Experimental, connected art in Ballina this November

THIS November at Northern Rivers Community Gallery will see an eclectic, experimental and connected set of exhibitions in the final series for 2025.

Vivid colour and camera obscura impressions feature in the set of works alongside a site-specific experimental installation.

CONNECTIONS by Gill Williams uses painting and sculpture to blend abstraction and figuration, demonstrating the commonality of human desires and the capacity for connection beyond the limits of language and social structures.

In Bubblegum Bruises, Katie Pink offers an abstract universe that is tender, tough, and unapologetically pink. Aiming to be a space where trauma softens and colour becomes a form of resistance, and play is survival. Pink’s ceramic and mixed-media sculptures and paintings celebrate fragility and strength.

Tending by Grace Fayrer is a photographic series created using camera obscuras (pinhole photography) formed from the earth; shallow chambers dug into the woodland floor behind Grace’s late grandparents’ home in southeast England.

Made after their passing, photosensitive paper placed inside the chambers recorded a day’s light from sunrise to sunset resulting in soft, ghostly impressions of the tree canopy as quiet monuments to memory, place, time, and grief.

Artist duo, Home School Achiever, presents Food and Drink (entities in deference to their being), an experimental exploration of the ambiguity of meaning. Betty Russ and Michael Donnelly are informed and inspired by contemporary ideas of speculative horror and science fiction, institutional theory and immersion techniques and have created a site-specific field of ontological activity.

Gallery coordinator Imbi Davidson said the group of exhibitions brought the best of contemporary art to the heart of Ballina.

“It’s featuring Northern Rivers artists whose work pushes the boundaries of experimentation, joy and immersive experience,” Davidson said.

“NRCG is delighted to end the year with four stellar exhibitions – we can’t wait.”

The series will run until 7 December.

For information, visit nrcgballina.com.au