FOR nearly twenty years queer art has been celebrated in the Queer Country exhibition held to coincide with the Pride Festival.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing about it is that we have people from the amateur range, but then we have the top end,\u201d said Sims.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a work here by David Lee Pereira, he had stuff at the back of the NGV so we\u2019ve got a varied range of people from the top of their career and people starting their careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queer Country has attracted a diverse range of artforms and themes including digital art, sculpture, oil paintings and video installation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people have done life-drawing of skulls and that sort of thing, but then Ivan Sun he\u2019s done a big textile collage piece,\u201d said Sims.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got plenty of clean-cut images, but then you\u2019ve got the erotic stuff as well so it\u2019s very varied.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole purpose was to promote and support local queer artists where most of the time in history they probably didn\u2019t have that support,\u201d Sims said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queer Country is on at Dudley House from the 14 to 21 March.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n