Putting the past on show

A NUMBER of Ballarat creatives are revisiting their pasts with a new exhibition at Art Space Ballarat.

Visual art group The Colourful Bunch’s When I was a Boy show launched on Saturday and exhibiting group member John Canham said it’s about exploring their history through creative expression.

“It’s a way of trying to portray with art some of our memories and recollections and things we associated with our childhoods,” he said.

“Some of us have taken the theme a bit more deeply and some of us have just taken it from something that relates to our past.

“One of our members produced some photographs that relate to his young life. It varies between each of us.”

The exhibition features about 40 works between the group’s members which includes Allan Moody, Jon Lam, Linton Horsfield, Brian Lawrence, David Adams, Rudi Sawall, Kirk Alexander, and Barry Walters.

Subject matter around the theme ranged from abstract content such as a work depicting a Welsh dragon while another piece explored a mother’s love for her young son.

Canham’s works were influenced directly by his formative surroundings.

“I produced pictures of the home I first lived in and those things that affected my life in a big way,” he said.

“The house was a prefab in London which was a temporary house and one of 150,000 built after the second world war to house homeless people.

“I did it as a memory as a kid. It’s sort of a naïve painting rather than a true to life painting.”

When I was a Boy is on show until Sunday 31 March with the gallery open from Wednesdays to Sundays 11am to 4.30pm.