Exhibition promises food for the soul

Food for the Soul is the title of an upcoming exhibition at the Naracoorte Regional Art Gallery which will also complement the Taste the Limestone Coast Festival next month.

Adelaide Hills artist Caroline Johnson will be exhibiting 70 works of still life paintings of food and the natural environment.

A Meet the Artist and Exhibition Preview will be held at the Gallery on Wednesday, January 17, at 6pm.

Ms Johnson said the paintings relate to her engagement with and solace in, the natural world, both as a food gardener and a bushwalker.

“My paintings begin with an instance of awe, fleeting moments when something catches my eye and lifts me out of the everyday,” she said.

“It might be the sparkle of dew on my home-grown vegetables or the first glimpse of a distant mountain.

“My small landscapes and still lifes are all painted from direct observation while larger landscapes involve more time in the studio with notes, iPad work and my photographs.”

Living in the Adelaide Hills, the environment, her garden, vegetables, sheep, chickens, husband, children and other animals have served as a constant inspiration for and distractions from her painting.

“The enchantment and endless beauty of natural systems is food for my soul,” Caroline said.

“I have a deep-seated belief that there are implications for humans if we do not consider ourselves a part of nature rather than apart from nature. This underlies my art.”

Ms Johnson describes her upbringing as unconventional as it included several periods of abandoned education, family homes exchanged for a yacht and sailing the Indian Ocean islands, the Atlantic and the Caribbean.

She qualified as a town planner and urban designer and worked for corporations, architects and engineering firms in South Africa and Australia.

In 2022 she graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art from the Adelaide Central School of Art.

Caroline will speak about her art and introduce her exhibition in a new format event at the Gallery on 17 January. The exhibition will support the Taste Festival on February 10 and will run until February 23 and Caroline will run a workshop for local artists on mixing colours on February 24.