Although employing divergent styles and materials each of the practitioners selected for this exhibition has crafted aspects of the landscape and the environment into their work.
The extreme beauty and harshness of the Australian desert has greatly affected German-born Gudrun Klix in the installation Engaging the Heart and Spirit, while Meredith’s Peach’s sensitive rapport with nature, informed by a background in biology, is clearly evident in her basketry work. Emma Varga’s deep and joyful relationship with the ocean and its environs, vastly contrasting to her native Yugoslavia, has led to an ongoing body of work, Ocean, Lagoon and Sky. Melinda Young investigates the internal landscape of the body and issues of sustainability with great sensitivity in her project Take a ball of thread… from which the work in this exhibition is taken. Another factor drawing the practitioners together is that they all feature on the promotecraft.com.au site, an initiative of the gallery set up as a one-stop shop for craftspeople in New South Wales – linking makers, curators, educators, collectors and buyers.
Image above: Gudrun Klix, Making place (detail) 2005. Installation at Orange Regional Gallery
Image below: Emma Varga, Peculiar Bush (detail) 2007. Fused, cast, ground and polished glass, 46 x 29.5 x 5.5 cm
Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284 View in Google Maps
1A First Street , Booragul 2284