The Big Book of Little Art Essays is a wonderful new publication from Flinders Lane Gallery, which features 3 of my previous solo exhibitions alongside essays by Gina Mobayed, Tess Horwitz and Elli Walsh. The 536 page collection of 110 commissioned essays and images spanning 10 years of exhibitions and 36 artists is quite a tome! It’s available to purchase online or at Flinders Lane Gallery, however I also have a few copies available for sale, so if you’re near Canberra and would like to have a look please feel free to get in touch.
WITH NATURE - exhibition at CCAS Lakeside
WITH NATURE
BRIDGET BASKERVILLE, MEGAN COPE, WENDY DAWES, MARLEY DAWSON, SAMMY HAWKER, ANNIKA ROMEYN
CURATED BY ALEXANDER BOYNES
Exhibition Opening: 6pm Friday 9 February 2024
Exhibition Dates: 10 February - 6 April 2024
With Nature brings together a selection of contemporary Australian artists who have produced works in collaboration with the environment, where the landscape has influenced the outcome of the work, to speak of Earth’s transformation due to our influence. The pandemic demonstrated the power of human collaboration during perilous times, however the unfathomable levels of collaboration at work in the natural environment offers invaluable lessons for contemplation. Featuring a range of artists working in photography, drawing, sculpture and textiles, the exhibition poses the question: how can we collaborate with our natural environment to better understand how to live a sustainable future on this planet?
'Inwards' at Broken Hill City Art Gallery
My solo exhibition Inwards is on display at Broken Hill City Art Gallery until 29 October 2023.
404 - 408 Argent Street
Broken Hill NSW 2880
Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm
Centred on the experience of entering Old Mutawintji Gorge, this exhibition is my initial response to two weeks camping in Mutawintji National Park on Barkindji and Malyangapa Country, as part of the 2022 Broken Hill City Art Gallery’s Open Cut Commission. As a first-time visitor I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to walk with and learn from Wiimpatja, Traditional Owners and Custodians, whose deep knowledge and connection to Country enriched my appreciation for the significance and power of this place.
I hope that my multi-panel watercolour monotype prints and carbon pencil drawings convey something of the physical and psychological experience of walking into the Gorge. Passing between weathered walls of rock rising up beside the dry creek-bed, I saw sky and earth converge and reflect in vital pools of water. As I moved inwards, towards a larger waterhole, I also approached an internal space and state of stillness, reflection and contemplation.
Beside the campfire I read James Fox’s The World According to Colour, which influenced my thinking in its consideration of red through themes including blood, life, humanity and its use in rock art across the world. Later, from the distance of my Canberra studio on Ngunnawal Country, I leant into the intuitive, emotive and symbolic dimensions of colour. A memory of dusty pink creek sand became a diluted wash across the sky, while the same pigments in higher concentration produced primal reddish browns that reminded me of the interaction of iron and oxygen both in the earth and in our bodies.
Upcoming solo exhibition, Belconnen Arts Centre
Body of Work
Pivot Gallery, Belconnen Arts Centre
Opening: 6pm Friday 19 May 2023
Exhibition: 19 May – 2 July 2023
Body of Work charts Annika Romeyn’s artistic journey over recent years, bringing together a selection of ambitious drawings and monotype prints, scaled in relation to her own body. Reflecting the span of her outstretched arms, these works aim to immerse viewers in experiences of place and landscape – enduring and eroding, powerful and ungraspable. Throughout her practice Annika has sustained a focus on the duality and dynamism to be found at the threshold of rock and water, while frequently devoting attention to individual trees representing varying states of resilience and decay.
This exhibition includes new work created in response to Annika’s time in Mutawintji National Park, on Barkindji and Malyangapa Country, as recipient of the 2022 Broken Hill City Art Gallery’s Open Cut commission, alongside work inspired by travels and residencies from Hill End (Wiradjuri Country), to The Gippsland Lakes (Gunaikurnai Country), Namadgi National Park (Ngunnawal Country), and Guerilla Bay (Yuin Country).
Learn more: www.belcoarts.com.au/body-of-work
Image: "Endurance 9" (detail) by Annika Romeyn
Ellen José Art Award at Bayside Gallery until Aug 28
It’s an honour to be included in the inaugural Ellen José Art Award at Bayside Gallery.
Ellen José (1951-2017) was a pioneer in Australia's urban Indigenous art movement and a radical activist and social justice campaigner. The Ellen José Art Award for young women aims to provide support to young female artists in the early stages of their career.
The finalists for 2022 are Moorina Bonini, Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson, Hannah Gartside, Nadia Hernández, Annika Romeyn and Emma Singer.
The exhibition of finalists works will be on display at Bayside Gallery from 2 July to 28 August 2022.