Unlikely artist launches first show at Drysdale gallery

A RETIRED Leopold printer and a Birchip sheep shearer are the latest unlikely exhibitors at an innovative Drysdale gallery, which is providing new opportunities for both aspiring and incidental local artists.

The pair of old school mates, Bruce Appleford and Brian Lea, have launched their Through Brush and Lens exhibition at the Artisans of Australia Gallery, with their painting and photograph pieces showing a range of perspectives of regional Victoria.

Bruce lives in Leopold and is a retired printer, with his career including a stint with the Australian Army during the Vietnam War, where he would modify maps to include features like tracks, landmines and bunkers identified by troops during missions.

He had fleeting artistic interest in primary school but stayed away from the brushes until the last 10 years, when he began experimenting with pastels, watercolours, oils and earth pigments to create the pieces that feature in the current exhibition.

Brian still lives in the friends’ hometown of Birchip, western Victoria, and is from a farming family.

He received his first camera as a boy, as a gift from his dad for taking over the morning milking from his mum, and has spent decades afterwards shooting on-farm life and landscapes through his lens.

The pair grew apart after travelling down their own paths, but school reunions and a strong friendship between the two men’s partners set the wheels in motion for a joint art venture.

Bruce had agreed to an exhibition at the insistence of his partner, Beth White, after amassing an impressive collection of work from his self-taught methods, and asked Brian to partner with him for the show.

It’s Bruce’s first ever art exhibition, after diving head-first into his new passion around 2012 through an unconventional training regime.

“There’s a lot of good stuff on YouTube, I tell you,” he said.

“I looked it up and started doing acrylic work, because I thought it was the easiest.

“I got onto a guy up in New South Wales, Mark Waller, and learnt so many little things that helped me. I just watched video after video of different blokes.”

The Leopold artist’s unusual pathway to the gallery is symbolic of the Drysdale gallery’s mission, which aims to provide new opportunities for artists and to showcase them in an inclusive community space.

The gallery includes a coffee station and an inviting public space for visitors to chat, read, play board games or ponder their next creation.

Out the back are dozens of workshops for local artisans, including painters, jewellers, glass workers and furniture restorers, to hone their skills.

The studio is the brainchild of social planner Helen Meikle; an English-born, former House of Commons researcher coaxed to Australia by a Deakin University city planning project.

Mrs Meikle launched Artisans in December 2019 as a space for creatives and makers to refine and show their work, with an intense local focus.

“The only thing that’s not Australian about this building is the owner,” she said.

Artisans offers classes for aspiring artists as well as providing productive spaces for seasoned creators to produce work for commission-free exhibition, which Mrs Meikle said helps people of all experiences realise their creative potentials.

“With a commission-based model, galleries need to be very selective with what goes into their space in order to survive, and that’s a real loss for the community,” she said.

“Because work I don’t like, you might love, and not everyone might get seen. By making it an artist-run space, we don’t have to make a decision based on what’s going to make us money.”

The Appleford-Lea exhibition is alongside a concurrent show from Point Lonsdale watercolour painter Stephen Wright, who has been practicing art for more than 40 years.

Through Brush and Lens is on show until March 10.