Tjala Arts was started by the women of Amata in 1997 and was originally called Minymaku Arts (Ladies Arts), it was renamed in 2006 to reflect the involvement of Anangu men in the art centre.
Aboriginal art and craft has been produced in Amata since the 1970’s but it was usually sold through the occasional exhibition or to the very few passing tourists or government employees.
In 1981 a group of Amata people took their punu (wood carvings) to Uluru (Ayers Rock) to gain access to the expanding tourist market.

Following the success of this venture, the art centre was established and the artists expanded their craft-based skills to fine arts practice including painting (acrylic on canvas/linen) and printmaking.

The centre is now a highly successful fine art centre creating exhibition standard work in a variety of mediums.

The video further down this page takes the viewer around the sculptures of Walcha.

At the moment I have an exhibition showing at the Walcha Gallery of Art. The gallery is beautiful and light in an interesting town on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. The director, Carley McLaren, hangs the work so that it shows to the best advantage.


I am showing with Anna Henderson, a painter and sculptor/potter from Guyra and Nigel Killalea who is a painter from Coffs Harbour.

Sunset. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 2. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 3. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 4. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm.

Through the trees. Acrylic on paper. 1. 8cm x 24cm

Through the trees 2. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Anna Henderson has said she has "been a full time artist for over twenty years. I am a potter, exploring raku, sawdust and saggar firing, and I paint abstract landscapes on canvas and linen, using acrylics, oil sticks, oil and charcoal.

Living in a fairly isolated part of the beautiful New England Tablelands, I appreciate every day, the changing mood, colours and energy of the landscape beyond my front fence." Anna Henderson 2011

Anna lives and works on the land near Guyra on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. http://www.redbubble.com/people/annahenderson

Nigel Killalea has painted for many years in regional Australia and has explored ideas of myth and landscape. He presently works from the North Coast of New South Wales

 The Walcha community is an artistic community being home to well-known painters and sculptors. The town itsel has many outdoor sculptures by the local sculptors. It has its own outdoor gallery.

Black cockatoo. Ross Laurie

Song cycle. James Rogers

The board. Stephen King

The warrior. Tom Deko

 



Last week I won the painting section of the Armidale Art Society Competition. It was a nice surprise. It was the first time I had entered anything for years. This is the painting. It is titled "Tsunami", it is about 50x70cm and is acrylic on canvas

I have work at the moment at the Walcha Gallery of Art. The exhibition is with Anna Henderson and Nigel Killalea. The opening night was very enjoyable and the works were nicely displayed.

I came across this today. I'm not sure why I haven't seen it before this. It is old but contains a lot of familiar places and faces.

I am moving next week to a little house in Uralla. I am looking forward to watching this in my new "home town".

Images of the work of the other three artists in the exhibition, Four Women Paint Land.

Michelle Hungerford (on the left) and Fay Porter's work

Kerry Gulliver's paintings.

Eucalypt and granite 2. Acrylic and mixed media on paper. 50cm x 70cm

The exhibition opening was well attended and on the following day, I with the other three artists exhibiting, gave a talk and worked in the gallery. Not much work was done though just a lot of really interesting conversation with the people visiting the gallery.

My exhibition in Coffs Harbour is now on show. The opening was well attended and the worked looked good on the walls. It was interesting to see the different approaches of four different painters working in the same area. Some depicted scenes at a distance and some being immersed in the landscape. My work at the moment is of the latter.
The artist talk the morning after the opening was interesting in the end. There was a lot of discussion of women's art in particular landscape painting. There was discussion as to whether women's sensibilities led to different artistic expression. 

http://www.artguide.com.au/exhibition/four-women-paint-land/

Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery

Rosalie Rigby, Fire in the gorge.

12 May to 23 June

Four Women Paint Land

Fay Porter, Kerry Gulliver, Michelle Hungerford, Rosalie Rigby

Fay Porter, Kerry Gulliver, Michelle Hungerford and Rosalie Rigby interrogate the expansive New England Tablelands.  This show reveals the particular ways in which women view landscape.

www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/our-community/facilities-parks-and-places/regional-gallery/Pages/CoffsHarbourRegionalGallery.aspx

Opening night Friday 11 May, 6pm-8pm

Also on show was paintings and prints by David Bromley and sculptures by Peter Wade.

 

David Bromley

12 May to 23 June

David Bromley

Printmaker and painter. Exhibits intriguingly detailed prints in a show that reveals great skill.

Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery

Peter Wade, Timber Tie

12 May to 23 June

Peter Wade

Sculptor. Exhibits curious and surreally inspired wooden ties. These are destined to become collectors items.

Tomorrow evening is the opening of my exhibition in Coffs Harbour. I am not nervous about what people will think of my work as this has always been irrelevant. My art is all to do with the process and comes from somewhere deep inside of me. I am not worried by what other people think of my work.
What does make me nervous, however, is being the centre of attention at the opening and at the artists talk the following day. I will be glad when that part is over and I can get back to painting in ernest.
Some quick paint impressions from my journal:

Granite outcrop sketch.

http://www.liveguide.com.au/Events/745857/Fay_Porter_Kerry_Gulliver_Michelle_Hungerford_Rosalie_Rigby/Four_Women_Paint_Land_2012

I have been continuing to work on my bush paintings for the exhibition at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery. This exhibition opens on the 11th May. My work is now all at the framers so it is a fait accompli. After the Friday opening I, with some other painters, will be giving an artists talk. I have also been asked to paint in the gallery on the Saturday but I'm not sure if I will do that as I find that it is difficult to work properly in public. This is another one of my granite and eucalypt paintings. It is acrylic on paper and is 50cm x 70cm.

I have been painting trees in a paddock near my home. There is a particular outcrop of gums among some large granite boulders that has a particular atmosphere. Amongst the rocks and trees in the middle of a paddock a farmer has been buried by his family. They brought him to the place to bury him in the land that he had worked and loved.

It is cattle country with a large sprawling house with verandahs all around - an old Australian farmhouse. Generations of the family have lived there and become of the larger community. Three sons and a son-in-law in one generation died fighting in World War One. The father of those boy,s it was said in a local news item of the time, died of a broken heart.

The grave is a deep grey marble colour blending in with the grey of the granite. The only difference is in the smoothness of the stone. A person wouldn't know it was there unless they went into the centre. There are no other markers.

New exhibition

I haven't been on this blog for a long time. I have caught up with all the work and drama of selling and moving houses. That is in the final stages now though I haven't found a place to move into as yet. I can just see the light at the end of that particular tunnel.
I have been working recently towards a show at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery:
http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/our-community/facilities-parks-and-places/regional-gallery/Pages/ExhibitionCalendar.aspx
It is an exhibition of four female landscape artists from my area. It is interesting to ponder whether gender makes a difference to concepts, responses and artistic expressions are related to landscape art. Race has been accepted as often an important aspect of the forms of expression of a persons response to their land "scape"
Logically it would seem to me that gender would be a factor just in so far as different groups notice different aspects of the same place. Our art, however, is also so much based on what we have seen and learned that this isn't clear cut.
Artists that have written about and acknowledged in the past have mainly been male. It is said that history is written by the victors.
This has changed but our art history education is still done by looking at the Michelangelos, the Titians, the Tiepolos etc of the world. I'd be interested in your views on this.
Here is one of the paintings that I have done for the Coffs Harbour exhibition.
It is based on the eucalypts in the paddocks around my home.