as a platform for playful reinvention, slowly concealed before the camera through readymade and everyday materials in order to gradually reveal a sculptural Other.

The work explores photography’s potential as a prolonged and highly plastic performance. Each character distinct from the last, each image a new digital habitat. Miniature narratives staged or the lens and then sealed tight in to the hyperreal world of the image.

© Gerwyn Davies, Miami (detail), archival inket print & Bomb, (detail), archival inket print.

Dame Lynley Dodd’s name is associated with Hairy Maclary and his gang of canine friends, but this exhibition goes some way to showcase her other characters. For instance, have you met Sam Jam Balu or the Dudgeon?

The exhibition is curated around 11 of Dodd’s characters, the familiar and not so familiar, mapping how this New Zealand artist and writer became a household name and international success. It is also Dodd’s story of how she became an illustrator and writer.

Millions of copies of Dodd’s books have sold, with many being translated into several languages. Both children and adults alike love Dodd’s work; exquisite illustrations and clever rhymes coupled with simple, yet realistic, stories make Dodd’s books timeless. Dodd’s use of language is sophisticated and rhythmical, making her books a pleasure to read aloud. A couple of generations have now grown up with her books since she published her very first book, The Nickle Nackle Tree in 1976.

Exhibition curator, Penelope Jackson, notes that Dodd has kept her entire life’s work and it was a difficult task to choose the works selected but hopes it will demonstrate to visitors the wide range of Dodd’s work as well as giving visitors the chance to see the very first drawing ever of Hairy Maclary.

The process of publishing and printing may have changed but the very core of her work – delightful stories – has not changed over the decades. Dodd illustrates without the use of a computer, taking up to a year to complete a book, working from her home in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.

The Lynley Dodd Story comprises all original artwork including many watercolour paintings.

Side Illustration: Hairy Maclary, Shoo p. 14, © Lynley Dodd, 2009. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Penguin Random House New Zealand.
Bottom Illustration: Hairy Maclary’s Bone p. 4, © Lynley Dodd, 2009. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Penguin Random House New Zealand.
 

Moths from all around the world have flown in for the Moth Migration Project, a crowd-sourced touring exhibition of hand printed, drawn and cut paper moths. Through social media and personal contacts, curator Hilary Lorenz invited people to create paper moths native to their area. A global network was born, with currently over 15,000 submissions from 26 countries. Bundaberg Regional Galleries are partnering with Gympie Regional Gallery with concurrent exhibitions and a total of  8,000 moths installed across both galleries.

© Moth Migration Project (installation detail), 2017, 516Arts, Albuquerque, USA

Colour II Merv Moriarty: In the Field & Out of the Allamanda
Part of the Flying Arts Colour and Response touring and exhibition project held throughout Queensland - Colour II: Merv Moriarty, in the Field.

In the early 1970’s, Bundaberg was one of the first venues for Merv Moriarty's fly in, fly out workshops, opening the way for other highly regarded art tutors to visit. In turn this invigorated the practice and careers of local artists and saw the birth of the Allamanda Gallery, a cultural hub with a significant impact on local artists. Five of those artists exhibit alongside Merv in Out of the Allamanda.

Colour and Response is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Playing Queensland Fund.

Image: © Mervyn Moriarty, Rocks, Bournda Beach North (detail), 2018, watercolour on cotton paper, 61cm x 50cm. Photography by Mick Richards.