Vintage moments inspire new works

A NEW exhibition at Solders Hill’s Old Butcher’s Shop Gallery is drawing visitors into little vignettes of the past.

Visual artist Petra Rodgers is showcasing a collection of oil paintings called Silent Picture Show until Sunday 23 July.

“They’re all paintings based on vintage photographs that I collect,” she said. “I’m a bit of a collector of things.

“The photos range from the 19th century up until the 1980s, and they can be quite detailed, but I just take a snippet of the photos and reproduce them in paint.

“I’m interested in stories and recalling some of my own childhood and family memories, and I draw them out of other people’s photographs.

“I like the fact that the photos have so much history, and I’m intrigued by what people are wearing, the furniture, and I wonder why they’re doing certain things.

“I’m not trying to dictate my story, I just want people to get something for themselves out of it. They might remember something from their own childhood or experience.”

The content of some of the works includes a bird on a rock in 1970s America, and a couple of people sitting at a dinner table in the 1980s.

“It reminded me of clothes that I used to wear in the 80s, because I grew up in that time,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers studied fine arts before moving to Ballarat in 2004 and having her own show in the Art Gallery of Ballarat in 2009.

For more than a decade, she took a break from art, but in the last few years, she has been “reemerging” on the scene.

“Painting is my main thing,” she said. “I used to do more watercolours, but I’ve moved on from that a little bit.

“The exhibition is not just about photos, but that I’m interested in the surfaces of painting, and what you can do with paint as well.”