PAST EXHIBITIONS 2024

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MAYORAL PORTRAITS
DENNIS WELLINGTON - CITY OF ALBANY MAYOR 2011-2023
24 November - 9 December 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

Dennis Wellington has recently retired from his long held position of Mayor of Albany. 

To coincide with his retirement and to honour his advocacy for the arts, the Arts and Culture team offered the opportunity to local artists to spend time with the Mayor to create an artwork.

Supplementing these new works are the portraits of previous Albany Mayors that are currently held in the City of Albany Art Collection.

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MOONLIGHT
16 October  - 24 November 2023 | Vancouver Arts Centre                                                                                                

MOONLIGHT- An exhibition of new artworks by early-career abstract surrealist painter, Saira Ellen K. Spencer. 

Who doesn't love the moon?

Inspired by Luddism, the Art Nouveau movement and Alphonse Mucha’s works “The Seasons”, Saira will present 8 large scale mixed-media paintings for public view at the Vancouver Arts Centre from 16 October.
 
Moonlight will explore our relationship to the world around us and the skies above to celebrate the ritual of attention, our shared histories as well as Great Southern’s night sky and waterways.
 
In making these works, Saira seeks to critique modes of knowledge acquisition and query the ways technology imposes itself upon our lives so as to contribute to contemporary discussions around class and art vs. technology.

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FACE EXPRESSIONS OF MANY
13 October - 18 November 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

Suzie Kettle has spent time exploring the expressions of the human face for this exhibition. Utilizing her needle and embroidery thread, she allows the structure of each facial image to evolve. The combination of paint, ink, graphite, pastels, and stitched thread consequently delivers the outcome of many expressive faces. The Kitchen Face Friends series were driven by the passionate, obsessive process of incorporating food and photographic processes as mediums. Hand modelled paper clay and glaze sculptures will engage the viewer with further expressions of the face. Paint, Stitch, Prose, Pottery and so much more in Face Expressions of Many at the Albany Town Hall.
 

Image: Suzie Kettle, ‘Grand Dwelling with Reflective Space’ (detail), Indian Ink Acrylic Paint Canvas,  2023. Photo image by ACE Camera Club Bob Symons

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TRACING GONDWANA

8 September - 7 October 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

 

Janine McCrum   Monika Lukowska   Nikki Green   Renee Pettitt Schipp
 
Tracing Gondwana is a cross-art collaboration between 3 printmakers and a writer (Nikki Green, Monika Lukowska, Janine McCrum and Renee Pettitt –Schipp). Together, they weave words with images to build awareness of the value of the Biodiversity Hotspot in the Great Southern. Comprising of works on paper, silks and metal sculptures Tracing Gondwana incorporates artist books; lino-block prints, etchings, photography and digital prints. Poignant text weaves in and out of visibility amongst a palimpsest of markings evoking the irony of beauty in an extremely vulnerable and threatened ecological time.

Image: Nikki Green, Koi Kyeunu Ruff A Brutal Perspective on an Ancient Range

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BOWL OF LIGHT
4 August - 7 September 2023 | Vancouver Arts Centre 
                                                                                                 
Presenting Bowl of Light by Tessa Moncrieff; an exhibition that draws inspiration from Hawaiian knowledge and ceremony. Explore the vibrant, playful paintings that represent the bowl of light within us – a belief held by the Hawaiians that this light exists within us, nourishes and sustains us as we pass through life until it returns to its source at life’s end.

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COLOUR IN PRACTICE

28 July - 2 September 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

Art Collective WA in collaboration with the City of Albany is pleased to present 'Colour in Practice', an exhibition featuring the works of four mid-career and senior abstract artists: Cathy Blanchflower, Jennifer Cochrane, Helen Smith, and Michele Theunissen.

The exhibition will showcase the artists' ongoing fascination with colour, form, minimalism, patterning, and formal structure, and will run from 28 July to 2 September 2023 at the Albany Town Hall.


Image: Cathy Blanchflower, Myria VII, 2019, oil on canvas.

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WABISABI
30 June - 13 July 2023 | Vancouver Arts Centre 

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, the Wabi-sabi view finds beauty in that which is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete in nature. This year, the Albany Pottery Group have embraced their Wabi-sabi for their upcoming exhibition at the VAC. Wabi-sabi very easily fits together with clay work and ceramic making since the clay elements and fire involved are nature itself. The exhibition will include both functional and sculptural objects and most items will be available for sale. The works will be housed across four gallery spaces within the VAC building, including the outdoor courtyard.

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MIARITCH - COLLECTIONS OF NOONGAR ART
27 June - 22 July 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

This exhibition showcases images created by twelve prominent Noongar artists and the dedicated work of two local collectors who have promoted and championed Noongar art over decades.

Tony Davis and Trevor Garland have opened up their collections for the first time to share their passion with the art-loving public.

The title – Miaritch – is the Menang name for Oyster Harbour and symbolises the mingling of many different waters in one place. Artists cannot survive without collectors and vice versa. Together, they create a legacy for the future and our benefit.

 Image: Untitled (Sunrise over the Stirlings) by Bella Kelly (Photographer: Bo Wong) from the Trevor Garland collection 

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TRANSCRIPTS OF PLACE
THE FAMILIAR AND THE FOREIGN
27 May - 29 June 2023
Vancouver Arts Centre 
                                                                                                 
Transcripts of Place is a visual diary recording artist Jhodi Bennett's yearlong African adventure. Jhodi's artworks communicate personal stories exploring familiar and foreign experiences with people and the natural world. 
 
Around a fire, towards the end of Jhodi's time in Africa, the artist was invited to experience story telling through dance, animal masks and costumes. This night inspired Jhodi to integrate animals as a representation of people for storytelling purposes. 

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GENERATIONS

25 May - 21 June 2023 | Albany Town Hall 

Shandell Cummings, Lynette Knapp, Jaymee Woods and Jessikah Woods.

The First Nations art scene has changed over the years.

This exhibition by 3 generations of local Menang First Nations artists will give insight to some of these changes.

4 Merningar yorgas will highlight their interpretations on their life, culture and family living in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.

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PASTELS
27 March - 14 April  | Vancouver Arts Centre 

Something special is happening at the Vancouver Art Centre this March. The Albany Art Group Pastel artists will be holding its inaugural Pastel Exhibition. A small group of enthusiastic artists have been working towards this exhibition since forming a little over 12 months ago. Come and see some amazing works in pastel. Put these dates in your diary and support this wonderful exhibition.
 

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SEA SINGS, LUMEN AND WINGED REALM

3 March - 30 March  | Albany Town Hall 

Sea Sings, Lumen and Winged Realm  brings together work by Australian artists Jo Darvall, Martin King, and Clare Humphries, who explore connectedness to land, sky and species. Each artist’s work arises through practices of wondering, observing and passing through—sometimes walking around urban parks, sometimes strolling in bushland, at other times leafing through books and archives, or watching the rising moon. They seek to become more attentive to the presences around them, and to honour the species and ecosystems that are under constant threat in the colonial anthropocene.

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IMMERSE

21 January - 25 February 2023 | Albany Town Hall

Art meets science in Immerse, a new exhibition from MIX Artists.  

Inspired by marine science, twenty contemporary artists present fascinating new work in a range of media.  Engaging with scientists through the Western Australian Marine Science Institute (WAMSI), the artists have dived into the research and have re-surfaced with imaginative takes on pressing issues facing the marine environment and the challenges ahead for marine scientists.

MIX Artists is a group of contemporary artists from the Great Southern, which presents high quality thought-provoking exhibitions. Immerse will be exhibited at the Albany Town Hall from January 21 to February 25, 2023, and will tour to the Collie Art Gallery from 6 May to 11 June, 2023.

The Immerse exhibitors are Susan Angwin, Kerrie Argent, Christine Baker, Lynley Campbell, Ann Copeman, Jenny Crisp, Annette Davis, Kevin Draper, Phoebe Duff, Anne Grotian, Catherine Higham, Robyn Lees, Barbara Madden, Jill O’Meehan, Terri Pikora, Nat Rad, Lizzie Riley, Renee Tan, Margaret Sanders, and Jo Wassell.

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BORN WITH WINGS

13 January - 26 January 2023 | Vancouver Arts Centre 

An exhibition of paintings and drawings of Australian dry land and its birds.

This project is based on the principles of waste reduction using recycled materials and to bring awareness to the decline of bird species.

30 works comprising a collaboration of expressionist paintings and neo realistic drawings by established artists Bo Laidler and Rex Davies