2017 EXHIBITIONS
9 DECEMBER 2017 - 4 FEBRUARY 2018
GEORGINA POLLARD: LINES ARE DRAWN
Official Opening
Saturday 9 December | 2.00pm
A HomeGround Exhibition.
Painting on canvas is an invention of the 15th century and for artist Georgina Pollard it represents a convergence of architecture and textiles. By removing the stretcher bars, and thereby removing the element of architecture, the paintings emphasise textiles and its relationship to the architecture of the space. Pollard creates her paintings by pouring paint in different directions to create a fabric out of the surface of the walls. The works in this exhibition consider the lines drawn between architecture and textiles, permanence and transience, space and surface, male and female.
Image credit: Georgina Pollard, Unconditional 2017, 52x70cm, acrylic housepaint.
21 DECEMBER 2017 - 28 JANUARY 2018
ART NOW WITH TEXT CLASSICS
Mudgee Readers’ Festival partnered with Text Publishing during its 2017 event to stage an exhibition showcasing the Text Classics collection. A group of artists from around the Central West were each given a passage from a classic Australian work and asked to create an illustration in their own style. The results were striking and varied – mediums included watercolours, oil paintings, sculpture, photography and textile art. This touring exhibition comprises a selection of works from the original Art Now with Text Classics exhibition that took place during 2017 Mudgee Readers' Festival. It includes works by Denise Faulkner, Ruth Gobbitt, Dylan Goolagong, Charles Smith, Kelly Leonard, Kay Norton-Knight and Margot Stephens.
Image credit: Charles Smith, “In the Morning She Lay Calm.”
18 NOVEMBER - 22 DECEMBER 2017
NGUNGGILANHA: GIVE TO EACH OTHER
Official Opening
Saturday 18 November | 2.00pm
Ngu-ng-gila-nha: Give to each other is an exhibition in the WPCC Community Arts Centre of artworks by local primary school students. The highly diverse and beautiful artworks were produced by the students during a visual arts project which engaged them in local Wiradjuri Aboriginal art practice, language and culture. The students and their teachers were inspired by specialist workshops supported by the Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Communities, a tour of the Western Plains Cultural Centre collection, and a virtual excursion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Image credit: Cudgegong Valley Public School, Cudgee Landscape (detail), 2016, ink on paper.
26 OCTOBER -10 DECEMBER 2017
INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS AT WAR:
FROM THE BOER WAR TO THE PRESENT
This Shrine of Remembrance travelling exhibition is proudly sponsored by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Australia and Linfox.
Indigenous Australians have served Australia in all major conflicts from the Boer War to the present. The armed services would provide a first experience of equal opportunity, although sadly not an enduring one. This Shrine of Remembrance travelling exhibition celebrates the courage, tenacity and resourcefulness of Indigenous Australians in the armed forces. Indigenous Australians at War uncovers the individual and family stories of service and sacrifice of the First Australians.
Image credit: Graduation Day 25 November 1944, Seymour, Victoria, photographer unknown. Reproduced courtesy of the Australian War Memorial 083166.
26 AUGUST - 3 DECEMBER 2017
ANOTHER GREEN WORLD: THE LANDSCAPE OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Official Opening
Friday 25 August | 6.00pm
A Western Plains Cultural Centre exhibition.
AS the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, we don't really need to be reminded just how contested the landscape is. From its state of crisis in a changing climate, to disputes over resources and use, to questions of ownership and sovereignty, the landscape continues to be of vital importance as a subject in both wider culture, and in contemporary art. Another Green World surveys the concept of an art of the landscape in contemporary art, and traces themes of history, ecology, culture and utopianism in the work of Kylie Banyard, Erin Coates, Megan Cope, Ashleigh Garwood, Sian McIntyre, Perdita Phillips, Lynne Roberts-Goodwin and Caroline Rothwell. Another Green World is curated by Dr. Andrew Frost.
Image credit: Ashleigh Garwood, The Gap, 2014, digital photograph. Image: Courtesy of the artist.
26 AUGUST - 3 DECEMBER 2017
SHADED:
THE OTHER AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE
Official Opening
Friday 25 August | 6.00pm
Presented by WPCC in partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
In Australian Art lore, the moment that we have 'discovered' an artistic identity was the moment that the artists were first able to accurately capture the uniqueness of Australian light. Its bright starkness celebrated while the dark, hidden recesses remain unexplored. In the absence of light, shaded and shadowy areas of our landscape have become potent symbols, full of mystery and trepidation of the Australian Landscape. Shaded: The other Australian landscape explores this overlooked aspect of the landscape, bringing light to the shadows.
Image credit: Nancy Goldfinch, Merrigang Street, Bowral 1937, Oil on canvas, 38x42cm. Image courtesy of the Art Gallery of NSW.
9 SEPTEMBER - 22 OCTOBER 2017
CLOUD:
MICHAEL RILEY
Michael Riley (1960-2004) was a ground-breaking Australian artist born in Dubbo. Riley’s photographic and film works explore Indigenous identity, spirituality, symbolism and social history, often with pathos and humour. Cloud was the last body of work produced by the artist before his untimely passing in 2004. The works have become Riley’s most well-known images and have been exhibited all over the world.
Through the generosity of John Armati OAM (1940-2017) and his family, the Western Plains Cultural Centre was able to acquire the complete series of 10 works that comprise Cloud. Armati was a highly respected businessman who grew up in Dubbo, eventually becoming Managing Director of Macquarie Publications in 1962. Whilst he was a resident of Sydney in the latter part of his life, he still cared deeply for his home town, donating funds to a number of institutions in Dubbo including Western Plains Cultural Centre.
Image credit: Michael Riley, Untitled (Feather) from the series Cloud 2000, Chromogenic pigment print,106x150 cm. Purchased with funds from the Armati Bequest and Friends of Dubbo Regional Gallery, 2007. Reproduced with permission of Viscopy and the Michael Riley Foundation
Presented in honour of John Armati OAM who died at his home in Hunters Hill on June 4, 2017.
27 MAY - 3 SEPTEMBER 2017
PORTRAITS of LANGUAGE
Language defines a culture; it gives expression to the experiences of those who speak it. Preserving and growing languages is an important step in preserving and growing a culture. Acclaimed photographer Mervyn Bishop and The State Library of NSW worked with community to create Portraits of Language, a photographic and oral documentation exhibition highlighting the Local Elders of Dubbo and reion and thei relationship to traditional language.
Image credit: Portrait of Uncle Ray Peckham by Mervyn Bishop.
This exhibition is supported by Arts NSW and in partnership with the North West Wiradjuri Language and Culture Nest.
12 AUGUST - 20 AUGUST 2017
YOUNG ARCHIE
Young Archie is a celebration of young Australian talent, inviting artists between the ages of 5 and 18 to submit a portrait 'of someone who is special to them and plays a significant role in their life.'
Image Credit: Shannon Kassell, Today I am…, 2017, mixed media. Image courtesy of the artist.
8 JULY - 20 AUGUST 2017
ARCHIBALD PRIZE
Official Opening
Friday 7 July | 6.00pm
An Art Gallery of New South Wales touring
exhibition.
The Archibald Prize is an annual exhibition eagerly anticipated by artists and audiences alike. Awarded to the best painting of a notable Australian, the Archibald Prize is a who's who of Australian culture, from politicians and celebrities to sporting heroes and artists. Prestigious and controversial, the Archibald Prize is Australia's foremost portraiture prize. This year the Archibald features a local artist for the first time in many years. The exhibition is supported by a full public programme including a portrait competition for young people.
Image credit: Archibald Prize finalist Mark Horton, Troy, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 140x190cm © the artist. Photo: © AGNSW, Nick Kreisler.
24 JUNE - 20 AUGUST 2017
GREGORY CAROSI: 365
Official Opening
Saturday 24 June | 2.00pm
A HomeGround exhibition.
Gregory Carosi’s 365 immerses audiences in the visual and temporal compression of 365 days of seasonal shift. The exhibition explores the subtle, elusive influence of the weather on our lives and, more broadly, the ways in which cycles underpin everything we do. Sweeping gestural marks, set in counterpoint to expansive zones of negative space, establish complex and incongruous rhythms that seek to embody the increasing unpredictability of accelerated climate change. The large-format works offer an experience on the human scale, confronting viewers with the existential truth of a universe stripped back to its fundamental components. Unable to be taken in from any single vantage point, 365 asks audiences to move through the gallery space in order to grapple with, and reflect upon, the elemental forces that shape our everyday experience.
Image credit: Gregory Carosi, 365 (detail), 2017, oil on aluminium, 2400x2400mm.
3 JUNE - 20 AUGUST 2017
PARIS NORTON: WHITE WASH
Official Opening
Saturday 3 June | 2.00pm
A HomeGround exhibition.
White Wash is an exhibition that explores concepts surrounding the history of the Stolen Generation and its failed role in the attempt to breed out Indigenous heritage through policy based on skin pigmentation.
Paris Norton is a Gamilaroi woman who lives in Dubbo with her young family. She sees her photography her way of passing knowledge and stories to younger generations, getting them to challenge and express what it means to be Aboriginal in modern Australia.
Image credit: Paris Norton, White Wash, 2016.
6 MAY - 2 JULY 2017
An Art Gallery of New South Wales touring exhibition. Founding sponsor the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation.
The second Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial bring together the drawings of Jumaadi, Maria Kontis, Richard Lewer, Noel McKenna, Catherine O'Donnell and Nyapanyapa Yunupingu. Collectively they investigate the possibilities of the medium to express complex themes that resonate on both a personal and a shared level. The WPCC is the only venue outside of Sydney to host this exhibition.
Image credit: Noel McKenna, Untitled from animals I have known (detail), 2015 -16, pencil, pen and ink wash on paper © Noel McKenna. Photo: © AGNSW, Felicity Jenkins.
CLOSE TO HOME: DOBELL AUSTRALIAN DRAWING BIENNIAL 2016
Official Opening
Friday 5 May | 6.00pm
22 APRIL - 18 JUNE 2017
ANNA KAINEDER: CONTRIBUTION
A HomeGround exhibition.
After living in Sydney on and off for nearly 20 years, artist Anna Kaineder made the move to rural New South Wales and in doing so has found a place of personal peace and joy. Contribution is the artist's response and celebration of the powerful impact of the region and its rituals, asking if this impact could be universal. Kaineder uses ceramics to explore the concept of 'the ordinary', and the uncelebrated people and places that make rural life inexplicably powerful.
Image credit: Anna Kaineder, Overlooking the ordinary (detail), 2016, hand built huts, lumina clay with shellac resist. Photography by: Available soon.
1 APRIL - 28 MAY 2017
WASTE TO ART
Waste to Art is an annual competition and exhibition showcasing the creative re-use of discarded materials through art and craft. Engaging with the community, Waste to Art attracts school children, artists and community members and encourages them to challenge perceptions about 'rubbish' and its impact upon the environment. The result is a highly imaginative and thought provoking collection of artworks celebrating recycling and living sustainably.
Image credit: Jeffrey Hallinan, The World's First Time Machine
Presented in collaboration with NetWaste.
4 MARCH - 28 MAY 2017
CREATIVE ACCOUNTING
An exhibition curated by Holly Williams, in conjunction with Hawkesbury Regional Gallery and toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW's Curatorial Support Initiative grant, a devolved funding program administered by Museums & Galleries of NSW on behalf of the NSW Government. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Money, money, money. Drawing from old currencies, banking archives and contemporary art, Creative Accounting scratches below the surface of our economic system to reveal money's enigmatic side. Money is many things at once: an abstract concept of value; an agent of propaganda; a tool of the powerful; and a decorative device. It plays a central role in all of our lives yet is often overlooked as an object of contemplation. At a time when money is becoming increasingly abstract, Creative Accounting speculates on its wider value.
Image credit: Selection of vintage adding machines, 1920s - 1980s, including Burrows, Facit and Singer and Marchant brands. On loan from Westpac Archives. Photo: silversalt.
18 FEBRUARY - 21 MAY 2017
CHALK IT UP:
100 YEARS OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION IN DUBBO
Marking the centennial celebration of secondary education within the Dubbo region, Chalk It Up charts the growth and development of Dubbo public high schools over the past 100 years. It documents the struggle of a fledgling village and town to provide quality education for its children. It recounts the successes of the schools and documents the important social impact the high schools have had on Dubbo.
4 March - 30 APRIL 2017
THE ART OF WOOL
Discover fashion and fine art in The Art of Wool exhibition, which matches award-winning garments by Woolmark Prize designers with inspirational paintings and artworks by leading Australian artists. The exhibition shows the significance of wool in the artistic and design imagination of Australia from the 19th century through to today.
Image credit: Miss Chu Yan, China, International Woolmark Prizze 2014, Asia Region. International Woolmark Prize archive at Australian Wool Innovation. Photograph by Michael Taylor.
This exhibition is a joint partnership between NERAM and The Woolmark Company, with funding support from Visions Australia.
11 FEBRUARY - 16 APRIL 2017
VICTORIA LOVECCHIO: BREATHING SPACE
Victoria Lovecchio's Breathing Space is an immersive experience that is at once familiar and disorientating. The visitor will be confronted by the interface between the internal landscape of our mind and the external landscape we move through. It brings together these memories and current experiences with real and imagined landscapes, asking the question of whether we create the landscape or the landscape creates us.
Image credit: Victoria Lovecchio, Falling I, 2016, video still.
A HomeGround exhibition.
4 FEBRUARY - 26 MARCH 2017
COLONIAL AFTERLIVES
Colonial Afterlives is a Salamanca Arts Centre exhibition toured by Contemporary Art Tasmania. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program.
Colonial Afterlives showcases a range of contemporary art responses to British colonisation. Including the works of artists living in Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados and Canada, it incorporates a diversity of views ranging from melancholic eulogies to passionate and sometimes scathing polemics. It questions how a post-colonial identity can survive in an increasingly globalised work and if it cannot, whether its demise will be noticed.
Image credit: Christian Thompson, Invaded Dreams, 2012, from the We Bury Our Own series, C-type print, 100x100cm. Christian Thompson is represented by Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi Melbourne and Michael Reid Sydney and Berlin.
Official Opening
Friday 3 February | 6.00pm
3 DECEMBER - 26 FEBRUARY '17
WUNDERKAMMER
AND AFTERLIFE
ANIMAL STORIES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE:
ROD McRAE
Wonder seems like such an outmoded notion in our technological age where everything is so readily explained by the scientific method. Wonder however does exist in the human imagination often triggered, yet not fully explained - by an object. Combining two exhibitions, Wunderkammer & After-life is a collection of portals into what was, what is, and what could be. Each work explores an animal story using real preserved animal bodies (taxidermy). Each work touches on a different aspect of the human-animal relationship including biodiversity, pollution, climate change, conservation and stewardship.
Rod McRae, Crying out loud in the age of Stupid, 2010, polar bear skin, glass, plastic, mdf, high density foam, 2 pack epoxy paint
12 JANUARY - 5 FEBRUARY 2017
THE BELGIANS HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN
The Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) has become emblematic of the horror and futility of the Western Front in WWI. This exhibition from the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 in Belgium investigates and explores the complex history and aftermath of this battle. It focuses on the experience of Australian and New Zealand troops (ANZACs), the landscape then and now, and the efforts of modern-day Belgium to remember and honour the sacrifice of those who took part.
Image credit: Two French soldiers at a cemetery near Passchendaele, 1917.
The Belgians Have Not Forgetten: a travelling exhibition about the involvement of Anzacs in WWI in Belgium is a Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 exhibition.
10 DECEMBER - 5 FEBRUARY '17
KIETH YAP
TWENTY--SEVEN
twenty—seven comes from a place of amalgamating some recurring and significant themes for artist Kieth Yap. Yap’s training as an Art Teacher has enabled a resourcefulness that has influenced this body of work. The artist’s interprets the concept ‘Zones of Proximal Development’ from Russian theorist, Lev Vygotsky, whereby instructions are challenged and “ah-ha!” moments are embedded into each piece. twenty—seven is an autobiographical exercise that explores the search for the authentic self, using Yap’s using techniques such as repetitive mark making and finding both movement and stillness within the illustrated portraits.
Kieth Yap, the daydreamer and his bed, 2016, graphite, felt pen, posca pen and whiteout on archival paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.
A HomeGround exhibition
10 DECEMBER - 29 JANUARY '17
WESTERN COLLEGE
ART PRIZE
The Western College Art Prize is run every two years and is an acquisitive art prize promoting emerging artists of the Orana region. The prize reflects Western College’s philosophy and this year the theme is ‘social justice.' Western College values inclusion, acceptance and the pursuit of education across all sections of the community. The Prize celebrates the expression of knowledge through art.
3 DECEMBER - 29 JANUARY '17
MAKE THE MARK
HSC ARTWORKS FROM THE DUBBO REGION
A vibrant exhibition of outstanding artworks produced by local Year 12 Visual Arts students for the 2016 HSC examination. Too often amazing HSC artworks, the products of months of concentrated effort and the manifestations of inspiration, talent and angst, never see the light of day again after being marked by the examiners. This multi-media exhibition gives everyone an opportunity to celebrate and marvel at the high standards and diversity achieved by local Year 12 Visual Arts students.
12 NOVEMBER - 22 JANUARY '17
NGU-NG-GILA-NHA:
GIVE TO EACH OTHER
Ngu-Ng-Gila-Nha: Give to Each Other is an exhibition in the WPCC Community Arts Centre of artworks by local primary school students. The highly diverse and beautiful artworks were produced by the students during a visual arts project which engaged them in local Wiradjuri Aboriginal art practice, language and culture. The students and their teachers were inspired by specialist workshops supported by the Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Communities, a tour of the Western Plains Cultural Centre collection, and a virtual excursion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Cudgegong Valley Public School, Detail from Cudgee Landscape 2016, ink on paper.
12 NOVEMBER - 8 JANUARY '17
BELINDA MASON
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Unfinished Business reveals the stories of 30 people with disability from Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Through their involvement in the project each participant draws much-needed attention to critical issues that impact on their lives. Each participant’s story is complex and intertwined with Australia’s political and social history, which has resulted in today’s high rates of disability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait communities.
Belinda Mason, Aunty Gayle, 2012, 3D holographic lenticular
