On the Local Arts Trail in July 2025
— with Alison Desmond —
There's so much happening in the Moorabool during winter - a great time to do a class, join a club or view the indoor art and outdoor sculpture all over the region!
Ballan Art Space
Karen Longhurst has always loved art but didn’t think her work was good enough to show.
Covid changed all that: she joined the Ballan Wombat Arts Network, started exhibiting and never looked back.
Karen is a forager and uses innovative materials in her work which includes indoor and outdoor sculpture, limestone carving, basket-weaving, paper dying as well as eco printing on fabric which she uses to cover keepsake journals.
The next group show is simply titled Windows, with artists invited to interpret the concept, and runs from 11 July to 3 August.
Wombat Arts members are also taking part in a collaborative project as part of the Peter Carey Short Story Award, illustrating local children’s stories, to be exhibited at the new Ballan Library in Inglis Street when it opens in August.
Blackwood Art & Ecology Club
Blackwood Art & Ecology Club merges the wonder of nature with creative play and artmaking for families and adults on the first Sunday of every month.
The morning workshops are free for Blackwood residents, and there are ticketed workshops in the afternoon for non-residents, with all welcome.
The group will meet in various forest locations and at times use St Martin's Chapel as a studio space.
Host Kathy Holocow said, "I am interested in discovering ecology and in my arts practice go in search of narratives that reconsider our world as a cyclical and shared habitat.
“I believe that art can help us to learn, think and build positive future visions, so I often create playful projects for participation.”
The next workshops will be Sunday, 6 July, then Sunday, 3 August.
Gordon Bar Room Gallery
Gordon Bar Room Gallery continues to impress with its collection of original, affordable, high-quality local work, with a great range of ceramics, jewellery, textiles, paintings, prints and more.
Quilby is one of those amazing original artists and has become quite prolific with her contemporary, medieval-style illuminated lettering on small cards.
An ultramarine letter “A” is underlaid with bronze metallic pigment and overlaid with a forest green imaginary vine. White is used in various mark-making to different effects.
Each component has a unique quality, yet all is beautifully entwined in unity.
Lerderderg Library, Bacchus Marsh
When you walk into the library, you never know what you’re going to find jumping out at you from the walls.
Recently the whole foyer was awash with intense paint pigment, no space left uncovered, in Nina Zemzuilina’s nostalgic Brushstrokes of Home and Hope.
All based on memory, peaceful everyday outdoor scenes from her home country Ukraine saturated the walls in high contrast, as coloured lights danced across surfaces.
Lerderderg Library is open Monday to Saturday, check the website for times
Oak Grove Gallery
View contemporary landscape paintings of local bush landmarks, inspired by the style of Tom Roberts and the Australian Impressionists, housed in the restored 1872 Ballan News Building.
See artist Marty Cleal for Moorabool’s best views.
Flack Post & Telegraph Office
Flack will be closed for the Winter break until June 18.
Then there will be lots coming up, but gallerist Danielle Brigid would like to leave you with this from one of her star artists Damian Lewis.
“Drifting in Prince William Sound, Alaska, this small iceberg reminded me of a diamond resting on an azure pillow,” said Damian.
Most poetic, don’t you think?
MAPP Up in Lights, Bacchus Marsh
See the finalists in this year’s Moorabool Shire Youth Art Awards on display Bacchus Marsh’s outdoor MAPP Up in Lights Gallery until Friday 4 July.
The exhibit features works from local artists aged 11–25 in mediums that include photography, textiles and painting, including the piece pictured right, Jay Bamford’s City Scape.
Expressions of interest from local artists are sought to occupy the light box spaces, so contact Moorabool Shire Council and get your work seen in high-traffic sites for maximum exposure - check the Moorabool Shire Council Arts & Culture webpage for details.
Ballan Neighborhood House
Japanese calligraphy artist Keiko Fukumitsu will be teaching a one-day workshop at the Ballan Neighborhood House from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, 2 August.
No prior knowledge is required and all equipment is provided. There will be calligraphy products for sale at the end of the workshop, cash only.
Bookings close Tuesday, 22 July.
Public and Community Arts
Moorabool Shire has an amazing collection of public art, from markers of place in bush settings, to Ballan’s cosily yarn-bombed Inglis Street, to eye-catching paste-ups in the townships.
It’s worth your while to rug up, brave the cold and really experience Moorabool’s bush in winter, with somewhere nice to warm up afterward, of course.
You can find out more about Moorabool’s public art pieces at the Moorbool Shire website
About On the Local Arts Trail
The Local Arts Trail column is released through our monthly eNewsletter and on this website at the start of each month.
If you have an arts-related exhibition or event you’d like to let us know about, you can use our Submit an Event form.
Keep in touch with the local arts scene by following us on Facebook and Insta, and be sure to sign up for our monthly eNewsletter.