Wagga Wagga Art Gallery Director Dr Lee-Anne Hall and artists Julia Roche and Anna Louise Richardson with the 2023 Wynne Prize-winning artwork. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
The Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s autumn exhibition is set to launch this weekend with the 2023 Wynne Prize headlining a brilliant seasonal program.
Five exhibitions including the Wynne Prize, will launch as part of the program on Saturday 20 April with Art Gallery of NSW Director Dr Michael Brand to feature in the proceedings.
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery Director Dr Lee-Anne Hall said the gallery was excited local audiences would have access to the Wynne Prize without having to travel to Sydney.
“Presented annually by the Art Gallery of NSW, the Wynne Prize is one of Australia’s premier art prizes and exhibitions,” Dr Hall said.
“We are excited that Wagga Wagga and region-wide audiences will have the opportunity to see the best of Australian contemporary landscape painting and sculpture so close to home.
“There are themes of rural life in the exhibitions by Julia Roche, Anna Louise Richardson and Sophie Chauncy, something local audiences will surely feel a connection with.
“In addition, Lyndall Phelps has delivered an amazing site-specific installation at the National Art Glass Gallery.”
Riverina artist Julia Roche’s exhibition When Our Eyes Adjust, features a number of canvas and paper paintings that are based on a landscape on her farm just south of Wagga.
Ms Roche’s works include interpretive landscapes that were painted on an elevated patch of land on her farm at different times of the day and night.
Local artist Julia Roche created her pieces looking over her family farm at different times of the day. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
“The paintings are less about painting what you think you see and really honing in on my other senses to paint what I feel and smell and hear,” Ms Roche said.
“Once you’ve worked through the night, you see the landscape very differently than during the day and vice versa.
“There’s an interesting relationship between the works; clearly the works created at night, there’s less symbolic language and less detail. It’s more focused on horizon lines and collective memories, whereas the daytime works are more elements and layering.”
Another artist featured is Western Australian artist Anna Lousie Richardson, whose exhibition The Good features large-scale charcoal and granite drawings that ask the viewer to see the good in everyday items.
Western Australian artist Anna Louise Richardson’s works look to connect with regional audiences by finding the good in everyday things. Photo: Supplied.
“I wanted to find a kind of, radical optimism and try and find the good in all the little things,” Ms Richardson said.
“You know a cracked egg may be something that you think, ‘Oh, it’s done for,’ but actually if you have your own chickens, you know that you can use it, you know the history of that egg.”
Ms Richardson said her works were greatly inspired by living in a rural setting and that having her work showcased in Wagga to connect with rural people was a great motivation.
“My work is best received by regional audiences,” she said.
“In a lot of ways it’s made for them and I absolutely love that.
“One of the biggest things I’m looking for in my art practices is for other people to connect to the work that I’ve made; it’s one of my goals. So it’s quite special when people create that personal and emotional connection.”
All events involved with the launch are free and are open to the public but will require an RSVP.
The program will begin at 11 am on Saturday 20 April, with artist Lyndall Phelps giving a floor talk about her exhibition, and will be followed by a panel discussion by all the exhibitions’ artists at 2 pm.
The official launch will begin at 4 pm.
To RSVP or check the program and where the exhibitions are located be sure to visit the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s website here.
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