Colourful call back to region’s past

THE latest exhibitor at the Art Gallery of Ballarat’s Backspace is reinterpreting Victorian geography with a vibrant spin.

Reimagining our Cultural Landscapes is visual artist Lisa Gervasoni’s first solo show and is about adding her voice to areas previously captured by colonial landscape artist Eugene von Guérard.

With 1850s Ballarat, Hepburn, Melbourne, and Daylesford depicted, Gervasoni said there’s a personal connection to the series.

“Hepburn, for example is where I live. It’s putting some of that connection [in, and]… von Guérard painted around the Daylesford area,” she said.

“He painted Tower Hill, and my mother grew up on a farm on the slopes of Tower Hill. Practically everywhere I’ve lived, worked, travelled past has had a von Guérard.

“It’s always been that connection to landscape painters but also the professional sense.”

With her artistic “lifelong education” attributed to the influence of her sister who is the art curator for Federation University, Gervasoni said her work as a heritage planner has shaped her style.

Work on the series started about two years ago during which Gervasoni would visit the subject sites or utilise existing aerial photos to work from.

“Back in the day when I did planning you also had to do a bit of surveying in cartography because you didn’t have cameras, you had to draw things,” she said.

“That probably comes out and also my experience in heritage where you look at significance, you look at fabric, what makes a place.”

The exhibition showcases 29 paintings and textile pieces each sporting wildly colourful pallets rather than the earthy browns, greens, and greys of landscape photography.

“Maybe I should have been a kinder teacher because I love brights,” Gervasoni said.

“It’s a bit of expressionism. It’s actually looking at challenging the normal perception of things but still seeing the place. It does potentially highlight those layers or meanings.”

Reimagining our Cultural Landscapes is on display until Sunday, 25 June.