Exhibition ’The Roundtuits’   – Alice Springs artist Iain Campbell will open the exhibition at 2:00pm on Sunday 23rd October – Olive Pink Botanic Gardens 

The Roundtuit’s are a group of local Alice Springs people who are finally doing something they have wanted to do for years – paint. Most of the artists have played around with a variety of media for a number of years but only in the last 12 months have they concentrated on watercolour, producing some wonderful work with the guidance and inspiration of local artist Carol Adams.

The artists are: Meg Chabrel, Margaret Williams, Heather Romeo, Carol Adams, Carmel Vandermolen, Petina Franklen, Alan Russ, Joy LaFranchi, Elsa Corbett

Botanical Artist and Illustrator Mali Moir from the National Herbarium of Victoria will be presenting a series of workshops covering the skills and techniques used in this beautiful art form. Mali has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally and her works are held in private, public and corporate collections. The Advanced Courses will be held at Olive Pink Botanic Garden 21/22/25 September, with an emphasis on Scientific Illustration showing the botany of a plant/specimen. Bookings Essential, (limited spaces available). For bookings and information: Contact Jo Boniface on 89528116.

CONFIDENT TO ADVANCED ARTISTS
21 SEPT 2011 WED 7pm-9pm – venue – OPBG visitor centre
Confident to Advanced artists
Botanical Illustration
(focus on Scientific Botanical Art)

22 SEPT 2011 THURS 7pm-9pm -OPBG visitor centre
Confident to Advanced artists
Botanical Illustration
(focus on Scientific Botanical Art)

25 SEPT 2011 SUN 10-3 (1hr break 12-1)
Confident to Advanced artists
Botanical Art: Watercolour Painting Techniques.
Bring in your painting projects for technical and
artistic advise. People from beginners course very welcome.

Course fee: $145 includes materials
(Single workshop fee $55 inc materials)

Bookings essential contact Jo Boniface on 89528116
With thanks to the valued support of Olive Pink Botanic Gardens and REDHOT ARTS
Workshops made possible with thanks to funding support from Arts NT

‘Skyline’

an Exhibition from Studio 12 Artists Collective

Olive Pink Botanic Garden – Opening 6:30 Friday the 22nd of July

Skyline; the line at which the earth and the sky appear to meet…the outline of buildings land and trees…seen against the sky.

This exhibition is essentially an exploration of the local skylines. It aims to emphasise the value of what we see when we look up from our involvement in the minutiae of day to day existence. Its purpose is to bring the viewer the desire to search their skyline – to consider what would change if the physical space were to change dramatically. The proposed changes to building heights in Alice Springs will change the skyline for everyone.

The works are two dimensional and in reflection of the diversity of the collective members, will present a variety of styles in a range of media on paper, board and canvas.

Tangentyere Artists exhibition - Olive Pink Botanic Garden

Opening Friday the 27th May @ 6pm – until Sunday the 12th

Still Reflections of Town Camp Life

Tangentyere Artists is an Aboriginal owned and directed art centre enterprise in Alice Springs and part of one of the oldest Aboriginal owned NGO’s in Central Australia: Tangentyere Council first emerging in 1974.

As a grass roots enterprise, Tangentyere Artists is an initiative proudly created by the Aboriginal people of Central Australia for themselves, comprising artists whose homes lie within the eighteen Alice Springs Town Camps.

The art centre provides a platform from which artists can express themselves, their lives and cultural values, while enriching their community well being and family livelihoods.

For too long, media representations of the Alice Springs Town Camps have maligned the lives of their residents dismissing them as bad news stories of crime and dysfunction. In the face of great disadvantage, however, for the several thousand people living in them, town camps are actually home: intimate places filled with family, where children grow and play, rich lives are lived with grace and dignity, and all the stories whether happy, sad, joyful or tragic, are shared.

Increasingly Tangentyere Artists is becoming known for figurative paintings with textual references; accounts of everyday life and the reflections of life in Alice Springs Town Camps.
For example, the town camp homes of Sally Mulda and Margaret Boko, as well as Amy Napurulla and Sylvia Drover provide the inspiration for their beautiful figurative paintings: intimate scenes of family sitting by the fire on old bed frames, always out in the open; talking, eating, watching children at play, while the dogs run free.
There are many wonderful stories that rise out of the sometimes difficult living in the Town Camps for those interested enough to stop and listen. And we are very pleased to be able to share them with you to show that Town Camp homes are important places in which real people live their lives, positive places, worthy of the respect that any person and their home deserves.

 The Artists:     Bronwyn Beesley, Anne Bowden, Gina Browning, Bev Ellis, Phil Hali,  Marilyn Hall,   Nancy Hall,  Graham Killian, Barb McIlvain, Godfrey McVicar, Heather Romeo, Elaine Sheridan, Helen Siganto, Mandy Webb,  Pat Weeks, Betty Wilson   

The Exhibition ‘The Crafted Object – Inspired by Nature’ is a collaborative show from an informal network of craftspeople, from the old Bent and Twisted mob and market stallholders. Several of the Artists were initially inspired by the photographs and scanning electron microscope images in the book: Seeds — Time Capsules of Life by Rob Kessler and Wolfgang Stuppy [Firefly Books, 2006] and their next book: Fruit – Edible, Inedible, Incredible [Firefly, 2008]. The authors wrote about the ‘crafted image’, as the seed images had been digitally coloured instead of being left as greys or browns – in fact “…each image becomes hand crafted, artistically unique, and not solely the product of digital technology.”

 Many of the images suggested felt or clay or even knitting and Wolfgang wrote that we could use images from the books as part of the exhibition. Not all inspiration came from these books, not all the crafted objects are for sale, but all draw their inspiration from nature.

 Olive Pink Botanic Garden Visitor Centre
Opening: 6 pm Saturday 11th September 2010
Exhibition finishes on Sunday 3rd October
Opening hours 10am – 4pm daily

An exhibition of hand-printed artworks at Olive Pink Botanic Garden. Recent etchings and linoprints exploring dry and arid zone flora, fauna and landscape by Helen Clarke, fine art printmaker.

Helen is returning to Alice Springs to exhibit at Olive Pink Botanic Garden following her successful exhibition last year.

Helen Clarke is a West Australian printmaker who has travelled all around Australia. She grew up in a farming area of WA surrounded by Australian plants which flourish in a relatively dry climate. As an adult she was drawn to the art of printmaking, both for the repetition of the image and the variety of techniques which produce unique marks. Her botanical interpretations are widely collected and acclaimed.

Helen Clarke’s reduction linocuts are noted for their lustrous, textured surfaces and strong colours. She uses only one piece of lino to create the limited edition of prints with up to twenty colours on each print. As the edition is created, the lino is slowly destroyed through the reduction process. She keeps the editions small, with less than twenty prints when using this complicated medium.

The etchings depict parts of plants and landscapes arranged to suit her sense of design. Her works are not scientific botanical drawings, rather an interpretation of the variety of Australian plants from drier areas that fascinate her including, species of plants found around Central Australia.

 Further information:

Ben Convery
8952 2154
0422 920 125

Helen Clarke
08 99233613,
0407 440 616,
fineart@woodypear.com

‘ The Red Centre through Cold Country Eyes ‘

by

Margaret Shepherd

 Exhibiting at

The Olive Pink Botanic Garden

Tuncks Road, Alice Springs 0871

From

13^th August – 5th of September

Opening 6:30pm Friday the 19^th of March – Sunday the 4^th of April at Olive Pink Botanic Garden

My involvement in photography is varied. I have extensive experience as a photographer, photographic technician both in digital and analogue as well as tutoring in photography. This passion has been with me for over 30 years. My interest crosses over to Commercial and Fine Art Photography.

Photography is a way of life, a way that I can express what I feel about my world. It gives me a medium where I can give my opinion of the world around me. I have always approached it with passion and wonder. I love teaching photography and passing on the non verbal world the expression of ideas and emotion to others.

`Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees’        – Paul Strand.

The Olive Pink Botanic Gardens has a small gallery space that hosts 8-10 exhibitions each year. Our exhibitions focus on the Cenral Australian Environment as well 1-2 show’s from Alice Spring’s developing artists. All procedes raised go directly towards the development of the Gardens .