A lovely gallery in the pretty town of Walcha. The current exhibition is of Barbara Mackay's paintings. Adjoining the gallery is a beautiful guest house. Walcha is a town where a number of prominent artists live and is on the Northern Tablelands adjacent to Apsley Gorge and National Park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3_mHJzxtgI
The view from here. John Olsen. On Youtube

After a break to gather my thoughts and get ready to work again things are starting to flow again. My exhibition is up at the moment at the New England Regional Art museum and I am happy with how it has gone. I am happy with the way it looks hung and so far have sold enough to cover my costs. There is a week to go before I take it down. I will then place some works in a couple of galleries. It has been very relaxing not having the pressure of exhibitions in the offing. Hopefully the next year can be spent painting, exploring and "playing".

From my trip to the outback I have brought back many inspirations and ideas of new work. These will be based on the importance of the rock structures as the "bones of the land" (Heysen). The sketches I did while in the MacDonnell Ranges were realistic in the shapes and colours of the fault lines and pitted red sandstone but the resulting paintings may be abstract. The shapes outback are stark, beautifully coloured and awe-inspiring. The problem would be to paint a painting that is not a cliche, that is not a "been there done that". Some images showing the abstract nauture of the landscape

I'm really looking forward to a trip to the outback soon. I leave on Friday for two weeks. I am hoping to do some gouache and pen and ink works. If I can I may do some larger acrylic works. Oil painting would be too messy and so can be done later in the studio based on memories, sketches and photographs. I will be staying at Glen Helen just west of Alice Springs and making day trips.
I now have a Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rosalie-Rigby/119529508057300?ref=search&sid=1055451673.2342035170..1

I'm off to Dubbo tomorrow to set up my exhibition there. This opens on 8th May. To add to the usual pre-exhibition rush and stress four of my paintings have been lost somewhere between Brisbane and Armidale. It has been two weeks but they haven't shown up. I have been very disappointed as I put a lot of work into them and really wanted to show them with this group of works.

Lately I have been getting my work organised and framed for my exhibition in Dubbo. I have been trying to organise my thoughts about my art. I would like to communicate in this exhibition why the landscape is so involving for me. What is it that is so compelling and what is it about the land that gives me such joy. It is more than being about the look of a particular place. It is about the earth as living and forceful as evidenced by the easily visible landforms. One just has to see the way in which the force of the volcano in Iceland brought so much human activity to a standstill to realise that it is the primeval forces of nature existing eternally that guides landform and land use.

This morning I went to a friend Barbara Mackay's floor talk at her exhibition at the New England Regional Art Museum. She paints in a beautifully free lyrical way. This is a link to her blog with images of her work and writing about them. http://www.barbaramackay.wordpress.com/

The gorge. Oil on canvas 30cmX30cm

Last weekend I went to Dubbo to meet the Gallery Director and to see the space that I will be exhibiting in. It is an interesting and exciting space in that the walls are moveable allowing a freedom in the layout. It allows a way of using a space that can say something about the art and art process. I'm not sureyet how I will use this space but it would be challenging to include something of my artmaking process and how the process reflects my relationship with the land and depicted reactions to it. It has introduced a whole other factor to the meaning of the works and the process of communicating with the viewer which is very exciting.

Last Saturday evening I went to the opening of an exhibition at Tamworth Regional Gallery of paintings by Ross Laurie and David McBride. Both artists work derives from the landscape in which they live. Ross lives in the country near Walcha and David is from the Mendooran area near Dubbo. Ross's work is complex and textural while David's work is done with large flat blocks of colour in which balance of these fewbrilliantly-coloured elemental shapes are carefully balanced. A couple of links to information and images of the artists are

http://www.damienmintongallery.com.au/artists/ross-laurie
http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/gallery-brings-artists-together-for-exhibit/1773069.aspx

Ross taught me many years ago and is always a challenging and highly professional teacher and artist. I feel that I can always rely on his honesty and an opinion of my work that is based in experience and knowledge.

This Friday just gone I attended the opening of a Uralla artist Barbara Mackay. Her paintings are free and expressive and reflect her engagement with the landscape. Barbara has travelled extensively and has a wealth of experience, talent and a strong commitment to her art. She recently had an exhibition in Kuala Lumpar, won an award there and the exhibition that just opened is going to travel enabling many people to view her work.
A link to her work in the recent Malaysian exhibition is

http://www.annexegallery.com/index.php?option=com_eventlist&view=details&id=131:the-magic-hour-barbara-mckay-solo-show&Itemid=28