On the Local Arts Trail in March 2025
— with Alison Desmond —
Flack PTO
• Damien Lewis’ Manchester Unity Building
Ballan’s galleries are ramping up for a huge Autumn Festival on Sunday, March 16 and Flack PTO will be hosting an outdoor sculpture garden, live music and a book signing by photographic artist Damien Lewis.
Damien’s book, Nostalgique - The Wonderful Things We No Longer Use, featuring photographs of arrangements of items from the 1800s to the 1960s, as well as limited edition prints are available for purchase.
Prints from his ongoing series Landmarks, capturing “beautiful historic buildings from around the World in a vibrant and sometimes dramatic way,” is also showing at Flack throughout March.
Manchester Unity Building is a striking image of the Melbourne Art Deco building’s tower, illuminated and diagonally leaning, penetrating the dark sky.
Flack Post and Telegraph Office is open 10am to 3pm Thursday, Friday, Saturday
• Nanette Coy’s Vitamin Sea I
Ballan Art Space
Ballan Art Space have settled very nicely into their new home and welcome you to their group exhibition Autumn in Ballan, with a variety of interpretations on the theme, opening Friday, March 7.
Finishing on Sunday, March 2 is their very successful Pop Culture exhibition, with lots of bright and neon colours, contemporary references and a youthful vibe.
A highlight was Nanette Coy’s tropic seascapes Vitamin Sea I and Vitamin Sea II, with cellulose forms, trees dancing around flat decorative coastlines, iconic lighthouse and boat, with fine red linework.
• Martin Cleal’s Blackwood
Oak Grove Gallery
Oak Grove Gallery also will be open for the Ballan Autumn Festival, drop in and say hi to Marty Cleal on the day, just follow the saxophone music.
The paint is still drying on ‘Blackwood,’ a recent bush landscape of a semi-aerial view featuring clumps of vegetation in the foreground, leading to a far horizon, with a mass of billowing clouds overhead.
Marty’s remarkable ability to create the illusion of depth, distance and dimension in his compositions through brushstrokes is the result of years of studying the Australian Impressionists.
He also accepts commissions, please contact Marty directly for details.
• Various pieces by Nichole Knight
Gordon Bar Room Gallery
Gordon Bar Room Gallery stocks a lot of ceramics - to differentiate her works from wheel-thrown works, artist Nichole Knight hand builds “rustic pottery” with textured clay.
She makes very affordable pieces with a Japanese influence, such as sake cups, chopstick holders, pendants and brooches, which she decorates using customised stamps.
Nichole is also a printmaker and sells journals with handmade paper and fabric covers, tea towels, patches and prints featuring linocuts of birds, dogs and animals.
Gordon Bar Room Gallery regularly rotate their stock so there is always new treasures waiting to be discovered.
• Susan Watson’s Frill-Neck Lizard
BMAC GALLERY
Now showing at Lerderderg Library, Bacchus Marsh, is the wonderful environmental art of Susan Watson.
The exhibition features five large scale pieces depicting five different Australian animals, all made from upcycled junk.
“I collected items that would normally have gone to landfill, as well as taking home rubbish found dumped on public land,” said Susan.
The works are sculptural, Soaring Eagle is free-standing, whilst the other four, Platypus, Frill-Neck Lizard, Orb-Weaver and Rainbow Bee-Eater are works in relief, and highly imaginative.
For more information email suse.artistry@gmail.com
Lerderderg Library is open Monday to Saturday, check the website for times
MAPP Up in Lights
The Ballan outdoor MAPP Gallery is currently being repositioned within AA McLean Reserve, and so will be out of action for a few months.
But showing at the Bacchus Marsh MAPP Gallery until 18 April is an exhibition by local illustrator, Jonathan Hall titled, Art searching for value.
The works depict caricatures of mythical creatures along with designs created utilising the Zentangle art practice, a method of drawing structured patterns to create images using string-like lines to define areas and repetitive patterns or tangles.
As part of this exhibition you will see examples of Jonathan’s character designs and recent storyboards he has created for film.
Moorabool artists are encouraged to apply to exhibit in the MAPP Up in Lights galleries - check the Moorabool Shire Council Arts & Culture webpage for details.
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.
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