"The Road to Tanami" via Molong!

An exhibition of recent artworks inspired by a journey through the most outback and desolate region of Australia, the Tanami Desert by Wanda Driscoll.

In her usual inimitable style, Wanda takes us to a new land, the Tanami desert in Central Australia. She is not called Wanda for nothing as her journeys take her to amazing places that many Australians have never seen and it is an extraordinary experience to be able to see these places through her particular style of paintings!

Colourful and rich, these artworks are imbued with the rawness of the Australian landscape, the depth and variety of colours. Her brushstrokes contain the freedom of the wind as they sweep across her canvasses.

The opening night was well attended and a lot of laughter as Wanda described her journeys to the gathered art lovers.

An art show that should not be missed! Only at the gallery for one month so come and see us soon! Exhibition ends 14 November.

"Up Close & Personal" by Janelle Bowler

Jayes Gallery is pleased to present the photographic images of talented Janelle Bowler in this forthcoming exhibition. Many of the works have been printed as large format giclees on canvas and would make a statement in any home.

Janelle says of her works, "So often when taking pictures I’m asked “Why do you get so close?” 

Such unique perspectives, patterns, even colours come to life when you take a different point of view and go in close on your subject, whether with a camera or whatever media you choose to represent the world through.

Suddenly a plain old leaf lying in a gutter takes on new value and calls for appreciation as intricate details or fascinating forms that you never realised were there, emerge to enlarge your vision and the beauty that lies there unbeknown to the casual observer.  What was just an ordinary scene, becomes extra-ordinary.

The beauty of the camera is that the lens can take you there, right up close where often your eye would or could never venture. The creative work is already done. You however have the great pleasure of revealing it to a world unawares.

Getting up close and personal certainly pays off in the end enriching our lives with the knowledge that beauty really is all around us."

Janelle's work is really perceptive and original so why not come and be inspired!

Barber and Clark at the Gallery for Spring!

 Opening: Saturday 18 September 2010 at 6.30 pm

Jayes Gallery & Sculpture Gardens is delighted to be able to bring you an amazing array of new artworks and sculptures from artists across the Central West and as far as Sydney. 

“The Spirit of Place” by Ada Clarke

Ada Clark will be showing paintings from her recent travels to Central Asia and other exotic locations. Vibrant and clear works that glow with bright colours and free flows of paint, these paintings will transport you away to other places as these works portray “the spirit of place” in Ada’s own individual style. Alongside works from the Australian bush, Ada is presenting these new works for you to view and buy for the first time.

“Les Derniers Coquelicots” by Melissa Barber

Melissa tells us quietly that these are to be her last works on ‘Poppies’. We are amazed and appalled as Melissa’s poppies have been one of our favourite themes over recent years. These are rich gilded works dripping with the ripest of reds, a mass of thick paint and forms, so warm and inviting that you can ‘smell’ the poppies in their fields of glowing colours. So if you want a Melissa Barber Poppy painting, then this is the time to get on out to Jayes. Don’t dilly dally along the way as spring doesn’t last long!

SCULPTURE IN THE SPRING - 18 September - 22 December

sculpture n. The art or practice of shaping figures or designs in the round or in relief, as by chiseling marble, modeling clay, or casting in metal.

On a quiet and windy day, out on the farms and fields, one can find a number of country folk sculpting away, creating all sorts of wonderful arrangements of metal and stone, objects found around the place or local scrap metal dealer, suddenly are welded into new forms and possibilities!

Among these, there are also renowned sculptors whose craft practices are so well advanced that they create exceptional and sophisticated forms from granite and stone. A 1.4 metre high monolith from red granite greets you as you enter gallery 1. Sculpted with both polished and adzed surfaces, this elegant form invites you to stroke and admire it. Ken Hutchinson is well known and has recently mounted a major work at the entrance of Bathurst Base Hospital and the gallery at Molong is delighted that Ken has provided them with this work for you to consider.

Out in country NSW, nationally renowned and well known sculptors from NSW will show their works in a new 3 month event, Sculptures in the Spring. This year the exhibition will run over 3 months to coincide with Wine Week and National Field Days in Orange NSW, two other well-known and established regional events.

Jayes Gallery, a city styled art gallery located at Molong in Central NSW has developed a sculpture garden to add to the already established gallery and stable of artists.

Opened at the same time, are two exhibitions by well known artists, Melissa Barber and Ada Clark. This is an arts extravaganza! Sculptors present in this show are Ken Hutchinson, Al  Phemister, Simon Reece, Tim Kyle and Hal Holman to name but a few.  Runs to 22 December.

'BURNT HILLS" AND "WILD WOODS' INSPIRE ART!

In an exhibition of works "Burnt Hills", artist Sally Watson brings us a fresh view of her world inspired by burnt hills and the natural world. Watson has a strong sense of line and form and these are works with a 'zen' quality that will hold your attention.

Opening on Saturday, August 21 at 6.30 pm, everyone is invited to attend.

SALLY WATSON'S STATEMENT:

"I have always loved the round hills of the landscapes around Orange. There is something maternal about the roundness and they seem to hold things in place. A daily walk is often a source if inspiration for may drawings, whether it is the shape of a leaf or an abstract idea. In November 20009, there was an out of control grass fir e which burnt out paddocks for kilometres until it was finally extinguished within 500 metres of where I lived. The familiar round hills were blackened and marks with the tracks from the fire trucks and I was reminded of the drawings by Rover Thomas. I was inspired to make a series of drawings based on the burnt hills. The hills are beside the road which I walked for many days and which had served as an inspiration for artworks, From November until January, I created large and small drawings, which were based on those burnt hills and the emotions of anguish and release of fear. I let myself go so I could explore my feelings through the drawings.

This exhibition also includes works from my Organic Abstraction Series. In these drawings I have not been concerned with representing any seen reality. One method I have used is automatism where the act of drawing, painting or writing is based on chance, suppressed consciousness and free associations. The subconscious holds thoughts and feelings, which can be hidden from us. Drawing an be a spontaneous way of letting go of control and allowing the work to emerge. Meditation, Zen and solitude always influence my work.


My arts practice includes keeping a visual journal, the observation of life around me, the inclusion of meditation as a way of becoming conscious of thoughts and feelings, the development of mark making, along with the loosening up and letting go of control in drawing and brushwork. I also make drawings, which are composed entirely of words, which represent a spontaneous flow of my consciousness. To me this is cathartic. The Organic Abstraction Series has nature nature and human emotion as the source for inspiration and also makes the use of gestural drawing and brushwork.


The richest way for me to be with myself is to paint and draw."

JUDY WHITLOCK'S STATEMENT:

"I work on paper in a  variety of media, painting, watercolour landscapes and leaf studies; drawing trees in pen and ink; and printmaking: etchings, mostly of trees, and oil-marbling. I make miniature books and photography is becoming an obsession.


My finished work is studio-based using sketch book drawings and photographs. I visit specific locations to obtain this material; on such trips I tramp around with a pen, sketchbook and camera. Working in pen forces a decision and creates a confidence in line and style. It is a very productive method and I have filled dozens of sketchbooks.

My paintings and etchings all evolve from the sketches. In the studio, (painting or preparing an etching plate) I like to play with composition, quality of light and bring my own atmosphere to a picture.


My tree drawing begin in situ and are finished in the studio. I vary the substrate and style but always there are millions of lines.


I am constantly refining, rethinking; I am always at work."


On inspiration, Judy says "All trees evoke some kind of response in me. They are the quintessential landscape. Many of my specific travel locations are for the trees alone. Some preferred areas are, the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers, western NSW, that area round Lake mUngo and it' many dry lakes, southern Alaska, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State USA.


Trees communicate a wealth of information relating to their environment and station in life; eg - White Spruce in southern Alaska are attacked by the brown beetle. This beetle has a degenerative effect and as a consequence, the spruce now stand sad, alone and forlorn.


Leaves are as interesting as their trees; all different and individual. I have vast collections of them, some, years old. They all have a story to tell. 


Some trees even grow on sand hills. Like leaves, who could not love them? - sand hills I mean. They lie waiting to be climbed, drawn and painted. The sun changes their colour; the wind, their shape. Alive, they creep slowly across the land devouring all in their path.


My printmaking specifically etching, is an extension of my drawing - studies perhaps rather than landscape as a whole. I like the atmosphere of a finished print and the whole printing process."


These two women artists both have insights and the love of this land that inspires many artists to express themselves. This is indeed a lovely exhibition with many pieces that will likewise inspire you, the viewer to a new understanding of Australia and the nature of this place.

"Line and Link" - Digital artists challenge the 'way we see'!

Jolanta Nejman, Australian/Polish artist and surface designer. Her passion for creativity has been rich and diverse spanning many decades and countries. Having been a fashion designer, interior designer, set designer, costume designer, television production designer, mixed media artist and involved in many other areas. Over time she has gathered the knowledge of many skills, not all at expert level of course.
As a dabbler, always curious about varied fields and techniques has given Jola the knowledge to combine in her art works some elaborated mixed media. Her inspiration comes from nature, design and society.

The first exhibition in 1992 set the path for exploring shape, texture and colour. The first pieces, a series of framed mirrors, hand shaped, painted and sealed were just a step on a long trip. Phil, her partner is an explorer and amongst his many talents is Industrial Design which helps when Jola's aim is beyond the familiar. With time she embraced his love of computers and they are now an indispensable tool in what they both do.

If you wonder about her creative process, well, it begins with an idea, progresses to gathering references, sketching, drawing, scanning, researching and experimenting. As the days go by the original idea usually evolves, sometimes the art tells her to stop and sometimes it asks for more. Sometimes she gets in a moment and creates without conscious thought but mostly there's a lot of thinking and figuring out how to get just the right texture/colour/balance.

The images reflect, love, loss, thoughts, emotions, the intensity of the new and the fading of the old, the lines, the curves, the ebb and the flow…. but mostly they say that I miss my mother, she was young once and I wasn't even born.

Philip Salmon is a thinker, photographer and industrial designer. His family background is light and engineering and from 14 years old he has had a fascination with light that eventuated in starting entertainment lighting businesses that others took over when his passion for capturing light became a focus. Photography has been a 30 year old passion cemented while studying Industrial Design at Sydney College of the Arts in the late 70's. As a 3 dimensional thinker, lighting, sound, sculptures, architecture and anything really interesting, captivates and nourishes his need for knowledge. Macintosh computers and Photography have combined in his latest work to elaborate the capture of a moment into a statement. He loves doing, making and finds inspiration in his surroundings, be they people, bush or city.

Philip has exhibited in the Central West for almost a decade now. Using photography as a medium of expression to shine a light where our eyes often fail to focus his work is infused with texture, rhythm and pattern. The last exhibition saw him go further in his exploration of printing, from the traditional darkroom he has now progressed fully into this millennium and embraced the digital age. Phil's studio now boasts large format printers that not only print on 61cm rolls of paper but can print on almost any media, including fabric and wood. These tools enable his fertile imagination to produce photographic prints which are complex in structure and tell a story beyond the image.

Line and Link is based on events since 2004 which were pivotal in putting us on a road of inner learning. The interest in how we link together originated because of the immense void left in our hearts when we were deprived of our mothers’ presence. To become orphans, no matter what the age, is to be cast adrift from the familial centre. 

Lines and Link is a dual exhibition of Philip Salmon and Jolanta Nejman.

The theme of the past shaping the future, the line of evolution, lines that unite are sometimes the lines that divide us, the networks we live with, the links that we make and the links that bind us. Lines and Link explores different printing media specifically focused on wood.

All these stem from the lines, links, webs between us, seen and unseen. The link between a mother and her child, the link of our foremothers, the ability to be in a crowd and feel alone… 

So after months of preparation, welcome to our exhibition, hope you enjoy it.

“Occuló” & "Insomnia" 18 June - 11 July

'Lara Scolari's works in this coming exhibition glow from the walls. They are imbued with hidden meanings and suggested nuances all contained within layer upon layer of soft and subtle shapes, light forms overshadowed with darkness. These works have to be seen, sat with, pondered upon before they give up their meaning. The works contain such depth that they continue to grow and burn themselves into your psyche for a long time. These are not easy works to access but require time and intelligent consideration before the viewer can say comfortably that they understand them.

Scolari herself says of the works "I am intrigued by the complexity, hidden undercurrents and agendas involved in relationships. I relate these layered emotions to the stress of the natural landscape and the surfaces beneath our feet."

"I have expanded and developed my theme/concept and this informs an intimate visual language of organic colour, shape and line. These elements generate a personal response of emotions that are expressed within my work. As if diving beneath the surface (dreaming of what cannot be seen)."

"My work is produced in an Abstract Impressionist style, with focus on the use of line, organic shape, layering and colour. I employ a limited palette of warm earthy tones, punctuated with grey and white."

"I am investigating how visual imagery can translate the complexity of emotions, with a range of visual effects, including translucency and softness - gentle luminosity, quiet understatement (giving clues), subtleness, layering, movement and honesty."

"I attack each work in a vigorous energetic manner. I aim for depth of layers in my work, and build up each layer using a variety of media and experimental methods. I endeavour to give each line or mark vibrancy, energy, motion, mystery and emotion that the viewer can experience. To see or not to see; the artist's dilemma"

"Nurture" by Lara Scolari

In "Insomnia", artist Jocelyn Moles has brought together a number of bright and well crafted images formed through the collage of a variety of mediums. 

Jocelyn says of her work "I work as a mixed media artist, incorporating Photography, pen, paint, print techniques and collage into my work. Over the last few years I have developed an interest in making hand-made books. I love the opportunities it presents to explore themes in one piece of work."

"I like the challenge of creating a work of art through collage. I am especially drawn to recycling words and pictures from other media. The medium itself often manipulates words and pictures, so in turn I like to recycle their words to explore issues in my own artwork. Conscious of copyright, my own photography is incorporated more and more into my works. I love taking photos and digitally changing them to represent something different from the original."

"A lot of research and preparation goes into starting a body of work. I use the internet, library, art galleries and museums to research. In the process, my own knowledge and thought processes are expanded. I document this process in an art journal so that I can refer back as I do to the art pieces."

PRIVATE COLLECTION - opens 16 April

It not every day that we are able to look inside the personal collections of others, or even gain an understanding of what is ‘collectible’ as opposed to ‘desirable’ or even ‘decorative’ in the visual arts.

From April 16, a country gallery is exhibiting for the first time, a collection of works that can only be described as ‘highly collectible’. These works have been drawn from the private collections of some of the gallery’s client base and have not been exhibited publicly before. Many of the works are over 100 years old and show the technique of previous masters of painting. We can see the delicate brushstrokes of John Absolon (1815-1895), a British Watercolourist whose painting would have made it to his family in Western Australia in the late 1800’s,  and finally into a private collection on the east coast of Australia. His son, John de Mansfield Absolon was also a watercolourist who spent his time between England and Australia and managed his family’s mining interests.

An early aboriginal painting by Desmond Ebatarinja (1956-2004) of the Hermannsburg School from Central Australia who painted around Central Australia and the desert is featured in the collection.

Another delightful work is a fine example of Ukiyo-e featuring a landscape created from woodblocks around the 1850’s. These works are rare outside of Japan and feature works from the famous school on delicate papers.

For those wanting to get into the collectible market at an affordable price, there are a range of John Sands early maps framed and ready to hang. The maps are from his early book of maps of New South Wales, first edition in 1886.

Alongside these rare works, the gallery is exhibiting a number of today’s artists that are considered to be of increasing value. Works by Greg Hyde, Joy Engelman, Brett Garling to name a few as well as an amazing sculpture by Tim Kyle . Kyle won the Wynne Prize in 2003 for his “Seated Figure” and Jayes has a strong work by Kyle in “Standing Man” in a similar vein.

This is a show not to be missed and will be out at Molong in central NSW from April 16 through to May10. Opening night Friday 16 April at 6.30.

Press Release for "Where the Heart Is! - Josephine Jagger-Manners

PRESS RELEASE – for immediate release

ART EXHIBITION: “Where the Heart Is!” by Josephine Jagger-Manners

DATES: Sunday 14 March at 11.30 am – 11 April 2010

VENUE: Jayes Gallery, 31-33 Gidley Street, Molong NSW 2866 P: 02 6366 9093

Josephine Jagger-Manners is a multi-award winning restaurateur and wife of the celebrated Michael Manners. Having retired as a restaurateur, and from the highly acclaimed Selkirks Restaurant, in 2007, Josephine is now able to pursue a life long desire to paint pictures. Self-taught, Josephine enjoys painting what she sees as snippets of country life and domesticity.

Josephine’s first exhibition at her home in Molong NSW in 2009 was a great success. Viewers responded enthusiastically to her whimsical take on everyday life at home and in the garden. Josephine’s use of colour is always vibrant and reflects her lifestyle. For Josephine at present spending time painting from her home, surrounded by her large and prolific garden, truly is for her “Where the Heart Is!”

Although Josephine is a new artist coming to her passion late in life, she has had a fair grounding in art early. Josephine won a scholarship to attend the selective girl’s school in Hartlepool N E England. Art became her major subject and she achieved 98% for Art/Art History in her GCE Exam (top 1% in Britain). Josephine remembers being influenced at that time by Turner, Cezanne and Gaughin.

Josephine fondly remembers admiring Turner for his technique and wistful way with paint. She says “To me, every Turner picture that I looked at was magical and took me to an entirely new existence. I had only seen Turner’s works in books but my heart stood still and my knees became weak when I saw a Turner painting at the National Gallery at 18 years old” Josephine continues “I preferred the still life paintings of Cezanne to his landscapes. They represented country life and I was drawn to the feeling of human presence in the pictures even though not depicted. I have always liked Gaughin’s use of colour and particularly the vibrancy of his still life’s”

The influences of those formative years are strongly present in these recent works making for an interesting combination of subject, colour and style.

The upcoming exhibition at Jayes Gallery of Molong, NSW is Josephine’s first solo show in a major gallery and the early influences of her engagement with art and paintings can be seen strongly in the works on exhibition. This is a delightful and warm show of paintings that are not only familiar but are highly decorative as well. Libby Oldham, Gallery Director says “I am pleased to be able to provide this opportunity to such a wonderful and inspiring artist. Her works sit well within our current stable as Josephine has her own style which has developed out of a strong past of being influenced by the European Masters.”

The exhibition “Where the Heart Is!” opens on Sunday February 14 March at 11.30 am. Following the opening, a luncheon in honour of Josephine will be prepared by her husband and well known Chef, Michael Manners. The day will be a treat not to be missed. Bookings essential for the luncheon however all are welcome to the opening. See you on the day!

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:     Libby Oldham, Gallery Director

gallery@jayes.com.au

www.jayes.com.au

LARGE FORMAT JPG’S FROM GALLERY

The artist, Josephine Manners can be contacted on 02 6366 8521 for interview