previous Exhibitions

CLAUDIA MOODOONUTHI - MY BODY, MY COUNTRY

03-Mar-2015 - 28-Mar-2015

Alcaston Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of new paintings and installation by Queensland artist Claudia Moodoonuthi. Claudia spent the first seven years of her life on Bentinck and Mornington Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria where she was raised by her late Great Grandmother May Moodoonuthi. It was here that Claudia formed a deep connection to her Kaiadilt family and culture, learning traditional skills such as hunting, fishing and gathering in the bush.

My Body, My Country will exhibit new paintings, puppets and skateboards. Claudia’s bold and colourful painting style is greatly influenced by the time spent with her Great Grandmother and renowned artists and elders from Bentinck Island. Her artwork intimately depicts the landscape of her youth, including the island’s swamps and salt pans, cliffs and birdlife, as well as sea pods which appear in the wet season and signify creation and regeneration. Claudia’s artworks convey her wicked sense of humour, and reveal at every stroke of her brush her love and connection to Bentinck Island. This exhibition will include three paintings by the late May Moodoonuthi.

In 2014 Claudia Moodoonuthi was a finalist in the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, and featured in major exhibitions Solid! Queensland Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture at the Cairns Regional Gallery, and Dreamings: L’arte Aborigena Australiana Incontra de Chirico, at the Museo Carlo Bilotti, Italy. Claudia Moodoonuthi is currently studying a Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art at Griffith University, Queensland.

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For more information and to preview this exhibition please contact Alcaston Gallery on 03 9418 6444 or email art@alcastongallery.com.au

JUDY HOLDING: THE LAYERED LANDSCAPE 2017

05-Sep-2017 - 30-Sep-2017

Alcaston Gallery proudly presents an exciting body of work by Judy Holding, including new watercolours and sculptures. Judy Holding is an established multidisciplinary artist with a practice spanning 35 years. Holding’s sweeping painterly documentation and playful sculptural forms present a spirited meditation on plants, animals, indigenous mythology, and the role of man in the vast biosphere. Exuding immense energy, Holding’s personal visual vocabulary of symbolic forms conveys her lifelong connection to the landscape of regional Victoria and far north Australia. Her work is collected by many public and private collections, including the major institutions: the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; the Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria; the Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria; the Mildura Arts Centre, Victoria; and the collections of Deakin, LaTrobe and Victoria University, Victoria.

Image: Judy Holding, White Lady at Cannon Hill, 2017, watercolour on paper, 57 x 76 cm.

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HERMANNSBURG POTTERS - IRNA: TREES 2017

05-Sep-2017 - 30-Sep-2017

Alcaston Gallery is delighted to present Irna: Trees a new body of work by The Hermannsburg Potters. This exhibition represents an important development in the practice of the celebrated ceramic artists, introducing new directions in sculptural forms and painterly depictions celebrating the beauty, spirit and life-giving force of trees within the landscape: IRNA: Marna, Itarrkngilanha, Pmara - Tree: Food, Medicine, Home.

Presented alongside new work by leading watercolourist and sculptor Judy Holding, who was artist-in-residence at The Hermannnsburg Potters studio in 2016.

Alcaston Gallery has represented the Hermannsburg Potters spanning 30 years. Their unique, immediately recognisable style has been exhibited widely through Australia and internationally. Their major installation commission for the National Gallery of Victoria Our Land is Alive, NGV Australia 19 December 2015 - 11 April 2016, set new benchmarks for their engaging and lyrical pots.

The Hermannsburg Potters are world-renowned as master ceramicists and their work is held in most major Australian institutions and several major art collections internationally.

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Hermannsburg Potters: Lyilhama - Music 2017

30-Jun-2017 - 22-Jul-2017

Alcaston Gallery is delighted to present this small collection of ceramics by the renowned Hermannsburg Potters. Lyilhama – meaning music, or song - depicts scenes of Indigenous musicians, concert performances, visiting community bands and songs – all based around the artists’ personal experiences and memories of music. Exhibiting artists: Rahel Kngwarriya Ungwanaka, Rona Panangka Rubuntja, Hayley Panangka Coulthard, Anita Mbitjana Ratara, Beth Mbitjana Inkamala, Caroline Kamaarra Forbes.

The Hermannsburg Potters are world-renowned as master ceramicists and their work is held in most major Australian institutions and several major art collections internationally.

Image: Rona Panangka Rubuntja, Pitjantjatjara Boy (Isaac Yamma), 2016 (AK20625) Terracotta nd underglazes, 50 x 30 cm.

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DEAN SMITH: PINK TERRACES

04-Apr-2017 - 22-Apr-2017

We are delighted to present Dean Smith's second solo exhibition with Alcaston Gallery - his most adventurous and important exhibition to date. A masterful ceramic artist, Smith has achieved global recognition for his sculptural ceramics and technically complex glazing techniques.

Of his forthcoming exhibition the artist states:

The Pink Terrace was once a large and beautiful silica deposit in New Zealand, created by chance and destroyed by chance, possibly by an eruption of Mount Tarawera. A place exists and then doesn’t exist. For this exhibition I have made some slab-built vessels, moving away from the familiarity of the wheel-thrown form as the sole basis for my work. As I build the work my thoughts are around structures, chambers or tombs - permanent structures housing the impermanent/ the permanent structure erased by the forces of nature/beauty and fragility. - Dean Smith, 2017 Dean Smith was a finalist in the 2016 Biennial North Queensland Ceramic Art Award and is currently a finalist in the 8th Talent Award of the Nassauische Sparkasse at the Keramikmuseum Westerwald, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany. Pink Terraces will be open by Jennifer Kalionis, Director, Castlemaine Art Museum, Saturday 8 April 2 - 4 pm. Contact us for further information

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SHIRLEY MACNAMARA: MAARDI BUTALA 2017

14-Mar-2017 - 25-Mar-2017

Alcaston Gallery is delighted to present the third solo exhibition by acclaimed artist Shirley Macnamara. Maardi Butala, meaning 'together for a long time'.

"Most of the material I find while mustering. On a horse is a good vantage point to see many things, take note of where it is and go back later to get it or them - be it bones, feathers, seeds, wax, whatever.

All of these things have coexisted for a long time and for me it’s a gathering, collecting need that never goes away. " - Shirley Macnamara, March 2017

Macnamara produces woven sculptural objects utilising materials predominantly sourced from her property and traditional country Camooweal in north-west Queensland. Her time-consuming, considered and process-based practice reveals sophisticated multi-layered meanings that draw upon issues of environment, history, politics, culture, family and deeply personal emotions. Shirley Macnamara is an artist of great insight, creating poetic objects of immense beauty and poignancy.

A multiple award finalist and regular institutional exhibitor, Macnamara's work is found in several major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns, Queensland.

Image: Shirley Macnamara, Well of Remembering, 2016, Spinifex, bullock bone cross, emu feathers and fixative, 28 x 26 x 20 cm.

Shirley Macnamara has received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Backing Indigenous Arts initiative.

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