QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY’S CELEBRATORY EXHIBITION OPENS IN TOOWOOMBA

Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery will host a travelling exhibition of works by some of Queensland’s leading contemporary artists, from Thursday August 23 until Sunday October 7.

Arts Minister Rod Welford said 11 local artists featured in ‘Queensland Live: Contemporary Art on Tour’, a travelling exhibition from the Queensland Art Gallery.

“Queensland Live has already toured to seven regional Queensland venues including Mackay, Cairns and Bundaberg during 2006 and 2007,” Mr Welford said.

“This is the first major project for regional Queensland audiences, developed as part of the celebrations to mark the opening of the new Gallery of Modern Art in late 2006.

“This exhibition ensures regional audiences have the opportunity to access important contemporary works from the Gallery’s collection.

“The artists represented are Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Gordon Bennett, Eugene Carchesio, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Tracey Moffatt, Scott Redford, Luke Roberts, Anne Wallace, Judy Watson and Judith Wright.

“The artists range in age from their 30s to their 70s, come from vastly different backgrounds, and have studied and exhibited nationally and internationally.”

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition provides a snapshot of the excellence, diversity and achievement in the visual arts in Queensland today.

“The works encompass a range of materials and methods from painting, printmaking, photography and ceramics to installation, film and the latest digital technologies,” Mr Ellwood said.

“Five artists are Indigenous or of Indigenous descent — Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Gordon Bennett, Tracey Moffatt and Judy Watson.”

Vernon Ah Kee’s powerful digital images, This man is… This woman is . . . , and Richard Bell’s blistering works, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie and I didn’t do it, confront issues of race relations in Australia.

Judy Watson’s atmospheric painting burnt shield is typical of her paintings of the land, inspired by the ancestral homeland of her grandmother in far north-west Queensland.

Gordon Bennett’s Self portrait works of digitally manipulated photographs address issues of personal, race and national identity.

Tracey Moffatt, one of Australia’s most internationally celebrated artists, is represented by the photographic portfolio Up in the sky and the short film Night cries, which refers to personal and family relations set in the Australian landscape.

Gold Coast-born Scott Redford’s Surf painting /The reflex and Surf painting /Modernist house, painted with an acrylic surfboard surface, capture the appeal of contemporary surf culture and the impact of Californian Modernism on Australian culture.