2021 EXHIBITIONS
21 DECEMBER - 6 FEBRUARY 2022
THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: CAZNEAUX BY THE WATER
Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), was a giant in the history of Australian photography. ‘Through a Different Lens’ takes us back in time to Cazneaux’s soft focus Australia and gives us an insight into this significant photographer’s life.
This exhibition of more than 50 original pieces presents this aspect of Cazneaux’s art, reflecting how water and Sydney Harbour fits within his work, his signature pictorial photographic style and his foray into modernism and abstract form.
4 DECEMBER - 6 FEBRUARY 2022
SCOTT HOWIE:
how good is unaustralia
how good is unaustralia is an exhibition of work by Wagga Wagga-based artist, Scott Howie featuring a series of screen-based performances, sculptures and installations that offer a cheeky and provocative view
to imagining the possibility of an unaustralia. Howie adopts a satirical
lens as he questions the nationalistic values associated with being Australian, revealing a body of work that allows us to question those unfulfilled promises and hopes of being Australian.
.jpg)
20 OCTOBER - 28 NOVEMBER 2021
LEILA JEFFREYS:
FLOCK
Leila Jeffreys utilises photography and video to create intimate images of birds as a means to highlight their idiosyncratic beauty and their unique relationship to humans and the natural world. Eschewing any outside elements that would distract from her subjects, Jeffreys’ human-sized portraits of native pigeons and doves of New Guinea and Australia, featured in this exhibition, revealing them to be surprisingly diverse, unlike the everyday image we may have of them. The series, titled ‘Ornithurae’, allows us to see these busy birds up close and in minute detail, which would otherwise be impossible in real life.
Image Credit: Leila Jeffreys, ‘Nature Is Not A Place To Visit. It Is Home.’, 2019. Production still of multi-channel digital video. 8min 20sec on continuous loop. Western Plains Cultural Centre Collection, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts program by Leila Jeffreys.
31 JULY - 7 NOVEMBER 2021
BUILDING COMMUNITY:
WALLACE & McGEE, WALMAC AND THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE WEST
What do the RAAF Base, St Raphael’s Church in Cowra, St Mary’s School, Wellington, the Nyngan RSL Club, the Forbes Olympic Pool and the Amaroo Hotel have in common? A Dubbo-based company built them all.
This exhibition will explore the history of the company as well as its impact on the establishment and consolidation of communities across the western region.
Image Credit: Photographer unknown, Believed to be Phil McGee in front of Wallace
and McGee’s shed in Wingewarra Street, Dubbo c1930s, gelatin silver print, Local Studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council.
20 OCTOBER - 7 NOVEMBER 2021
JAMFACTORY ICON ANGELA VALAMANESH:
ABOUT BEING HERE
JamFactory’s ICON series celebrates the achievements of South Australia’s most influential artists working in craft-based media. Inspired by the symbiosis between science and poetry, Angela Valamanesh’s artworks elicit intrigue and a strong sense of personal investigation as she manipulates seemingly familiar anatomical, botanical and parasitic forms in beguiling and unusual ways. Primarily
known for her biomorphic ceramic sculptures, this exhibition also celebrates the artist’s evocative drawings, watercolours, and mixed media works from her developing style of the late 1990s until present.
Image Credit: Angela Valamanesh, Various friends and enemies no. 6, 2016. Photo: Michael Kluvanek.
22 MAY 2021 - 1 AUGUST 2021
LINDY LEE: MOON IN A DEW DROP
Moon in a Dew Drop is an exhibition of the work of influential Australian Chinese artist Lindy Lee. Lee’s shimmering, meditative and thought-provoking works feature in this major national touring exhibition, which draws on her experience of living between two cultures.
Using a spectacular array of processes which include flinging molten bronze, burning paper and allowing the rain to transform surfaces, Lee draws on her Australian and Chinese heritage to develop works that engage with the history of art, cultural authenticity, personal identity and the cosmos. Key influences are the philosophies of Daoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, which explore the connections between humanity and nature.
This exhibition will introduce audiences to works from across the artist’s extensive career, from early photocopy artworks, to her research into her family history and recent paintings and sculptures created using fire and water.
Curated by MCA Director, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE
Exhibition organised and toured by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program.
Image Credit: Lindy Lee, The Silence of Painters, 1989, photocopy, synthetic polymer paint on paper, Museum of Contemporary Art, gift of Loti Smorgon AO and Victor Smorgon AC, 1995, image courtesy the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art, Image © artist
29 MAY 2021 - 18 JULY 2021
BEHIND THE LINES: THE YEAR IN POLITICAL CARTOONS
2020 A DOG'S BREAKFAST
In a year that some have politely described as ‘a dog’s breakfast’, this year’s theme encompasses 2020’s mix of disruption and uncertainty. The term seems particularly fitting for something so unappealing – a year filled with mess, turmoil and failed attempts.
From the bushfire summer to the pandemic and global economic woes, Australia’s political cartoonists have had plenty to work with. They have cast their eyes over the whole dog and pony show. There’s the usual dog-eat-dog world of politics, with its top dogs, sly dogs and people thrown to the dogs. But they’ve also watched on as we’ve embraced panic buying, curves (on graphs and on ourselves) and experts in our midst (or at least at our press conferences). And masks. It’s been a year with plenty of masks.
In this year’s exhibition, visual cues from overlapping crises pepper the cartoons: Hawaiian shirts and burnt trees give way to masks and spiky balls. Fortunately, our cartoonists have also captured moments of goodness and humour amid the rolling drama. With luck, we can look back on 2020 – a masked, sloppy mess of a year – and send it firmly back to the doghouse where it belongs. The 2020 Cartoonist of the Year is Cathy Wilcox, cartoonist for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.
Behind the Lines is an annual onsite and travelling exhibition developed by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House.
Curated by Holly Williams, The Curator’s Department
Image credit: Cathy Wilcox, A Dog’s Breakfast, Behind the Lines 2020. Image © artist.
_tif.png)
24 OCTOBER 2020 - 23 MAY 2021
TRUE TO LIFE LIKENESS: A HISTORY OF VINCENT'S STUDIO
Vincent's Studio was a photographic studio that operated in Dubbo and region from the early 1900s to the late 1970s. Before phone cameras and social media, photographic studios played a crucial role within a community, documenting and producing photographs of weddings, debutante balls, engagements, couples, nurses, service personnel, elected officials, sporting teams, portraits, passport photographs, families, children, babies, and assorted buildings.
The collection of negatives, logbooks, and other materials that make up the Vincent's Studio collection had begun to significantly deteriorate by the time they were donated to the Dubbo & District Family History Society (DDFHS). Over a number of years, DDFHS volunteers have tirelessly cleaned, scanned, catalogued, and researched the collection, allowing it to be accessed and utilised by the general public.
This exhibition charts the history of photographic studios, the Vincent's Studio collection and the invaluable work of volunteer-run organisations like DDFHS in preserving our material culture.
This exhibition is a collaboration between Western Plains Cultural Centre, Local Studies and Dubbo & District Family History Society.
Any new information on the images in our exhibit will help us learn more about the archive and ultimately about our community. If you recognise anyone in the photos - let us know! If you suspect your family may have had photos taken by Vincent's Studio, click on the link below and check the Index on the Dubbo & District Family History Society website
Image credit:A.J. Vincent; Vincent's Studio, Hospital Ball at Empire Hall, Macquarie Street; Dubbo, 9th August 1912. 1912 silver gelatin print; Image (C) Local Studies collection, Dubbo Regional Council
13 MARCH - 16 MAY
WASTE 2 ART
Official Opening and Prize
20 March 2021 | 2.00pm
Waste To Art is a community art exhibition and competition showcasing reused & recyclable waste materials. This exciting and innovative challenge invites schools, community groups and individuals to transform rubbish into art and design.
Dubbo Regional Council is a proud NetWaste member and supports community's commitment to re-use and recycle through creative expression. While the artworks do not have to be made using the theme Aluminium and Steel Cans, the theme provides a focus for waste challenges and education programs.
13 MARCH - 16 MAY
2020 JACARANDA ACQUISITIVE DRAWING AWARD
Official Opening
19 March 2021 | 6.00pm
Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) is Grafton Regional Gallery's flagship art prize, sponsored by the Friends of the Gallery.
Established in 1988 the JADA celebrates drawing in all its splendour from hyper-realism to the expressive and abstract, each evokes a poetic and emotional response to the human condition and our environment. Many of the works question and challenge the notion of traditional drawing; while others provide a contemporary perspective and reinvigorate those traditions.
In 2020 the $35,000 prize received a record 659 entries from 521 artists throughout Australia with 56 finalists selected for the exhibition and subsequent tour.
Image Credit: Teo Treloar This is impermanence, (detail), 2019, graphite pencil on paper, 56 x 76 cm u/f. Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Baker Art Dealer. Image © artist.
.jpg)
13 FEBRUARY - 16 MAY
CORAL DOLAN: HERSTORY
Official Opening
20 February 2021 | 2.00pm
Herstory by Dubbo based artist Coral Dolan features works that explore and celebrate the lives of women in regional NSW. Inspired by their courageous stories of travelling and settling in isolated areas, Dolan fashions multi-layered works from found ‘women’s objects’, eco printed fabrics, and preserved botanicals; sealing them with preserving wax, with the intent to create artefacts that encapsulate the hitherto untold stories of these women.
Herstory is an exhibition where Dolan sheds light on the importance of preserving these historic personal and cultural stories of regional women, before they risk being forgotten.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by WPCC and supported by Orana Arts.
Curated by Mariam Abboud
Herstory is an exhibition, which explores and celebrates the personal and cultural stories of regional women throughout history. Join us for this artist talk, as Coral Dolan discuss how these women have inspired this multi-layered body of work, paying homage to their memory.
Image Credit: Coral Dolan, Həːst(ə)ré, 2020, Cyanotype print, wax, botanical material, eco printed linen and silk, gold leaf, thread. Image courtesy of artist
This is a HomeGround exhibition, WPCCs emerging regional artist program. The HomeGround program is proudly supported by: Wingewarra Dental
30 JANUARY - 7 MARCH
NERIDAH STOCKLEY: A SECULAR VIEW
Neridah Stockley: A Secular View is an exhibition spanning twenty-five years of sustained practice by Northern Territory based artist Neridah Stockley. Whilst Stockley is best known as a painter, this survey reveals the diversity of her practice including drawings, collage, dry point etchings and a growing body of ceramic work.
Stockley's work is characterised by abstracted compositions that hint at narrative or symbolic content, traversing memory and experience in an ongoing dialogue with visual interpretation. Domestic in scale, she invites the viewer to encounter a section of surveyed and deconstructed landscape, through a process of re-visioning the natural and manufactured world into linear and geometric planes and forms.
Curated by Gillian Shaw, Art Curator, University of Newcastle Art Gallery.
Image Credit: Summer 1, 2012, acrylic on hardboard, 50 x 50cm. Image c Christine Godden
Official Opening/ In Conversation 29 January | 6.00pm
