Queer Country opens at Dudley House

FOR nearly twenty years queer art has been celebrated in the Queer Country exhibition held to coincide with the Pride Festival.

This year the exhibition includes more than 60 artworks by local LGBTQIA+ artists from various career stages to showcase the range of work produced in Bendigo by the queer community.

Nathan Sims, who co-curated the exhibition with fellow artist Sarah Wallace-Sims said they accepted all submissions to keep the show as inclusive as possible.

“The good thing about it is that we have people from the amateur range, but then we have the top end,” said Sims.

“I’ve got a work here by David Lee Pereira, he had stuff at the back of the NGV so we’ve got a varied range of people from the top of their career and people starting their careers.”

Queer Country has attracted a diverse range of artforms and themes including digital art, sculpture, oil paintings and video installation.

“Some people have done life-drawing of skulls and that sort of thing, but then Ivan Sun he’s done a big textile collage piece,” said Sims.

“You’ve got plenty of clean-cut images, but then you’ve got the erotic stuff as well so it’s very varied.”

The exhibition found its beginnings two decades ago to increase exposure and opportunity for regional queer artists, but in recent years has transformed into more a celebration of queer art.

“The whole purpose was to promote and support local queer artists where most of the time in history they probably didn’t have that support,” Sims said.

“So now it’s showcasing and supporting those artists and putting them in the limelight because we do have so many great artists in Bendigo, but we also have many great queer artists in Bendigo.”

Queer Country is on at Dudley House from the 14 to 21 March.

An opening event will take place tonight 15 March from 6pm to 8pm, and on Saturday 21 March visitors will be able to paticipate in artist run workshops.