By KATRINA BRANDON
BLOOMING success comes from the Latrobe Regional Gallery (LRG) as their Spring exhibition starts to blossom.
Last month, LRG held a grand opening for the season’s new exhibition.
More than 60 people attended the opening, including artists from the exhibitions on show at the facility and other local artists. LRG’s director, Pauline Tranchant, emceed the event, inviting artists within the season’s show to speak about their works.
Aunty Christine Johnathan performed a Welcome to Country, sharing the importance of stories from elders in the community and the stories of the land.
“Stories remain central to identity, resilience in connection to lands, woods and skies,” she told those assembled.
“Our stories of connection to special places are about the origin of a number of people from one generation to the next. Cultural factors, traditional custom ceremonies are laid. Images and stories are the connection. It is more visible and includes a connection to community wellbeing to culture and time.”
Auntie Christine welcomed Latrobe City Council Mayor Dale Harriman to the stage, where he shared his glee at seeing so many visitors at the gallery.
Mayor Harriman spoke highly of the role that art plays in the community, as well as the local team that helped put the season’s treat together.
“The work that they (the artists and LRG) produced is just absolutely stunning,” he said.
“Tonight marks the official launch of our spring season of our exhibition. The gallery is a cultural part of Latrobe City, and tonight we see its role in connecting people through art. We are proud to present our standing exhibitions that showcase our collection pile – bringing contemporary work to Gippsland audiences.”
Boasting about the exhibition spaces, Cr Harriman encouraged people to “spread the word” and to take the time to explore the spaces, taking in the deeper meaning behind the works.
Filling the space, Ms Tranchant introduced the season’s exhibition, sharing the significance of each work before welcoming each artist to share their interpretation.
Current works include Between the Waves, Bloom, Reflections on Inversions, and Still Breathing.
Excitement bloomed at LRG as the exhibition, Between the Waves, was supported by Creative Victoria through the Yalingwa Visual Arts Initiative and the NETS Victoria Exhibition Development Fund, and the federal government’s Visions of Australia program.
Between the Waves is an exhibition developed by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), touring nationally with NETS Victoria, curated by Dr Jessica Clark.
Artists Maree Clarke and James Howard, who worked on Between the Waves, were present at LRG for the opening. Between the Waves can be found upstairs at the gallery.
Mr Howard is primarily a musician who has created a unique audio piece that intertwines with the idea of “between waves,” expanding the meaning of the word wave and exploring sounds produced through different approaches.
“It’s a bit difficult to introduce Between Waves as a whole,” he said.
“I was talking to Maree … I feel like all of our artist interpretations of the prompts took us down very different approaches. Personally, this idea of a resonant history – the power of history embedded in country and place – is something I always try to tap into as a musician.
“For generations, my ancestors and those across this country have drawn our country as a source of storytelling and a place for storytelling to reside. As artists, we continue that tradition through various different mediums.”
Ms Clarke is a Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba, Mutti Mutti and Boonwurrung woman who practices the reclamation of south-east Australian Aboriginal art and culture practices, sharing and reviving elements of the culture that were lost as a consequence of colonialisation.
At the gallery opening, Ms Clarke reiterated the connection between the works and the country. She also noted the differences between the galleries that Behind the Waves had featured, portrayed and presented differently by each curator and gallery.
Progressing through LRG, Ms Clarke and Mr Howard passed the floor onto the following works featured in the gallery.
Introducing Reflections on Inversion and Still Breathing, local artists Karen Zipkas and Liam Maree Rogers applauded the support they received while completing the works. Both emerging artists, winners of the Federation University Emerging Artist Award 2024, discussed their works and the work behind their creations.
Ms Zipkas hails from Mirboo North and was present throughout the horrific storm cell that passed through the town last year. Featuring her personal effects in her work, Ms Zipkas shared the damage through art in a unique form.
Her work, Reflections on Inversion, is a folio-based body of work with a profound connection to climate advocacy, dwelling on Solastalgia and its climatic effects, created in a homemade trailer camera obscura.
Still Breathing is both an amalgamation and a continuation of Liam Maree Rogers’ folio-based work created in his final year (2024) at art school. Still Breathing is a tender, gentle, cautious, and caring exhibition that counsels wellbeing by promoting self care, exercising the right to pause, and indulging in soft mindfulness in an otherwise monotonous, maximalist society driven by overproduction and mass consumption.
Federation University Delegate, Dr Julie Reed Henderson, followed Mr Maree Rogers and Ms Zipkas, speaking about the work they had completed with the university.
Following Dr Reed Henderson, exhibition curator Juan Rodriguez Sandoval highlighted how proud he was to host an ACCA exhibition at a regional gallery, as well as the emerging artists who came along.
“It really has been amazing and truly humbling,” Mr Rodriguez said.
“It is really important that we acknowledge that supporting these promising gifts and artists gives them a vital head-start, and we very much look forward to watching their careers unfold and make Gippsland and their communities proud.”
Closing the night, LRG’s new collections curator, Alexandra Drummond, joined in on the celebrations of the blossoming exhibition, sharing how excited she was to be able to start showing the collection and to explore the local collections in her first LRG curation.
