Permanent Collection

Yvonne Koolmatrie, ‘Large Eel Trap’ 2012, woven sedge, 224 x 49cm (variable), Purchased with Ararat Rural City Council annual allocation, 2012, Ararat Regional Art Gallery Collection, Photo: Chris Koolmatrie

We often receive enquiries about the Ararat Regional Art Gallery's permanent collection, but it is not possible to present a good representation of the collection at any one time. However, to mark our 45th birthday we recently presented collection works across all galleries in the 'Big Time' and 'Bold Beginnings' exhibitions and these shows attracted a very positive response. For locals it was a chance to revisit old friends, and for visitors from out of town a chance to get a very real sense of the collection's strengths and unique character. These exhibitions were enhanced by two articles which appeared in The Weekend Australian highlighting objects from the collection by Annemieke Mein and Olga De Amaral, offering considerable national exposure to Ararat.

The collection focus continues into winter with our current retrospective, 'Making Time: The Art of John Corbett 1974-2013'. John is one of Australia's foremost fibre artists and the most represented artist in the gallery's collection. The exhibition features 18 works of great diversity from quilts, embroideries and woven sculptures.

Community members can expect to see our program draw increasingly on the collection in the future.
Our summer programming will now annually feature collection based shows, with an exhibition of recent acquisitions planned for later this year. This will create a context to present recent acquisitions for the first time, including works by established fibre artists such as Nalda Searles and Diana Wood Conroy, alongside innovative contemporary works by Sebastian Di Mauro and Starlie Geikie.

Given the importance of weaving and fibre in Aboriginal culture, it is disappointing that Aboriginal fibre artists have long been underrepresented in the permanent collection. To correct this underrepresentation Yvonne Koolmatrie was commissioned to create one of her signature large eel traps to form the centrepiece of a sub-collection which will focus on the indigenous fibre art of South Eastern Australia.Yvonne Koolmatrie is a Ngarrindjerri woman and a pivotal figure in the rise of Aboriginal fibre craft since the 1980s, especially through highlighting the cultural importance of weaving to cultural continuity for Aboriginal people in South Australia and Victoria.

Her large eel trap was woven in the first half of 2012 in the artist's home town of Berri in South Australia, and the work features woven sedge which was harvested from the Murray River near her home.
This elegant eel trap will join other beautiful and intriguing art works in our recent acquisitions summer exhibition.

Making Time: The Art of John Corbett

John Corbett and  his sister in law Betty Corbett at the exhibition opening.

'Fighting For Our Love II (1987-2013)

John Corbett is a pioneering contemporary Australian fibre art who has made his mark through an innovative use of materials and techniques in wall works and sculpture since the early 1970s.  He is the most comprehensively represented artist in the collection of the Ararat Regional Art Gallery. 'Making Time: The Art of john corbett 1974-2013' traces John's development from off-loom weaving in the 1970s to deeply personal and political text based textiles and sculptures of the 1980s and 1990s, including those which poignantly and pointedly address the AIDS crisis.

John's art was forged during the heady era of experimentation in the 1970s when an anything goes approach to materials and form was emerging in reaction to high modernism.  This exhibition explores the artistic and social context and rich sources of influence which have forged his unique visual language. John's art and career has principally been aligned to the Australian craft movement, but this exhibition seeks to position his powerful vision in fibre in the wider sphere of Australian and international visual arts practice since the 1970s.

John's exhibition was opened on Saturday 22 June 2013 at 2pm and was attended by family, friends and members of the Ararat community.  John was born in Hopetoun, but is a long time Melbourne resident, and it was nice to see his regional connection reflected in the attendance at the opening of family and friends.

Download a PDF of the exhibition catalogue here.

Yarnbombing the gallery

Elizabeth Carnaby and Sue Kennedy have completed yarnbombing the gallery. Thanks to Sue for driving this project and for Elizabeth for her commitment to making this happen with Sue. The project has had important contributions from Debby Fuller and Jean Halvorsen, and many donated sections from knitters in the community. This is a project driven by our volunteers and community members. Thanks to everyone involved in marking the gallery's 45th birthday in such a exciting way.

Plastic Fantastic

 

'Plastic Fantastic'

'Colour the World'

We had a fun night on Friday (5 April 2013 at 6pm) at the launch of Annabelle Collett's 'Plastic Fantastic' exhibition, which was launched together with 'Colour the World'.

Annabelle's 'Plastic Fantastic' exhibition uses recycled trash to fashion a vast array of artworks from all types of plastics.  She utilises discarded objects such as plastic lids, old children's toys, broken jewellery pieces and dumped containers to make bold and vibrant statements.  With a background in textile art, Annabelle's sculptures, installations, wall pieces, lighting and clothing use many methods and processes that link art, craft and design, evoking a range of cultural associations with fashion, interior decorating and the crafted object.  The exhibition continues to 28 April 2013.

'Colour the World' is an installation resulting from two workshops involving 23 children.  Annabelle led children on an exciting journey through colour, texture, invention and endless possibility to create an amazing array of artworks.  The exhibitions were opened by Ararat Mayor Cr Ian Wilson.

Gordon Monro's Generative Art

 

Gordon Monro is a Ballarat-based digital media artist engaged in generative art. Generative art is art made partly or wholly by an autonomous process the artist sets up. Gordon writes computer programs that generate videos one frame at a time; for videos with sound, the same program generates the sound. Gordon’s practice is informed by his background in science, mathematics and experimental music composition and performance. He is currently undertaking a PhD in Generative Art at the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University in Melbourne. For more information about Gordon and his work visit: http://www.gordonmonro.com/

Gordon will present an illustrated talk about Generative Art on Sunday 14 April 2013 at 3pm, followed by drinks to mark the closing of his 'Four Generative Videos' exhibition. 

Waradgerie Weaver

Ararat Regional Art Gallery is honoured to present 'Waradgerie Weaver', an exhibition of new work by Lorraine Connelly-Northey which continues to 10 March 2013.

Swan Hill-born Lorraine is a Waradgerie woman who grew up in the area where the Mallee bush meets the Murray River, and this background – and its meshing and tension with her father’s Irish heritage – has informed her work.  She is nationally known for her poetic use of found and scrap materials to produce finely crafted objects which reference their place of origin in powerful ways

'Waradgerie Weaver' was commissioned by Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, and Ararat Regional Art Gallery is the second and final gallery to present this impressive exhibition. The exhibition features work made at the same times as her acclaimed Asia Pacific Triennial installation (see John McDonald's review).

Lorraine will present an artist's talk on Saturday 2 February 2013 at 2pm to formally open her exhibition.  We hope to see you there.

New Acquisition

With the assistance of a grant from The Robert Salzer Foundation, Ararat Regional Art Gallery has acquired a major artwork by Jenny Watson called 'After a fashion, with bag'. Jenny Watson is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists with a 30 year practice that has seen her exhibit annually at prestigious galleries around the world. Jenny is known for her painting and mixed media work on fabric, which often combines text and script. Her diaristic art is sometimes knowingly child-like and expressionistic, and her use of colour and energetic mark-making heightens our empathy with her subjects.

From the early 1980s Jenny began painting on alternative materials such as hessian, velvet, cotton and taffeta. Her use of red velvet in her 1993 Venice Biennale exhibition is a notable example of the importance of fabric to her painting practice. She now mostly uses beautiful and distinctive fabrics - stretched or unstretched - as a support for her painting. However, the character of the fabric is never concealed, but instead contributes to the composition and brings what she calls a 'cultural quotient' to the work.

'After a fashion, with bag' is especially interesting in the way it explores the formal and conceptual significance of the textile support in painting. This makes some interesting connection to other contemporary works in the gallery’s permanent collection. The fabric featured in this artwork was purchased by Jenny on a visit to India in 2008-09. The image and text were painted on the fabric during her stay in India. The text panel reads: ‘I was staying in a big, old fashioned hotel in India. There were birds, like crows, but bluer, and some of them were quite tame. These ones came down to the pool to drink, and paddle, despite people sitting around.’

In August this year Jenny visited Ararat to present a talk about her work. Her visit coincided with the presentation of her suite of eight lithographs in the gallery’s ‘Recent Acquisitions’ exhibition. These prints were a gift of Landsborough sculptor, Kevin Free, who is Jenny’s brother-in-law. Jenny is also connected to Ararat through childhood memories and stories of her mother’s Ararat upbringing.

Jenny Watson’s 'After a fashion, with bag' will be presented for the first time at the gallery from 30 January 2013.

Image details: Jenny Watson, ‘After a fashion, with bag’ (2008-09), acrylic on rabbit skin glue primed cotton and silk pashmina, 82 x 94 cm & 179 x 130 cm, Purchased with the assistance of The Robert Salzer Foundation and annual Ararat Rural City Council allocation, 2012, Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.