"New Works" by Catherine Hale

"New Works"

Exhibition opens 6 July 2012 at 6 pm

Exhibition runs to 29 July 2012

Catherine Hale is an artist working in the Central West of NSW. Having grown up in Sydney she knows that there is more to life than living under the flight path a block from Parramatta Road.

She is now based in Bathurst and is the proud owner of a recently built backyard studio. Within this space, overlooking chicken coops and vegetable gardens; Catherine joins the frames, stretches the canvases and creates her paintings

ARTIST STATEMENT

My figurative paintings are executed from the imagination. They are narratives drawn from people and landscapes encountered:

Ø     during travels in a caravan round Australia

Ø     working on a multicultural program at the community centre

Ø     caring for Bathurst elderly and

Ø     volunteering at school vege garden working bees

I also work in landscape and still life; these are the inhabited spaces without the people.

"Light, Life and Perspective" Exhibition by Joel Tonks

Joel tells about his show: “I grew up amongst a family of artists, with my mother, father and grandfather all actively creating art throughout my childhood. It was perhaps these influences that taught me to find beauty and detail in ordinary places. Having grown up in Orange NSW, I was always inspired by the extreme changes in colour and climate of the surrounding landscape. I began painting at 14, mostly depicting these vibrant local landscapes.

In my recent artwork, I try to push the boundaries of traditional realism and depict narratives through unusual perspectives. Since moving to the coast to study, I have been fortunate enough to have a lot of free time to travel and go on adventures, with my artwork often becoming a reflection of my experiences. I don’t always seek ideas for artworks; rather they hit me all at once and won’t leave me alone until put them down.

Creating artworks is my way of expressing feelings and experiences that I cannot put to words. I don’t fully understand why I paint, but there’s something immensely satisfying about putting the final touches and standing back to see what you’ve created. The need to create art is best described by William Faulkner, as “An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they chose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.”

Exhibition opens Friday 4 May at 6 pm - all welcome!

"Face the Music" by Connie Eales

ARTIST INSPIRED TO PAINT THROUGH HER LOVE OF MUSIC

Connie tells us about the inspiration for “FACE THE MUSIC” artworks, “I was once a violinist – not a brilliant violinist, but more than competent and I loved playing the instrument.  I was never a professional musician but I derived so much pleasure from making music on my lovely violin alone and with friends who played other instruments.   Injury to my fingers put an end to these pleasures. 

I listen to music every day of my life and since I can paint but not play, I derive a great deal of satisfaction from painting musical themes and musicians. I want to share that pleasure with others.”

Connie Eales, born in Gulgong NSW, grew up on the Central Coast and moved to Sydney when she enrolled at Sydney University for her first degree.  Connie achieved her BA, Dip.Ed and taught High School for three years before undertaking further post-graduate work at Macquarie University.  Her Masters degree and subsequent work in school counselling ensured her registration as a professional psychologist in NSW.

Connie occupied a senior executive position in the NSW Department of Education for 9 years in which time she also spent time working with the then Minister for Education.  During this time Connie achieved a Masters degree from the Graduate School of Management.

Connie ran her practice The Advancement Centre in Western Sydney for 10 years providing psychology services, career consulting and in-service training for individuals, schools and businesses.  Concurrently Connie taught in post-graduate courses at Macquarie University and UTS.

With this academic background you might wonder how Connie has come to be a well known artist in mid-western NSW.  The answer is that she decided on a career change.  She decided to pluck up the courage to relinquish a lucrative job to pursue a life-long desire – the desire to create the art that had been incubating for years in her heart and mind.  Connie had always been an artist at heart and whenever she could find some time in her life in the fast lane, she painted, even if it was only the occasional oil study.  Her husband and two daughters were frequently the subject of portrait vignettes.

In her new art career Connie took some classes, worked under the mentorship of several professional artists and just got in some good brush mileage.

The academic bug struck again in 2007/8 when Connie undertook post-graduate qualifications in Museum Studies at Macquarie University.  Connie curated exhibitions for Cudgegong Gallery and Mudgee Arts Council for several years while at the same time pursuing her own artistic bent.  She now holds one or more exhibitions a year to share her latest muse and patrons have described her work as addictive as many of them own two or more of her paintings and they claim that they never tire of looking at them and always see something in them that they never noticed before.

"Musica de Mondo"

Exhibition opens: Friday 30 March 2012 at 6.00 pm

Exhibition runs: 30 March – 29 April 2012   

STRENGTH CONTRAST & BOLDNESS GALVANISES INTO ONE EXHIBITION

With references from Brancusi and Giacometti in strong sculptural totemic forms through to interpretations of the landscape around Hill End, the opening show for 2012 is a strong and inspired collection of highly desirable artworks from two well recognised artists, Julie Williams and Hui Selwood.

Julie works by applying heavily contrasted layers of paint with the fine lines of ghostly heritage buildings that evoke a deep response in the viewer. Against these, the works of Hui Selwood, stand as totemic forms that imply the presence of souls among the ruins.

This is a natural alliance between 2 artists and friends who work from the heartland of the gold rush in Hill End near Bathurst NSW.

Julie Williams - Painter
My art practice primarily involves using painting as a problem solving experience to produce contemporary works with historical references.  The works, which explore relationships between the landscape and the built environment, are a combination of immediate responses to specific sites and ideas developed in the studio. Where we live creates relationship both visually and metaphorically, built environments either blend, recede or dominate but in the end it is the landscape that remains. The Australian attachment to landscape is very strong and landscape painting carries a huge legacy.  I think of my own work as trying to find something interesting and meaningful to say about my immediate landscape and at the same time make work, which is lively and compelling.  My interpretations are dependent on plein air studies, antique maps, photographs and archival documents.  My influences are the landscape and architecture of the historic gold rush town of Hill End, NSW, a place wrapped in a rich history of immigration, which has become a metaphor for my own sense of belonging.

Hui Selwood – Sculptor
Abstract compositions in the materials of metal and wood, predominate my work. The sculptural compositions acknowledge an architectural quality, which stems from my interest in design, architecture and construction. These works continue to investigate architectural ideas and design with the emphasis on the vertical, referencing totems and figures. The totem is a subject, which has occupied me for years. Intrigued by the totems from various cultures and civilisations, such as Aboriginal, African, Central and South American and Oceanic tribes, Ancient European and Eastern civilisations. My interest in the totem extends to the totem pole, where not only a connection has been established with my interest in architectural references but also with the figure, the quasi-representation of our selves. Questioning the need for humans to erect tall vertical structures from the times of Stonehenge to the modern high rise. A curious parallel, the evolutionary steps of man from the horizontal to the vertical. These works are responses to totems of the past, to contemporary architecture and to the sculptures of Brancusi, Giacometti, Meadmore and David Smith’s Cubi series.

"Elemental Sky" by Aida Pottinger

"Reflections" Acrylic & Oil on Canvas 50 cm x 70 cm

Artist’s Statement – Aida Pottinger

My mother was a Latvian refugee who fled the Russian invasion of Latvia into Germany and from there; she went as a refugee to England where she met my father. I was conceived in Lancashire and was born in Yorkshire where I was neither English nor Latvian. This exhibition tracks the landscapes linking mother and daughter. A powerful and emotional journey through war and migration, connecting Europe, England and Australia together. Land has a powerful hold over one’s identity. It is part memory, part anchor, part mystery. Peter Haynes, Director of ACT Museums and Galleries describes my work as “highly atmospheric, dream-like presentation with an air of mystery and nostalgia which captures the veils of memory”

I work in a variety of mediums including oils acrylics and ink and while working with a particular location in mind I am not bound by an exact recreation – I prefer to let intuition and the medium dictate what happens on the surface, exploring images which arrest the eye and are arrived at spontaneously. Working from life and landscape as a jumping off point. I like to push the source material to capture an atmosphere or mood visually echoing memories and emotions. My work emerges out of a landscape I may be working on and is a subconscious recognition of how the earth gives birth, nurtures, sustains and eventually reclaims the life on it.

My interests in composition, atmosphere and light reflect several of my artistic influences. First is the tradition of romantic landscape and the obvious influences of JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.  A second direct influence on my work are the works of  Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, who explored spatial structure and resonant colours in their abstract works. My work continues in these traditions by constructing landscapes that directly and meaningfully resonate to the viewers’ presence and engagement.

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!

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.