THE name of a new exhibition at Ross Creek Gallery points to an underling ethos that four artists and friends share.<\/p>\n
Outside the Lines opens on Saturday 4 July and runs through to Sunday 26 July, featuring original work by established artists who have been friends and peers for years.<\/p>\n
They all, at some point, worked for the iconic Australian artist fashion brand Katsui in Ballarat.<\/p>\n
The creations of Ballarat’s April Welfare, Learmonth’s Sarah Lloyd, Sue Quinlan Brain who resides near Portland, and the gallery’s own Janine Ronaldson will all go on show.<\/p>\n
For Welfare, place, memory and personal history collide in her series of ten paintings and handprints that pay homage to her western district upbringing on a property at Bradvale near Skipton.<\/p>\n
“Some are landscape-based and are some are drawn from familiar objects that belonged to my parents who were married for 71 years,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a connection to a sense of place and personal history.<\/p>\n
“They are oil on canvas and a series of handprints mixing a couple of different methods. I have used monoprints and lino as a stamp and combined them together.”<\/p>\n
Place is a source of inspiration for Quinlan Brain whose paintings capture both the farmland and the bushland settings of her current home situated between Portland and Mount Gambier.<\/p>\n
“I’ll just get out there in the bush with the paints and draw and paint outside then finish off the paintings in the studio,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I start with acrylics and finish with oil.”<\/p>\n
Longtime Ballarat locals will racall Quinlan Brain both from Katsui that she founded with her sister Kate, and from the gallery they ran in Lydiard Street in the 90s.<\/p>\n
For each of the artists represented, Outside the Lines aims to celebrate continuity, mutual inspiration and the artistic freedom to push boundaries.<\/p>\n
“When we were all working at Katsui there was a lot of hand painting in the production of the work there and we had the motto that you don’t have to paint inside the lines,” Welfare laughed.<\/p>\n
“It’s about giving yourself that permission to remember that as an artist you don’t have to stay in the lines.”<\/p>\n
Ross Creek Gallery is at 183 Post Office Road, Smythes Creek and is open weekends and by appointment.<\/p>\n
The exhibition will have an opening event on Sunday 5 July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE name of a new exhibition at Ross Creek Gallery points to an underling ethos that four artists and friends share. Outside the Lines opens on Saturday 4 July and runs through to Sunday 26 July, featuring original work by established artists who have been friends and peers for years. They all, at some point, […]<\/p>\n