Art out of Water: The Fish of Art

To promote the gallery’s lakeside position, this exhibition presents a diverse range of artists’ impressions of fish and fishing.

 A gallery project curated by Brett Adlington & Meryl Ryan

Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery has an enviable waterfront location with uninterrupted views of one of Australia’s largest saltwater lakes. It is little wonder therefore that we should look to maritime subjects as relevant themes for exhibitions. For this particular show, gallery curators Brett Adlington and Meryl Ryan have assembled a diverse and lively group of paintings, photographs and sculpture relating to fish and fishing. These range from a work by well-known Hunter-based artist Susan Ryman comprising 40 drawings, each describing its own fish fable in gorgeous colour; to the video installation documenting Craig Walsh’s giant traffic-stopping urban ‘fishbowl’ in the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Alongside the references to leisure and lifestyle, there is also a strong collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander works reflecting the importance of fishing as an activity and ceremonial practice. One of these, Dennis Nona’s etching Sarup Au Zug - Lost Man (2006), will be the focus of a Lake Macquarie Art Gallery Society fundraising drive to acquire the work for the gallery’s collection. Several of the others are in the exhibition thanks to generous loans from the National Maritime Museum, Sydney. We would also like to extend our thanks to all the artists, gallerists and private collectors whose loans have made the exhibition such a great success.

 

 

Image above: Tom Moore, Walking fish, 2008. Hot joined, blown and solid glass, 18.5 x 14 x 42 cm Courtesy the artist and Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney 

Image below: Dennis Nona, Sarup Au Zug – Lost Man, 2006. Etching on Hahnernuhle 350gsm, 81 x 128 cm Courtesy the artists and Australian Art Print Network, Sydney

 

When

Location

Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284  View in Google Maps