2020 EXHIBITIONS
30 NOVEMBER - 27 JANUARY 2020
LET ME BE MYSELF
Official Opening
30 November | 2.00pm
Let Me Be Myself is an exhibition that enables visitors to identify with the personal story of Anne Frank. The exhibition connects the personal story of the Frank family with the important historical events of that time: the rise of the national socialists, the isolation and discrimination of the Jewish population, eventually escalating in the Holocaust. The connection between the personal story of Anne Frank and the historical context shows the consequences the anti-Jewish measures had on one particular person. It reminds us that all out actions have the ability to impact on a single individual.
Image Credit: Photo collection of the Anne Frank Stitching (Amsterdam)
14 DECEMBER - 2 FEBRUARY 2020
EYE OF THE CORVUS:
MESSENGER OF TRUTH
Official Opening
14 December | 2.00pm
From the ancient stories of indigenous cultures of the world to the more contemporary sagas and fables of western civilisations, birds of the Corvidae family (ravens and crows) are highly symbolic - representing the presence of death, all-seeing knowledge, evil, good luck and protection.Using multi-channel video projection with layers of ambient and constructed, amplified sounds, triggered by motion sensors, and recorded on location in Australia and Iceland, Eye of the Corvus, explores the range of these birds in two of their native lands – drawing the participant into a new narrative through the avian eye. It will be an immersive experience, throwing the viewer into the expansive field of view of the raven, reimagining landscapes familiar in one aspect, made unfamiliar through additional layers of information. Adaptation, narrative, myth-making and interdependence collide in the raven. It is a marker not just for our time and culture but for many times and many cultures. This is a WPCC exhibition.
Image Credit: Kim V. Goldsmith, Eye of the Corvus: Messenger of Truth, detail, 2019, Image courtesy of artist
9 NOVEMBER - 2 FEBRUARY 2020
ART OF THREATENED SPECIES
Official Opening
8 November 2019 | 6.00pm
Art of Threatened Species explores threatened flora, fauna and the environments that sustain them in New South Wales, by enabling artists and scientists to collaborate. Each artist has travelled vast distances and spent many hours researching and observing species and environments. Each has partnered with a scientist working within each specific field. The resulting works will attempt to communicate the issues, politics, and emotions that surround at-risk animals, plants and environments. This project is a partnership between Orana Arts (OA) and the Office of Planning, Industry and Environment.
Image Credit: Anna Glynn Marooned (video still) 2019
A collaboration between Western Plains Cultural Centre, Orana Arts and the Office of Planning, Industry and Environment
7 DECEMBER - 16 FEBRUARY 2020
ROCHELLE SUMMERFIELD: CROSSROADS
Crossroads is an exhibition that uses visual storytelling to explore themes on loss and transformation. Summerfield's bold experimentations through animation and mixed media shadow works disrupt traditional art forms as she combines new technologies to create dialogues around female subjectivity, nature and transformation. Crossroads examines the relationships between humans and the environment which Summerfield believes are intrinsically bound to our sense of self, well-being and connections within communities. This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced in collaboration between WPCC and Orana Arts.
Image Credit: Rochelle Summerfield ‘Doomed Innocent: Macquarie Perch’’ 2019, Mixed Media drawing and shadow projection, courtesy of the artist.
Official Opening
7 December | 2.00pm
This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
22 FEBRUARY - 19 APRIL
FLEUR MACDONALD: BASED ON A TRUE STORY
This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
To check out a Curator Chat with Fleur Macdonald and Mariam Abboud please click here
Based on a true story is an exhibition that explores and pays homage to the traditional craft of doily making. Inspired by the legacy of historical Kandos local Lucy Williams, artist Fleur MacDonald reimagines this traditional practice of doily making by painting renditions of traditional doilies on found domestic wooden serving bowls. Through this the process, the artist’s intention is to highlight the importance of this craft, and to emphasise the potential for past handicrafts and their associated intricacies, to be lost through time. This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by the WPCC and supported by Orana Arts.
Image Credit: Fleur MacDonald, Destination, 2019, pigment and vanish on wood. Image © Fleur MacDonald 2019
1 FEBRUARY - 3 MAY 2020
TO SERVE!: WOMEN, WORLD WAR 2 & THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
In 1953 the writer L.P Hartley declared “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”. These words speak to the challenges of archiving history and the stories and lessons we glean from it. Photographs, letters, clothing, keepsakes, etc. all play active roles in helping us to create a picture of the events of the past, but in the end we are all in service to memory. To Serve examines the role of women in the Central West of NSW and the myriad contributions made by them to the World War 2 war effort at home and abroad. The exhibition highlights the ways in which these stories are passed down through time and the role of Museums and Local History Studies in helping to reconstruct the past for future generations.
Image Credit: Group portrait of the Merrymakers in the Grand Finale - "The Allies" tableau, Dubbo, 24th September 1945, black and white photograph. Collection Western Plains Cultural Centre, Local Studies Collection.
8 FEBRUARY - 19 APRIL 2020
ARLO MOUNTFORD:
DEEP REVOLT
This survey of significant works by Melbourne-based artist Arlo Mountford, spans 15 years of the artist’s practice, from 2003 to 2018. Mountford’s large scale video installations, kinetic sculptures and animations take a wry look at the artistic canon, throwing light on visual art’s ongoing meaning and relevance in contemporary society. Amusing, strange and laden with references from art history and pop culture, Mountford’s animated films are hand drawn with a mouse directly into a computer. He reimagines both real and created spaces from the art world, digitally reconstructing the interiors of iconic museums or retracing the brushstrokes of European masterpieces, well known and loved for centuries.
A Goulburn Regional Art Gallery exhibition toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW.
Image Credit: Arlo Mountford, Murder in the Museum (still), 2005, single channel digital animation, 4:3 aspect ratio, stereo sound, 4:27 minutes. Image courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery Melbourne. Image © Arlo Mountford 2019
1 FEBRUARY - 2 AUGUST 2020
TO SERVE! WOMEN, WORLD WAR 2 & THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
In 1953 the writer L.P Hartley declared “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”. These words speak to the challenges of archiving history and the stories and lessons we glean from it. Photographs, letters, clothing, keepsakes, etc. all play active roles in helping us to create a picture of the events of the past, but in the end we are all in service to memory. To Serve examines the role of women in the Central West of NSW and the myriad contributions made by them to the World War 2 war effort at home and abroad. The exhibition highlights the ways in which these stories are passed down through time and the role of Museums and Local History Studies in helping to reconstruct the past for future generations.
Image Credit: Group portrait of the Merrymakers in the Grand Finale - "The Allies" tableau, Dubbo, 24th September 1945, black and white photograph. Collection Western Plains Cultural Centre, Local Studies Collection.
20 JUNE - 6 SEPTEMBER
LEO CREMONESE: THE COLOUR OF THE INVISIBLE
This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
The Colour of the Invisible by Kandos-based artist Leo Cremonese, features work that offers access to realms outside of the human domain. Using a combination of painting and installation, the artist fuses disparate materials and colours in an effort to create harmony within the physical and giving form to what is usually invisible. The exhibition asks us to reflect on our natural surroundings and allow ourselves to embrace the unknown and unseen. The Colour of the Invisible highlights the artist’s adaptability in transforming an outdoor private experience into the context of the gallery space, and bringing the non-human to the human domain. This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by WPCC and supported by Orana Arts and Wingewarra Dental. The Colour of the Invisible is also supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Image Credit: Leo Cremonese, Earthly Fire and Celestial Fire (detail), 2019, mixed media on linen, courtesy of artist.
1 JUNE - 4 OCTOBER
FRESH ARTS 20/20
Fresh Arts Inc. is a group of artists who live and work in Dubbo, Warren, Gilgandra and surrounds. A co-operative vehicle for exhibiting, professional development and social opportunities, Fresh Arts has exhibited widely since its establishment in 2004. The Western Plains Cultural Centre (WPCC) has collaborated with the group in a number of ways, with many individual artists exhibiting over that time. Fresh Arts: 20/20 presents the work of 18 artists from its current membership and presents a focused survey of current artistic practice within their ranks, as well as that of the region as a whole. The exhibition reveals the diversity of practice as well as the interests and concerns of artists living in regional NSW in 2020.
8 AUGUST - 18 OCTOBER
BEHIND THE LINES: THE YEAR'S BEST POLITICAL CARTOONS 2019: THE GREATEST HITS TOURS
Behind the Lines is an annual exhibition from the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House that celebrates the role of political cartoonists in Australia and highlights the power that their drawings have in contributing to our daily political and social discourse.
Framed by the world of rock music and under this year’s theme song of The Greatest Hits Tour, Australia’s leading political cartoonists amped up the satire on 2019’s greatest political hits. Behind the Lines features over 80 artworks from over 30 political cartoonists from across Australia.
This exhibition is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians
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This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
12 SEPTEMBER - 22 NOVEMBER
SANG INTO EXISTENCE:
ANNA NORDSTROM
Sang into Existence by Lismore-based artist Anna Nordstrom is an investigation into the continual environmental, societal, and climatic changes that Australia has faced in recent years. Inspired by her journey from Lismore to Dubbo; these mixed media works, primarily created from discarded construction materials from renovated and destroyed houses, explore and reflect on the meaning embedded within the materiality that surrounds us. Sang into Existence is an exhibition that explores notions of history and memory associated with life in Australia, by reinterpreting the unwanted materials that once formed our home.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by WPCC and supported by Orana Arts and Wingewarra Dental.
Image Credit: Anna Nordstrom, Talbragar Silo Dubbo (detail), 2020, Linoleum and pressed metal, image courtesy of artist.
5 DECEMBER 2020 - 24 JANUARY 2021
CONCRETE:
ART DESIGN ARCHITECTURE
CONCRETE: art design architecture is a major exhibition exploring innovative ways that concrete is being used by artists, designers and architects in Australia in the 21st century. Curated by JamFactory’s Margaret Hancock Davis (Senior Curator) and Brian Parkes (CEO), the exhibition includes 21 artists, designers and architects from across
Australia and brings together products, projects and works of art that reflect many of the current preoccupations with concrete within contemporary art, design and architecture in Australia.
CONCRETE: art design architecture is supported by Visions of Australia funding through Australian Government’s Department of Communications and Arts and the South Australian Government through the Department of Skills and Industry.
The Principal Sponsor for CONCRETE: art design architecture is Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia, the peak body for the cement, concrete and quarry industry in Australia.
Curated by Margaret Hancock Davis & Brian Parkes, Jam Factory.
Image Credit: Sanné Mestrom, Untitled (Self Portrait, Underground), 2017, bronze, concrete, steel, 156 x 100 x 83cm. Image © Sullivan+Strumpf.
27 NOVEMBER 2020 - 7 FEBRUARY 2021
200 YEARS ON: RONNIE GRAMMATICA
200 Years On features photographic works by Crescent Head-based artist Ronnie Grammatica. In this body of work, the artist retraces the journey of 19th Century British explorer John Oxley through regional Australia. In acknowledging his own cultural identity and sense of belonging, Grammatica has documented some of the individuals he encountered along the way, revealing a diverse and interconnected hiuman landscape.
200 Yeas on highlights the growing diversity of our communities in regio9nal NSW, exploring the stories of individuals and places, and how each has developed since Oxley's day.
Curated by Miriam Abboud.
Image Credit: Ronnie Grammatica: Anthony (detail), 2020 archival
This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
5 DECEMBER 2020 - 7 MARCH 2021
MAKE THE MARK: HSC WORKS FROM THE DUBBO REGION
An exhibition of this year's Dubbo senior students' works produced for HSC Visual Arts. In spite of all that the region, the nation and the world has experienced, this exhibition is once again a demonstration of the strengths and tenacity of the youth of the region as they use the power of the visual image to stimulate the imagination and to story emotion.
Curated by Phil Aitken
Image Credit: Chatchawarn Visetsiri, Drifting Silent Night Thoughts, 2020, oil on canvas, St Johns College Dubbo. Image c of artist.