Past exhibitions

2023

Kara Day: Ladylike

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
12 August – 3 December 2023

Opening 12 August

Mackay raised artist Kara Day interrogates feminine stereotypes in her first major body of work to be presented in the Artspace Mackay Foundation Gallery. Working across textile, sculpture and watercolour, Day creates bold portraits that confront the viewer, prompting consideration of societal typecasts of womanhood and femininity.
Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the exhibition.

Stephen Homewood: Turbulence

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay 
12 August – 3 December 2023

Opening 12 August

Mackay artist Stephen Homewood works in an experimental gestural style, creating artwork that draws upon the subconscious fascinations of his mind. Homewood’s recent works on paper showcase drawing, painting and printmaking techniques, presenting turbulent waterscapes that intertwine two signature coastal Australia icons: the shark and the surf lifesaver.
Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the exhibition.

Zanny Begg | These Stories Will Be Different

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay 
18 August – 12 November 2023

'These Stories Will be Different' brings together three of NSW-based artist Zanny Begg's most significant video installations that explore contested histories, including 'The City of Ladies' (with Elise McLeod), 'The Beehive', and 'Stories of Kannagi'. The videos tell stories, but they also challenge the politics of storytelling itself and invite you to see the world differently.

Zanny Begg | 'These Stories Will be Different'  is a UNSW Galleries and Museums & Galleries of NSW touring exhibition. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Dylan Mooney: The Wall

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 May 2023 to 6 August

Dylan Mooney will return to Artspace Mackay for its’ twentieth birthday celebrations to create his second site-specific mural on the gallery’s seventeen metre foyer wall. Extending on his recent advocacy for climate action, Mooney a Yuwi, Australian South Sea Islander and Torres Strait Islander man, will draw on his water connections to respond to rising sea levels and the impact on island communities.

Time Of Our Lives

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
13 May 2023 to 6 August

How do we mark time and special occasions?; and how do the seasons and nature help determine this? Artspace Mackay in partnership with Crossroad Arts will respond to these questions via a series of practical, all abilities, digital animation workshops. Collaborating with local creatives, participants will animate original artworks designed by Kate Brunner, guided by new media artist Donna Maree Robinson. Time of Our Lives presented in the foyer gallery includes the new original artworks created, alongside the collaborative digital animation. This digital animation will also be shown as a projection on the gallery’s Gordon Street exterior throughout the exhibition period.

In Bloom

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
13 May 2023 to 6 August

In Bloom showcases twenty years of growth of Artspace Mackay, focusing on Australian visual culture via botanical imagery. Through a lens of investigation, the way floral imagery is used by artists to convey and at times interrogate a range of issues – from the imagined utopia of life in the tropics to First Nations connection to country and culture is considered. Work from the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection and associated programs, including a new major birthday commission are featured in this celebratory exhibition.

Fire And Ash: Woodfire Pottery of Arthur and Carol Rosser

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 May 2023 to 6 August

For over forty years Arthur and Carol Rosser created work from their secluded rainforest pottery in the Mackay hinterland, near the township of Eungella, Queensland. Fuelled by an enduring fascination with the interplay between clay, wood and fire, the Rosser’s working career saw them quietly gain national recognition for their dedication to the production of woodfired pottery. Bringing together a comprehensive body of work from
the 70s – late 2010s, Fire and Ash celebrates the artists’ expansive mastery of the medium. Highlighting their considered approach to land care, development of unique ash glazes and long wood firings, Artspace Mackay celebrates these prolific potters’ careers as part of the gallery’s twentieth birthday fete.

Davida Allen: Colourful Expressions

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
17 February 2023 to 14 May 2023

Davida Allen’s colourful, expressionist paintings have documented her everyday experiences, for over 40 years. In this major exhibition of work from northern regional gallery collections and the artists’ archive, Allen’s joyful interrogation of daily life as artist, mother and grandmother is seen. Drawing on the artist’s connection to Southeast and Central Queensland, Allen’s paintings are honest expressions of everyday life.

Glen Skien: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 February 2023 to 14 May 2023

Whilst living in Mackay in the mid-2000s, print and artist book maker Glen Skien became interested in the Australian play ‘Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’ which debuted for the first time in Melbourne in 1955. Presented in the foyer gallery, Skien’s series of the same name is a masterful rendition of Ray Lawler’s play, which was considered by many as the first significant Australian theatre production depicting everyday life. In a series of twelve etchings Skien re-presents this iconic text in pictorial form.

Focus On The Collection: Great Australian Hoist

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 February 2023 to 14 May 2023

Great Australian Hoist considers the way contemporary artists engage with the myth of Australiana. This playful compilation of work from the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection reconsiders early twentieth century iconographies that associated native flora, fauna and other built icons with distinctly European viewpoints, prompting a variety of conversations about the history, relevance and meaning of Australiana today.

Deanna Hitti: M Is For Madraseh (School)

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
17 February 2023 to 7 May 2023

Lebanese-Australian artist book and print maker Deanna Hitti explores identity and visual misrepresentation themes in M is for Madraseh (School). In an ambitious 33-panel installation, Hitti combines cyanotype and colour screen print to re-present exoticised visual portrayals of the East. Early nineteenth century French Orientalist imagery overlayed with text from a language textbook in Arabic creates an interplay between object, figure and language. In doing so, Hitti deliberately interrogates the Western gaze, giving agency to the dualities that exist within her own cultural identity.

Ryan Vella: Underground Spandex

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay

2 December 2022- 5 February 2023
Opening 6pm Friday 2 December

Local illustrator Ryan Vella has been creating graphic style illustrations for over two decades, reaching national recognition in 2004 when he illustrated John Birmingham’s ‘He Died with a Felafel in his Hand.’  Drawing on recent work Underground Spandex showcases Vella’s intricate line drawings of comic characters in graphic, narrative scenes.

Focus on the Collection: Formed

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay

26 November 2022-5 February 2023
Opening 6pm Friday 2 December

Visual responses to colour theory, shape and space link work from the Mackay Regional Art Collection in Formed. Across ceramic, artists’ books and printmaking, the way artists consider these areas is highlighted.

Niloufar Lovegrove: Too Little, Too Much

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay

26 November 2022-12 February 2023
Opening 6pm Friday 2 December

Niloufar Lovegrove’s practice is heavily influenced by motifs from her Persian upbringing. Creating visual narratives that combine her central Queensland lived experience and Persian storytelling Too Little, Too Much focuses on water, and associations the artist draws with natural disasters including drought and flood.

Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT

Main Gallery, Artspace  Mackay

2 December 2022- 5 February 2023
Opening 6pm Friday 2 December

Presented by Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art, Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT profiles key moments from the gallery’s flagship exhibition series looking to contemporary art in the Asia Pacific Region.Works of art commissioned or collected from APT1 (1993) through to APT9 (2018-19) display APT’s embrace of contemporary art in all its forms--from the ceremonial to the conceptual, and the deeply personal to the resolutely social.

2022

Tales of the Lyre Bird

Gallery Main,  Artspace Mackay
2 September - 27 November

Take a virtual tour of the exhibition
Download the exhibition catalogue 

Across more than two decades from 1977 the Lyre Bird Press produced over 50 artists’ books ranging from livre d’artiste luxury publications to experimental book forms, involving creators of all kinds. Drawing from the significant holdings of the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection, Tales of the Lyre Bird follows the important output of the press from its Melbourne conception by Tate Adams AM (b. 1922, d. 2018) to its reinvigoration in North Queensland in the early 90s. Curated by Ron McBurnie and Helen Cole this major survey highlights collaborative works conceived via the press, including artists such as Tate Adams AM, George Baldessin, Anneke Silver, Ray Crooke and Juli Haas.

The Wall: D Harding

Foyer Gallery,  Artspace Mackay
2 September - 20 November

D Harding is a descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal communities of Central Queensland. They work in a wide variety of media to explore the visual and social languages of their communities as cultural continuum. Transfer painting on Yuwi is a site specific artwork, created in residence at Artspace Mackay.

Figuratively Speaking

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
27 August - 20 November  

Figuratively Speaking draws from the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection, exploring representations of human experience through figurative work. Including paintings by Rosella Namok, Davida Allen and Clara Adolphs, the figure as both literal and figurative subject in artistic practice is considered.

Veronika Zeil: Echo Forest—the Eloquence of Trees

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
27 August - 20 November

Photography, sound, drawing and installation form Echo Forest—The Eloquence of Trees by central Queensland artist Veronika Zeil. Encouraging visitors to pause and contemplate human impacts on the environment, Zeil’s multidisciplinary practice offers a window into what she identifies as fractured landscapes, focusing on the different growth stages of trees.

Material Sound

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
01 July to 28 August 2022

Material Sound brings together engaging work by six art practitioners and collaborative groups, each creating an experience of sound within installations constructed from everyday materials. Handmade instruments and electronics, recycled components, outmoded technologies, fake technologies, imagined sounds, and silences are brought together to connect with ideas and practices that expand our sense of how art is made, how it affects us, how we think about it and how we listen to our world.

Shelley Engwirda: We Rise

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 June to 21 August  2022

Mackay artist Shelley Engwirda examines the success and failures of the Women’s Movement in We Rise. Drawing on her experience as a new grandmother, Engwirda explores the way female artists have been regarded historically through her multidisciplinary practice. The artist’s large scale patchwork quilts alongside glass work respond to what she considers major moments in the Women’s Movement from the 1970s-present.

Natalie Hartog-Gautier: Looking for Paradise

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 June to 21 August 2022

Nathalie Hartog-Gautier is a French-born artist based in coastal New South Wales. In Looking for Paradise Hartog-Gautier examines Australia’s responsibility as a first signatory of the United Nations Human Rights Charter. Bringing refugee experiences to the fore via artists’ books’ and collaborative digital animation, Hartog-Gautier examines the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.

2022 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists' Book Prize

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
09 April - 19 June 2022

Artspace Mackay’s biennial event, the Libris Awards, brings together works by leading and emerging artist book makers from across Australia. The Awards are a chance to celebrate the art form and build on the gallery’s significant artist book collection through the competition’s acquisitive prizes. Click here for detailed information about current and past Libris Awards.

Click here for the 2022 illustrated Catalogue of Finalists

Tamika Grant-Iramu: The Wall

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
05 April - 22 June 2022

Brisbane artist Tamika Grant-Iramu is an emerging printmaker whose artworks connect to her Papua New Guinean, European and Torres Strait Islander heritage. Influenced by cultural carving techniques and storytelling aesthetics, her practice brings focus to the native flora of her surrounding environment. Grant-Iramu’s artist residency at Artspace Mackay will look to the rare and endemic species of flora found in Eungella National Park as she creates a unique and temporary wall painting for the Foyer Gallery.

Barbara Hanrahan: Focus on the Collection

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
01 April - 19 June 2022

Barbara Hanrahan (1939-1991) was a prolific artist and writer who lived and worked between Australia and the United Kingdom. Her unique figurative drawings and prints cherished a view of nature, mythology and family inspired by the 1970s women’s movement and her admiration for the iconic paintings of Frida Kahlo. Featuring a selection of Hanrahan’s editioned prints and publications from the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection, this exhibition highlights the artist’s colourful and entangled visual worlds.

The Art of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
02 April - 19 June 2022

Creator of feminine and enchanting fairy-tale illustrations, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888-1960) was one of Australia’s most celebrated women artists of the early twentieth century. She was at the fore of a new wave of storytelling for a new generation of Australian-born British children, incorporating native flora and fauna into the fairy-tale genre to create a uniquely local feel. Looking at the development of the artist’s iconic visual style, this exhibition brings together original working sketches from the early part of her career alongside watercolours and published books.

Take a 3D virtual tour through the exhibition.

Jasmine Togo-Brisby: Hom Swit Hom

Main Gallery and Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
28 January - 27 March 2022

Contemporary Australian South Sea Islander artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby examines Australia’s dark history of plantation colonisation through a range of techniques, from photography and filmmaking to sculpture. Hom Swit Hom invites us to consider the history and contemporary legacy of blackbirding from the viewpoint of the people whose identity is intrinsically connected to this narrative. Hom Swit Hom is an Artspace Mackay, Mackay Regional Council exhibition.

View 3D Gallery  of Jasmine Togo-Brisby: Hom Swit Hom

Dylan Mooney: Boundless

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 January - 20 March 2022

Yuwi, Torres Strait Islander and Australian South Sea Islander artist Dylan Mooney explores intersections between identity and ancestry in Boundless, a combination of graphic illustration and mixed media work. 'Queer, Blak and Here,’ Mooney’s first major series of graphic illustrations, narrate the artists’ lived experience of love within the queer community. Mooney also looks to his South Sea Islander heritage in a new series of portraits rendered in sugar. This symbolic choice of material draws attention to the artist's familial legacy in the Mackay region, starting a dialogue about contemporary Australian South Sea Islander identity.

View 3D Gallery of Dylan Mooney: Boundless.

Lindy Lee: Moon in a Dew Drop

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
5 November - 16 January 2022

Using light, shadow and scale, the work of influential Australian-Chinese artist Lindy Lee will mesmerise you. Slow down and absorb Lee’s reflective, meditative works and her spectacular array of processes. In this major survey exhibition of the artist’s work, see how Lee melts bronze, pours ink, and burns paper and steel to examine ideas around art history, cultural authenticity, identity and our relationship to the cosmos. Curated by MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE and supported by Associate Curator Megan Robson this exhibition will introduce audiences to key works from across the artist’s extensive career, from early photocopy artworks to recent installations and sculptures.

Jonathan McBurnie: Birdland

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
5 November - 16 January 2022

North Queensland artist Jonathan McBurnie draws upon the aesthetics of professional wrestling, a performative genre he describes as a fascinating paradox: “on one level it’s a fiction with planned storylines and predetermined victories and losses; and on another level it’s all too real with a high physical toll, frequent injuries and subsequent self-medication.” The exhibition of new drawings on a large, immersive scale are inspired by parallels between professional wrestling and McBurnie’s personal experience of continuing his creative practice amid illness and the impact of an ongoing recovery.

View 3D Gallery of Jonathan McBurnie: BIRDLAND

Jenna Lee: Cont.ained

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
22 October - 9 January 2022

Jenna Lee is an artist of Indigenous (Larrakia, Wardaman, and Karrajarri), Asian (Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino) and Anglo-Australian ancestry who manipulates paper to explore her many overlapping identities. Her research into ancestral cultural objects and archival practices inform an artist's book-making practice that often imitates the display of specimens or artefacts. According to the artist, museums often present objects in which “meaning is severely cont.(ained), instead of allowing for a cont.(inued) function.”

View 3D Gallery of Jenna Lee: Cont.ained

2021

Tracey Robb: The Lichen Garden

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 July - 31 October 2021

Using custom tools and jigs, Mackay-based artist Tracey Robb’s crochet practice centres on the fauna and flora of tropical Queensland. For this exhibition, Robb has applied her skills and experimentation in free-form crochet to the world of lichen. With scientific accuracy and a playful heart, the artist has created a large-scale, immersive display celebrating ecological diversity.

View 3D Gallery of Tracey Robb: The Lichen Garden

Rosella Namok & Fiona Omeenyo: Sandbeach People

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 July - 17 October 2021

Rosella Namok and Fiona Omeenyo are leading figures in Cape York Peninsula’s Lockhart River, site of one of Queensland’s most important contemporary art movements. The term ‘sandbeach people’ groups together five language and kinship groups of the region who came together in the 1990s to collaborate in their expressions of country through art. For two decades, Namok and Omeenyo have sustained traditional cultural knowledge through bold and innovative visual languages.

View 3D Gallery of Rosella Namok & Fiona Omeenyo: Sandbeach People

Focus on the Collection: Collaged

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 July - 17 October 2021

The early twentieth century saw the artform of collage gain momentum as artists incorporated paper, material and found ephemera in distinct new visual imagery. Today, collage is realised in many forms; from the hand-cut to digital montage. Drawing from the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection, Collaged explores works across this medium from the pop art printed collages of Eduardo Paolozzi, to recent acquisition Flourish 9… by Jemima Wyman (Pairabeenee people) who has used photomontage to capture protest movements of her time.

View 3D Gallery of Focus on the Collection: Collaged

VOID

Main Gallery, Artspace Mackay
24 July - 17 October 2021

Bringing together rich and diverse artworks from many of this country’s most exciting Indigenous artists, Void articulates the unknown as space, time and landscape.

“The void is a complex space of exclusion and inclusion, definition and deliberate ambiguity. But as these artists demonstrate, the void is always lived upon, navigated and known even as it remains unseen, unknown and undefined”
– curator Emily McDaniel

Leigh SCHOENHEIMER: Iterate | Elaborate

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
21 May - 25 July 2021

Brisbane-based Leigh Schoenheimer is a multi-disciplinary contemporary artist who, through the genre of still-life painting, poses questions about what it is to “make pictures.” Her sculptural works are playful assemblages reflecting both her sense of humour and her bowerbird curiosity. Iterate | Elaborate combines image and object-making to create works that speak to each other and to key moments in art history. The artist’s whimsical use of found items and pieces of brightly coloured timber toys spark familiarity and joy, while seductive colour schemes tie her complex works together.

Donna Maree ROBINSON & David PYKE: Continuum

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
21 May - 25 July 2021

Donna Maree Robinson is an internationally exhibited, Mackay-based artist creating site-specific digital media. Robinson teams up with Mackay-raised composer David Pyke to create an immersive, multimedia exploration of music and science. Inspired by David’s experiences in vast desert landscapes, the work is the result of Donna’s experimentations with cymatics, or the visual representation of sound vibrations.

Tension(s) 2020: Tamworth Textile Triennial

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
28 May - 18 July 2021

Held every three years, the Tamworth Textile Triennial showcases the best of textile art from across the country. Tension(s) 2020 curator Vic McEwan creates a record of the changing nature and progress of textile practice from a national perspective. In acknowledging the world has long been a place under various tension(s), both harmonious and dissonant, the triennial’s focus is on the future of people and place through textile as a material and human experience as materiality.

Ron MCBURNIE: In Search of Arcadia

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
26 February - 16 May 2021

Ron McBurnie is a leading Townsville-based artist and educator, drawing inspiration from early traditions of British and European printmaking and painting. In 2019 and 2020 McBurnie completed an extended artist residency with Artspace Mackay, capturing beloved landscapes and views of this region en plein air. The resulting suite of work on paper will be shown together in a major celebration of the beauty of Mackay and its surroundings, from Cape Hillsborough beaches to cane fields in Eton.

View 3D gallery of Ron McBurnie: In Search of Arcadia

A Changing Ecology

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 February - 16 May 2021

Drawing from historical and contemporary works held in the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection and Mackay Libraries’ Heritage Collection, A Changing Ecology explores representations of Mackay and greater Queensland’s flora and fauna since colonisation. The exhibition features early local photographs and glass plate negatives, historic botanical illustrations and floral still lifes alongside Indigenous voices including Danie Mellor, Fiona Foley, and Archie Moore, whose works look back on these past visualisations of Australia and its people.

View 3D gallery of A Changing Ecology

Tony Druery: Horizons

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
04 February - 16 May 2021

Tony Druery (1964 - 2016) was an artist and educator in the Mackay community, creating images that spoke to his love of the water, the Australian outback and scenes closer to home. His dynamic fish-eye views of Mackay’s construction boom in the late 2000s capture a rapidly changing cityscape at an important time in the town’s recent history. Druery’s linocut prints exploit the visual attractions of cranes and scaffolding while also expressing the disorientation felt by many of Mackay’s local residents at the time. In recognition of Druery’s untimely death, the exhibition will showcase well-loved works alongside unexhibited pieces to commemorate his legacy within the local arts community.

View 3D gallery of Tony Druery: Horizons

Dylan Mooney: The Wall

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
16 February - 12 May 2021

The Wall is an artist-in-residence exhibition program offering Australian artists the opportunity to create a site-specific artwork directly onto the gallery’s foyer wall. Now in its sixth iteration, Artspace Mackay hosts Mackay-raised Dylan Mooney, an emerging Yuwi, Torres Strait Islander, and Australian South Sea Islander artist. Mooney’s practice includes prints and drawings inspired by First Nations history, culture, and personal ancestry. Mooney’s residency will include archival research and learning on Country about traditional Yuwi shield-making and other material cultures of this region’s First Peoples.

View 3D gallery of Dylan Mooney: Goolmary

Systematic

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 December - 14 February 2021

Systematic is a blend of playful, vibrant and kinetic works that invite viewers to reflect on their own relationship to contemporary systems; the interdependency between the part and the whole; and the creative potential of systemic productivity and failure. It showcases eight Australian artists whose works constitute self-contained, interactive systems in their own right, or engage with systems principles at conceptual and material levels.

Lyn Laver-Ahmat: Light on Landscape

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
5 December - 14 February 2021

Mackay artist and art educator Lyn Laver-Ahmat has established her practice over decades, responding to emotional connections to nature and place. Light on Landscape includes recent works exploring a palette of gentle colours and impressions of space and form, inspired by travels to outback Queensland and more familiar scenes closer to home.

View 3D gallery of Lyn Laver-Ahmat: Light on Landscape

Jabu Birriny [Land + Sea]

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
23 October to 17 January 2021

Jabu (land) Birriny (sea) celebrates the unique environment of Yarrabah and its ongoing importance to culture and people. Located on the shore of Cape Grafton in Far North Queensland, Yarrabah is the traditional Country of the Gunggandji People with a dynamic Aboriginal community surrounded by tropical native bushland and mountain ranges united by sandy coastlines and coral reefs. The exhibition brings together stories rich in lineal, past and recent histories through vibrant prints, intricately woven vessels and textured ceramics that embody the land and sea. Presented by Flying Arts, the exhibition has been co-curated by State Library of Queensland with Yarrabah Arts and Cultural Precinct.

2020

Patricia Piccinini: Curious Affection On Tour

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 September to 29 November  2020

Patricia Piccinini invites audiences to think about their place in a world where advances in biotechnology and digital technologies blur the lines between human, nature and the artificial world. The artist’s fascination with these boundaries and relationships led The New York Times to describe her creations as ‘sculptures of life forms that don’t exist’ – her lifelike hybrid creatures seamlessly blend human, animal and machine elements to reveal life forms that are extraordinarily familiar.

Conversations with Australian South Sea Islanders: A Missing Chapter from Australian History

Foundation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 September to 29 November 2020

The Mackay Region has one of the highest per capita populations of Australian South Sea Islanders – descendants of people who were brought to Australia as indentured labourers between 1863 and 1904. Referred to as blackbirding, this practice supported the early days of the sugar cane industry. Mackay artist Janet Ambrose recounts this missing chapter of Australian history via 50 oral interviews and charcoal-drawn portraits of Australian South Sea Islanders. Created over two years, the project reveals through conversations and art the strength and resilience of a thriving community.

View 3D Gallery of Conversations with Australian South Sea Islanders: A Missing Chapter from Australian History

Finding the Funny: The Art of Judy Horacek

Depending on how old you are, Judy Horacek is best known for either her classic cartoon Woman with Altitude or for doing all the pictures in the classic Where is the Green Sheep?, her first book with Mem Fox. This exhibition will present original artwork from two sides of this busy artist. Her cartoons for grownups often deal with the environment, social justice and women’s issues, while her picture book worlds created for children feature a range of animals doing unlikely things.

2020 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists' Book Prize

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
27 Jun to 13 Sep 2020

Since opening its doors in 2003, the gallery has been dedicated in its exploration and support of the artists’ book medium. The Libris Awards play a significant role in showcasing the very latest and best in contemporary artists’ book practice in Australia, returning in 2020 with $14,500 in prizes. Entries open 18 February 2020. Click here for detailed information about past and upcoming Libris Awards.

View 3D Gallery of 2020 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists' Book Prize.

Focus on the collection: Michael Cook

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
9 June - 9 August

In 2020 Australia observes 250 years since the first arrival of James Cook on the eastern coast of Australia. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, this occasion is a chance to reflect on the painful history of colonisation and its ongoing impact. Through my eyes are portraits of past Australian prime ministers paired with faces of anonymous Aboriginal subjects created by Bidjara photographer Michael Cook. The images encourage viewers, in the artist’s words, to see this nation’s political history ‘through an Indigenous gaze.’

Michelle Vine: Contested Biography

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
14 Apr to 20 Sep 2020

Michelle Vine is a Brisbane based interdisciplinary artist. This exhibition looks to her focus on the site of knowledge formation in biological science - in particular her research on German naturalist Amalie Dietrich who travelled through Australia in the 1860s collecting botanical, zoological and ethnographic specimens. In 2016, Vine retraced Dietrich’s journey in central and northern Queensland, which also led her back to Hamburg Germany to investigate Dietrich’s original collection specimens. A cumulation of discovery and response, the works show Vine’s experience of the Dietrich story, exploring intersections between science, history and art.

View 3D Gallery of Michelle Vine: Contested Biography.

Jamfactory Icon Catherine Truman: No surface holds

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
6 Mar to 7 Jun

Catherine Truman is one of South Australia’s most renowned artists and jewellers who works with a variety of diverse materials to create captivating and one-of-a-kind pieces. This JamFactory touring exhibition incorporates a mix of objects, installation, images, video and new works from her 20 years of research at the nexus of art and science. Catherine Truman: No surface holds is the first time that Truman’s collaborative practice with artists and scientists is presented as a whole.

Elysha Rei: The CQUniversity Wall

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
6 Mar to 3 Jun 2020

Presented this year in partnership with CQUniversity, The Wall is an artist-in-residence exhibition program offering Australian artists an opportunity to create a site-specific artwork directly onto the gallery’s foyer wall. Elysha Rei is a Japanese-Australian visual artist whose work draws upon her mixed heritage and lived experiences between places, cultures and communities. Her works are created from personal and historical archives that embed narrative and symbolism referencing Japanese design aesthetics. Works include portraits, patterns and paper cutting translated into large-scale murals and installation commissions. During her residency, Rei will draw upon historical and environmental research of the region to create a large-scale piece.

Art of Collection

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
21 Feb to 3 Jun 2020

This exhibition looks to the way an art collection can reflect the deeply personal interests, experiences and passions of the individual that drives it. Local art collector Ros Jones made her first serious art purchase in her early 20s. Today her home is adorned with artwork that has taken decades to amass. Described by Jones as “the fabric of her life”, this exhibition includes a selection of paintings, works on paper and ceramics from Jones’ personal art collection. Together these works reveal a little of what it means to be madly, passionately, enamoured with the art of collecting.

Disquiet: Ecological Anxieties and Transformations

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
24 Jan to 5 Apr 2020

Cairns-based artists Barbara Dover and Robyn Glade-Wright’s touring exhibition examines the anxieties surrounding human generated pressures on the marine environment. The issue of the threatened ocean ecology is conveyed and highlighted through the artworks, which are made from discarded plastic and other debris that have been carried in from the sea and washed ashore along the Queensland coast. This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

2019

Losing Home, Finding Home: Mika Nakamura-Mather

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
29 Nov 2019 to 23 Feb 2020

As a Japanese national living and working in Australia, Mika Nakamura-Mather’s work explores the concepts of home and belonging that lie at the heart of understanding our identity. From living and working in a different country to simply taking a holiday and finding yourself in a new location, past memories of home are the yardstick by which we measure

our place in the present. Through the processes of object making, assemblage, installation and traditional painting and photography, her practice examines the connection we feel to a particular location, the cultural markers that define our understanding of home, and the immediacy and relevance of our personal memories.

Sacred Ink: Connecting to culture

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
8 Nov 2019 to 16 Feb 2020

Sacred Ink: Connecting to culture is an Artspace Mackay photographic exhibition delivered in partnership with the Mackay and District Australian South Sea Islander Association (MADASSIA), which explores how the art of tattooing has been embraced by local Australian

South Sea Islanders as a means of cultural connection to, and affirmation of, their South Sea

Islander heritage. Sacred Ink investigates the stories of their tattoos and how they intersect

with themes of family, heritage and identity.

Reasonable & Necessary: Prints and artist's books by Artel Artists

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
18 Oct 2019 to 19 Jan 2020

This inspiring touring exhibition showcases the work of 33 Artel Artists, some of whom possess complex and profound disabilities. Artel, CPL’s (Choice, Passion, Life) creative industries studio supports the development of a positive and participatory cultural identity for people with profound and complex disabilities. The studio offers space, instruction and an environment in which this particular community of individuals has been able, over many years, to express themselves as a dynamic artistic movement.

Kit Webster: Phaseshift

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
12 July to 13 Nov 2019

Drawing upon ideas of perception and consciousness, the kinetic work Phaseshift explores the parallels between environments, both digital and physical. Bringing together ideas of time and space, the constant rhythmic pulse of form, the pendulum and projection collide and interact inciting a hypnotic meditative experience for the viewer.

Some people are stories: Vincent Serico

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Aug to 3 Nov 2019

Vincent Serico’s remarkable life journey through regional, remote and rural Queensland is captured in Some people are stories, the first major touring exhibition of Vincent Serico’s work since his death in 2008. Vincent Serico’s artistic body of work spans over forty years.

He interpreted the whispers – from both land and people. Many of his paintings document significant events in his life or of previous generations as Indigenous people struggled with cultural and lifestyle changes. Djon Mundine OAM, in his essay on Vincent’s work, said that his art “aims to acknowledge Aboriginal existence in a way that gives comfort, while recognising past pain, sorrow, longing and loss, and leaving a trace of them in the hearts of others.”

Violent Salt

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Aug to 24 Nov 2019

Violent Salt brings together contemporary artists from across Australia representing diverse

cultural heritage. Co-curated by Yhonnie Scarce and Claire Watson, the exhibition reflects on the experiences of the marginalised, the underrepresented and the silenced. The exhibition discusses issues surrounding racism and discrimination against First Nations peoples and minority groups as well as the lack of respect for, and desecration of culture and the natural environment. Violent Salt invites artists to speak their truths about these experiences and offers an opportunity for understanding and connection, whilst seeking to celebrate and honour Australia’s unique multiculturalism and landscape. The featured artists are Abdul Abdullah (NSW), Vernon Ah Kee (QLD), Richard Bell (QLD), Daniel Boyd (NSW), Megan Cope (QLD), Karla Dickens (NSW), Sarah-Jane (S.J.) Norman (VIC), Yhonnie Scarce (VIC/SA) and Jemima Wyman (QLD).

Take Root (Colony): Project Another Country

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Jun to 14 Aug 2019

Collaboration and collection, community and family, relocation and temporary homes, memory and identity are all concepts explored through the work of husband and wife team, Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan. Originally from the Philippines, they moved to Brisbane in 2006 with their children. As they literally live the issues they deal with in their artwork, the Aquilizans are particularly focused on conveying the complexity of emotions associated with social dislocation, which emanate from necessity or a need for change.

This site-specific installation will feature handmade objects (cardboard houses) and personal mementos exploring the rich history of our place. In the run-up to the exhibition and continuing throughout, communities and families of the Mackay region will become active participants in building objects using personal and other material of memory, contributing their own creation to the installation. Presented together, the objects connote real or imagined community as well as a meditation on the possibility of defining our own identity and place of origin. This community art project is supported by Glencore’s Hail Creek Mine Community Development Fund and the Artspace Mackay Foundation.

Focus on the Collection: Gwyn Hanssen Pigott

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
4 May to 14 Aug 2019

Hanssen Pigott created a new language for ceramics through her famous still-life groupings. Bowls, bottles, beakers, jugs and cups were displayed in carefully orchestrated arrangements. It was in the early 1980s that Gwyn began testing the boundaries of ceramic art, stripping away (as she saw it) unnecessary or extraneous aspects of her forms. In 1988, the artist settled just west of Mackay in Netherdale and established a pottery studio, building her own woodfired kiln. From 1989 to 2000, Netherdale proved to be one of the most isolated yet longest running and prolific periods in her career. During this time she travelled extensively and exhibited both nationally and internationally, consolidating her reputation. In 2017 with the support of the Artspace Mackay Foundation, a major work was acquired, adding to nine smaller works by Gwyn Hanssen Pigott in the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection.

Robert Macpherson: Boss Drovers

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
04 May to 07 July

This is a QAGOMA touring installation of 200 drawings made by Robert MacPherson over two decades in the guise of his alter ego, Robert Pene, a Year 4 student at St Joseph’s Convent in Nambour, Queensland.

Buff Diss: The Wall

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
16 Apr to 14 Aug

An Artspace Mackay initiative, The Wall is an Artist in Residence exhibition program that offers Australian artists an opportunity to create an artwork directly onto the wall within the gallery. Melbourne-based street artist Buff Diss is best known for his utilisation of tape to create large scale murals. He identifies with a ‘graffiti mentality’ aiming for each of his works to respond directly to the environment they are created within. During his residency, Buff Diss will use mappings of Mackay and the surrounding areas to form a graphic narrative in mural form on The Wall at Artspace Mackay.

Obsessed: Compelled to make

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay.
22 Feb to 19 May 2019

This Australian Design Centre touring exhibition explores the preoccupations that drive the creative process, moving beyond the finished work, to tell the hidden stories of making, uncovering the artists’ inspirations, day-to-day studio experiences, hours of expertise, and the joys and frustrations of obsession. These makers have been chosen from across the spectrum of making – textiles, ceramics, furniture, metalwork, jewellery, conceptual art, glass blowing and sculptural weaving. Obsessed features Gabriella Bisetto, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Honor Freeman, Jon Goulder, Kath Inglis, Laura McCusker, Elliat Rich and James B Young (Elbowrkshp), Kate Rohde, Oliver Smith, Vipoo Srivilasa, Tjunkaya Tapaya, Louise Weaver and Liz Williamson.

Foundations in Drawing

Foyer and Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay.
8 Feb to 28 Apr 2019

The Mackay region has many strong, creative women who have helped shape the vibrant and diverse artistic presence that thrives today. This exhibition highlights recent works by eleven local, women artists linked through their participation in drawing classes with Clem Forbes. Clem was a Mackay artist, gallerist, and art educator who in the early 80s was considered by many to be the main driving force behind visual arts in the community. Today, creativity and inspiration continue to flourish and Foundations in Drawing celebrates the art of Kay Bampton, Mary Brown, Irene Coburn, Alison Fenech, Lyn Laver Ahmat, Lesley Kane, Margaret Burgess, Maria Lenz, Sybil Rodger, Raye Williams, and Leonie Wood.

2018

Focus on the Collection: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Nov 2018 to 3 Feb 2019

The focus for this exhibition of works drawn from the Mackay Regional Council collection are Melbourne artists Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison who have been making artists’ books collaboratively since 1999. Regular finalists in Artspace Mackay's biennial exhibition Libris Awards: The Australian Artists' Book Prize, Haby and Jennison say that choosing artists' books as their medium gives them an opportunity to explore and consider an array of ideas relating to format, illustration, typography, paper quality, assembly and production.

Sugar vs the Reef? Lucas Ihlein and Kim Williams

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
2 Nov 2018 to 27 Jan 2019

Between 2014 and 2019, artists Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein have been working alongside sugarcane farmers in the Mackay region on a project called Sugar vs The Reef? This socially engaged art project explores the possibilities of regenerative agriculture for improving environmental outcomes for the Great Barrier Reef. A vital and topical issue that is of great interest in our local and national community, the Sugar vs The Reef? exhibition will showcase a selection of the artists’ field research through photographs, video, lithographic prints and artefacts. This project is affiliated with the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens, Mackay Regional Council’s RADF program, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and Central Queensland Soil Health Systems. In conjunction with the exhibition, the artists will host an agricultural planting event in late August 2018, and a sunflower harvesting event in late November 2018, at the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens - for more information see www.sugar-vs-the-reef.net and www.watershedmackay.land

The Wall: David Ray

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Nov 2018 to 17 Mar 2019

An Artspace Mackay initiative, The Wall is an Artist in Residence exhibition program that offers Australian artists an opportunity to create an artwork directly onto the wall within the gallery. David Ray is a ceramic artist based in the Yarra Valley whose work provides wry commentary on contemporary consumerism and the less celebrated aspects of Australian cultural life. His work often explores the complex relationship between beauty and ugliness, and defies conventional making techniques.

JamFactory Icon Gerry Wedd: Kitschen Man

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Nov 2018 to 17 Feb 2019

Gerry Wedd enjoys a national reputation in Australia for his hand-built blue and white ceramics that brim with a dry wit oscillating from the humorous to darkly disturbing. From his beginnings at the kitchen table, guided by his mother’s hobby-obsession through to formal training at University of South Australia and his studio tenancy at JamFactory, Wedd draws his craft out of his own inspirations, interest and experiences. Kitschen Man will also feature works from an ever-changing personal collection of inspirations, work made by family, friends, colleagues and mentors such as Jo Crawford, Peter Johnson, Philip Hart, Lesa Farrant, Lincoln Kirby Bell, Chris Headley, Toni Warburton and Stephen Benwell.

Ray White Mackay City: ARTICULATE Postcard Exhibition & Competition

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
29 Sep to 18 Nov 2018

The Articulate: Postcard Exhibition & Competition is a fundraising initiative of Artspace Mackay Foundation. Participating artists from the Mackay region, and across the country have created and donated more than 100 miniature artworks for the exhibition, which will be on show in Artspace's beautiful Foyer Gallery. Not only are the artists competing for valuable prizes with award winners announced on opening night, but all of these artworks will be available for sale or auction to the public! That means you can start or enhance your very own art collection and support a great cause at the same time. It'll be a fun night of art and excitement with prizes awarded to artists in five sections, an entertaining art auction, and you'd better get in quick because the best works sell like art-shaped hotcakes!

Clara Adolphs: Familiar Distance

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
10 Aug to 28 Oct 2018

Sydney born figurative painter Clara Adolphs spent time in the region in 2017, participating in Artspace Mackay’s vibrant new Artist in Residence Program. Her culminating exhibition Familiar Distance is a collection of paintings examining Mackay’s past and present. Adolphs concentrated on using observations and records of moments in time from Mackay. Exploring old photographs, newspaper clippings and making personal observations she ‘attempted to create an image of Mackay over time’ a collection of everyday happenings that formed part of our town’s history and social fabric.

Goggomobil D'Art

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay.
29 Aug to 23 Sep 2018

The Goggomobil D'art Project is a collaborative contemporary art project initiated by classic car collector Jeff Brown that saw a 1960s Australian made and designed Goggomobil Dart - considered an art object in itself - become a classic canvas for Melbourne contemporary artist Robert Clinch, who hand painted sixty-two paper darts over its surface. No two darts are the same.

On Yer Bike

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
31 Aug to 25 Nov 2018

We wash them, we polish them. Sometimes we even name them. But above all, we ride them. Mackay has a long and rich history of motorcycling from the sand racing on the Northern Beaches in the 1920s to the speedway at the Showgrounds at its peak in the 1970s. The tradition of collecting and restoring is alive and well in Mackay and

On yer bike provides an opportunity to view not only an eclectic mix of motorcycles but also to learn the stories of local motorcyclists - stories of ingenuity, courage and daring.

The Wall: Luke Mallie

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
26 May to 15 Aug 2018

An Artspace Mackay initiative, The Wall is an Artist in Residence exhibition program that offers Australian artists an opportunity to create an artwork directly onto the wall within the gallery. This year, Brisbane artist Luke Mallie will be the second person to work on The Wall, bringing him back to Mackay, the place he called home during the early years of his career. He has a boldly colourful and energetic style inspired by his Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island heritage, and during his residency, he will explore the 2018 NAIDOC week theme Because of her, we can. While Mallie works on The Wall from the 22nd May to the 3rd June, the community is encouraged to come in, watch and even strike up conversation, creating opportunities for real and meaningful connections between the artist and his audience.

John Honeywill: Hold this closely

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
18 May to 5 Aug 2018

Queensland painter John Honeywill masterfully transforms still life arrangements into alluring visual conversations. His skills in hyperrealism - a genre of painting that resembles high resolution photography – entice the viewer into a quiet, precise world of floral arrangements and simple, everyday objects. Hold this closely brings into the public view a selection of intimate still life paintings, highlighting the past 10 years of Honeywill’s intriguing exploration into colour, light and space.

2018 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists' Book Prize

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
26 May to 19 Aug 2018

Artspace Mackay's nationally recognised competition brings to our region artists' book entries by Australian artists competing in four sections. Showcasing the very best of works being created in the genre today, the Libris Awards always delivers a diverse, creative and ever-evolving approach to artists' books. The Australian Artists' Book Prize attracts students, emerging and established artists and Artspace proudly welcomes the judges for 2018, Roger Butler AM (Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Australia) and Helen Cole (former Coordinator of the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland).

Primavera at 25: MCA Collection

FIELD Engineers Gallery, Artspace Mackay
16 Feb to 13 May 2018

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) celebrates twenty-five years of Primavera – the annual exhibition dedicated to showcasing the work of young Australian artists. Drawn from the MCA Collection, Primavera at 25 brings together established and emerging artists working across a range of disciplines from painting, sculpture, video, performance, kinetic and installation art. Primavera at 25: MCA Collection artists include: Abdul Abdullah (Primavera 2015), James Angus (Primavera 1992), Rebecca Baumann (Primavera 2011), Barbara Cleveland (Primavera 2011), Mikala Dwyer (Primavera 1992 and guest curator Primavera 2014), Shaun Gladwell (Primavera 2003), Agatha Gothe-Snape (Primavera 2010), David Griggs (Primavera 2006), Ross Manning (Primavera 2009), Danie Mellor (Primavera 2005), Yukultji Napangati (Primavera 2005), Nell (Primavera 1999), David Noonan (Primavera 1999), Sangeeta Sandrasegar (Primavera 2004), Tim Silver (Primavera 2002), Gemma Smith (Primavera 2008), Emma White (Primavera 2010), Pedro Wonaeamirri (Primavera 2005) and Constanze Zikos (Primavera 1992).

2017

The Wall: Samuel Tupou

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
4 Nov 2017 to 11 Feb 2018

Cairns based artist, Samuel Tupou is the first artist to create a work on The Wall as part of the Artspace AIR Program. The Wall is an ongoing series of temporary, site-specific works where Queensland based artists are commissioned to create an artwork that has relevance to either the current exhibition or the Mackay region. The idea revolves around conversations and collaborations with the artist as he or she is supported by members of the local community to complete the work.

Focus on the Collection: Davida Allen

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
4 Nov 2017 to 11 Feb 2018

In 2016 award winning artist Davida Allen donated three paintings to the Mackay Regional Council Art Collection. Allen is known for her distinctive style of painting where she eschews brushes for her fingers. While other methods of painting allow for changes to be made, Allen’s technique disallows reform, to do so would destroy the immediacy of the image. An intensely personal painter, her subjects in this case are what she sees when walking near her home in South East Queensland or her studio in Zilzie.

William T. Cooper: Brought to Life

Gallery One, Artspace Mackay
28 Oct 2017 to 4 Feb 2018

Legendary wildlife filmmaker Sir David Attenborough viewed William T Cooper as ‘‘Australia’s greatest living scientific painter of birds,’’ adding, ‘‘he is possibly the best in the world.’’ Cooper spent a great deal of time in the field observing birds in the wild before capturing them in lively sketches brought to life in his studio. In this exhibition the focus is on his book illustrations with a selection of original watercolour paintings from the publications Parrots of the World and Pigeons and Doves of Australia.

Great Barrier Reef: Anthropocene Project

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
4 Nov 2017 to 11 Feb 2018

Emma Lindsay is a Brisbane based visual artist whose practice explores critical contemporary issues regarding globally endangered species and their habitats. In the exhibition Great Barrier Reef: Anthropocene Project Lindsay expands the focus further, developing work of regional significance in an art and science encounter with vulnerable species on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics.

A Milliner’s Tale: Brenda Lui

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
29 Jul to 12 Oct 2017

In this latest collection of works, Mackay milliner Brenda Lui presents her interpretation of millinery trends past, present and future. Inspired by everyday encounters, from art and vintage fashion to urban design and the natural world, Lui’s practice combines luscious, colourful fabrics with her fresh take on form. In her latest collection, Lui creates a world that is distinctly feminine, paying homage to her love of both contemporary and vintage design.

Emerging Designer: Bethany Cordwell

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
29 July to 29 Oct 2017

Winner of the 2017 Artspace Mackay Foundation ‘Hands On’ Bursary, Bethany Cordwell is a rising talent in the field of fashion design, currently studying at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Humanics: Shane Gibbs

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
29 Jul to 29 Oct 2017

Humanics presents a collection of hairpieces that reflect Shane Gibbs’ desire to blur the boundary between traditional hairdressing and art. Creating sculptural ‘looks’ from

unconventional materials such as steel wool, pipes, wire and wooden skewers Gibbs playfully pushes these boundaries, revealing his fascination with form and the avant-garde. With over 30 years experience in the hair industry, hairdressing doubles as both a profession and means of creative expression.

Coming into Fashion: A century of photography at Condé Nast

Gallery One, Artspace Mackay
29 Jul to 12 Oct 2017

Coming into Fashion is an international exhibition of fashion photography selected from the Condé Nast archives of New York, Paris and Milan. This inspirational show includes photographs by some of the most famous names in Vogue and Vanity Fair fashion photography from 1911 – 2011, including Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and Mario Testino. Artspace Mackay and Rockhampton Art Gallery will share the exhibition over the two venues. Make travel plans now and do not miss this incredible exhibition!

Jud Wimhurst: Protection

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
27 May to 16 Jul 2017

As a firm believer in DIY, research and experimentation is an important part of Wimhurst’s practice and if that means sourcing a completely new material and exploring its capabilities or mastering a new technique, or even to make the necessary tools to do a specific job from scratch, so be it. Conceptually, his sculptures are inspired by consumerism, design, pop culture, mortality and humour - and in particular the point of which these themes may meet or intersect.

Peter Lyssiotis: Where are the originals? Once were photographs...

Gallery One, Artspace Mackay
27 May to 16 Jul 2017

Where are the Originals? slows down the frantic pace of photography in the modern era, pausing for a breath in our rush to capture every moment by taking an over-the-shoulder look at photography and interrogating it. Amongst other things this exhibition posits the view that once an idea has been stretched, almost to breaking point, it will return inevitably to the original. Lyssiotis’ process of scratching, erasing, sanding and over drawing an existing image is a way of drawing those photographs, which have been made and already reproduced back to their essence… light. So that the immediacy of photography goes arm-in-arm with the meditative nature of drawing. Based on two series of works, these works look at the challenge of making visible that which the photographer has not foreseen, revealing, in the process, what was hidden in the original, with a view, always, to reach for those unexpected levels of poetry (and perhaps humour).

Deborah Kelly: No human being is illegal (in all our glory)

Gallery One, Artspace Mackay
27 May to 16 Jul 2017

Originally created for the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) this exhibition comprises 20 life-sized photographic portraits realised through ongoing discussion, exchange and art making between the artist, the subjects and the contributors. The subjects represent a fascinating cross section of contemporary Australia with each portrait telling an intimate story of the subject’s life. “Without the barriers of language, culture, religion, sexuality, gender or race, this collaged imagery bombards the viewer with the human narrative, ‘in all its glory’.” Jacqui Hemsley, Director, Murray Art Museum Albury. Kelly creates mixed-media artworks that are at once unexpected, humorous, provocative, and profound.

ASSI150

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
21 Mar to 21 May 2017

2017 is a significant year that marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of South Sea Islanders to Mackay. This anniversary is a significant milestone for our local Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) community and an important part of Australia’s history. Australian South Sea Islanders, despite the hardships they have suffered, are a strong and dynamic community who continue to make an enormous contribution to all aspects of life, not only in the Mackay region, but in the broader Australian community as well. A selection of objects from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences aims to introduce viewers to the cultural diversity, vitality and spirit resonance of Oceanic art and to some of its universe of forms, both old and new.

Punuku Tjukurpa

Gallery One, Artspace Mackay
24 Mar to 21 May 2017

Artback NT, in association with Maruku Arts, presents Punuku Tjukurpa, the first touring exhibition of artworks from the Maruku Arts archive based at Mutitjulu, near Uluru in the Northern Territory. Punuku Tjukurpa includes 88 punu objects, alongside sculptural works, 2D objects and specially produced audio and video footage. The exhibition includes works made by three generations of artists for whom the tradition of wood carving and painting has been passed down. Artists have shared the teaching of stories that inform the intricate designs and markings incorporated in the objects. The title of the exhibition, Punuku Tjukurpa, describes the story and the Law behind these works.

Liminal Spaces: Escaping the frame

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
16 May to 16 July

A new media installation by local artist Glenda Hobdell presents alternate views that are informed by the experience of two caves – one in Hungary, the other in Australia. A synthesis of immense hanging panels, animated videos, light projections and sonic effects reveal an interplay between light and dark, reflection and shadow, positive and negative, still and moving, physical and digital.

Man Cheung: Botanical Cosmos - Mackay

Gallery Three, Artspace Mackay
21 March to 10 May

Produced through the Artspace Artists in Residence Program and in collaboration with Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens, Botanical Cosmos presents a stunning selection of plants found in the Mackay region. Using photography, video and sound, artist Man Cheung reveals the plants’ refined aesthetics, seductive forms and vivid colours in a series of unique botanical artworks.

2016

Focus on the Collection: Karla Dickens

Gallery Two, Artspace Mackay
9 Dec 2016 to 19 Feb 2017

Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens creates work from an intensely personal place and it’s this authenticity that powers each and every work. Healing is a recurring theme and through the building up of layers, textures and history she communicates messages of strength, hope and salvation. Known for her collage and installation works, she trawls rubbish tips, second hand shops and laneways looking for discarded objects. Worn, rejected and full of history, she repurposes these items, representative of the history of her own struggle and that of Indigenous Peoples as a whole. By salvaging the discarded, these items, like the artist, are given a new life and a purpose, symbolising the hope she holds for the future of her Peoples.

2015

Coming soon

2014

Printbank Award

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 Dec to 8 Feb 2014

This exhibition features selected works from local printmaking group, Printbank Mackay’s 5th annual printmaking award. The Printbank Award includes entries of recent works by printmakers throughout Queensland using a range of contemporary and traditional printmaking techniques.

Danie Mellor: Exotic lies sacred ties

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 Dec 2014 to 8 Feb 2015

This major survey will focus on the past decade of the artist’s practice. Mellor’s Indigenous heritage informs his art, which considers Australia’s colonial legacy. Born in Mackay in 1971 he maintains strong links with his mother’s Country on the Atherton Tablelands, Far North Queensland. The exhibition looks in depth at how Mellor has contributed to contemporary Australian art, and encourages engagement with the nation’s shared and contested histories through core themes. It brings together works from public collections, including Australian Museum, NGA, Art Gallery of South Australia, QAG|GOMA, BRAG, MCA, UQ Art Museum as well as our own Mackay Regional Council Collection.

Offshoots: A florilegium from the Cairns Botanic Gardens

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
24 Oct to 14 Dec 2014

The making of the Offshoots collection is a story of the partnership between the artist, Julie McErnerny, Tanks Arts Centre and Cairns Botanic Gardens. The exhibition consists of botanical drawings, etchings, paintings and mixed media artworks. McEnerny’s technical skills as a botanical illustrator are matched only by her insight into the cultural and ecological significance of her subject matter and by her sheer dedication to her role as Cairns Botanic Gardens illustrator-in-residence. After five years on the Offshoots project, the body of work is substantial, fascinating and worthy of representing the diverse collection of plants at the Cairns Botanic Gardens. It is a fine representation of the diversity of contemporary and traditional botanic illustration techniques and her aim is to produce a florilegium of the Garden’s large botanic collection.

Ever Present: Photographs from the Collection 1850-1975

McAleese Gallery
24 Oct to 14 Dec 2014

Images from photography’s early years have a peculiar temporality. They evoke a seemingly remote past through old-fashioned clothing and poses, as well as often unfamiliar customs and geographies. But they also deliver the past to us in a very immediate and familiar way. Through photography, the past is always with us - it is ‘ever present’.

This exhibition, drawn from Queensland Art Gallery’s historical collections, presents works by unknown nineteenth-century photographers alongside iconic images by some of the masters of the twentieth century, such as Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus. The images in Ever Present suggest the multiple stories comprising the history of photography in the pre-digital era.

A.C.O. Virtual: Play with the band

Orientation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
13 to 31 Oct 2014

In 2012 members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) were captured on film using state of the art 3D & audio technology. ACO Virtual was created as a touring exhibition of these projections combined with remarkable surround sound and very special interactive features. A touch-screen allows visitors to interact with ACO Virtual by highlighting one particular musician, a section of instruments, or their own desired selection of players. A streaming score runs under each musician, allowing talented musicians in our region to even bring their instruments and play along! While a free smartphone app provides information about the composers, the musicians and their instruments. This will be downloadable in the gallery via free WiFi.

Donna Maree Robinson: Far Away Here

Orientation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
28 Jun to 5 Oct 2014

Far Away Here was inspired by a residency at Nes Listamidstod Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland during the winter of 2013. Through immersive installations and manipulated photo media the exhibition explores the ethereal nature of the Icelandic landscape and our human presence within it. Drawn from multiple source imagery the work blends fact with fiction and brings together the artist’s inner subconscious world of ideas with the perceived realities of the physical world. Funded by the Regional Arts Development Fund, a Queensland Government and Mackay Regional Council partnership to support local arts and culture.

Ngaio Lenz: Silhouettes after chemo

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
21 Jun to 28 Jul 2014

Silhouettes after chemo is an exhibition of self-portraits on canvas and a large installation of 365 small found, made and kept things. The works all relate to the artists personal fight with breast cancer and became part of her healing process.

Made in China, Australia

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
21 Jun to 28 Jul 2014

This touring exhibition questions how the work of Chinese Australian artists is affected by the particular Chinese Australian heritage and experiences they have had. Some of the artists in the exhibition were born here, other travelled here in the past and some are recent arrivals. The curator is interested in the subtle differences that arise in the artist’s work due to their particular relationship with the two cultures. Made In China, Australia investigates contemporary art practices across a range of mediums and disciplines, genders and generations.

The Three Os: Orban, Olsen & Ogburn

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 Jul to 31 Aug 2014

This touring exhibition explores the legacy of Desiderius Orban and that of two of his students, John Ogburn and John Olsen. Both later taught at Orban’s studio before blazing their own trails in Australian Art. The arrival of European refugees such as Orban (Hungary) assisted in changing perceptions of modern art within Australia. Orban’s mantra was “art equals creativity”. He celebrated the idea of the artist as innovator. These ideas were influential in the development of his many students, most notably Olsen and Ogburn who each went on to have very different, yet notable careers.

Roy Huff: Old dog, new tricks

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 Jul to 31 Aug 2014

Local artist Roy Huff didn’t begin painting until he was in his 60s. He’s now a practising member of Mackay Art Society and a prolific painter who has held many solo and group exhibitions throughout the region. Roy taught himself to use a computer and digital camera, and uses Facebook and social media to promote his work throughout the world, proving that an old dog really can master new tricks.

Masters of the medium

Orientation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 Oct 2013 to 15 Jun 2014

Pioneer Potters was formed in Mackay in 1975 by a small group of potters who aimed to meet and improve the standard of pottery in Mackay. They regularly conducted seminars and workshops by local, national as well as international artists, and held competitions enabling them to acquire a rich and substantial collection of ceramic works. The collection was donated to Artspace Mackay, Mackay Regional Council in 2006. Masters of the medium is inspired by this donation and focuses on 13 premier potters who are highly regarded as experts in their field and whose work highlights this very special collection.

Mirror Mirror: Recent works by May Mosshammer

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
23 May to 6 Jul 2014

A traditional folk ballad interweaves this exhibition of recent works by emerging local artist, May Mosshammer. Mirror mirror is a series of prints, installations and mixed media works inspired by a visit to Mackay’s historical Greenmount Homestead and the artist’s discovery of three tiny antique porcelain dolls labelled ‘Frozen Charlottes’.

Creative Power: The art of George Baldessin

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
23 May to 6 Jul 2014

Despite a tragically short life, George Baldessin made a significant impact on printmaking and sculpture in Australia in the 1960s and 70s. Creative Power is a retrospective exhibition of works, including prints, drawings and sculpture, selected by the artist’s widow, Tess Edwards. Baldessin from the rich legacy he left at the time of his death. Baldessin’s artwork reshuffles motifs to make narratives set upon distorted stages or in windowless interiors. A pear becomes a woman. A hat is an emblem. The emblem reconfigures as the same woman. This playfulness extends to his experimental use of materials such as the fibreglass and silver foil which appear in his prints. An edgy feeling for composition amalgamates smoky surfaces and scratchy line-work into darkly memorable images.

Traverse: Recent works by Melinda Schawel

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
4 Apr to 18 May 2014

This exhibition by Melbourne artist Melinda Schawel, features her latest works on paper and

board. Through a process of paper tearing, puncturing & collage, she creates tactile surfaces and abstract compositions that reference the natural world. Schawel was the artist in residence at the Whitsunday Anglican school in 2012.

Designing Craft/Crafting Design: 40 Years of JamFactory

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
4 Apr to 18 May 2014

In 2013 JamFactory celebrated 40 years of nurturing and promoting contemporary craft and design in Australia. Today, JamFactory remains a unique and iconic South Australian institution. Curated by Margaret Hancock Davis, Margot Osborne and Brian Parkes, this exhibition presents new work by 40 selected artists, craftspeople and designers who have had a significant involvement with the JamFactory during its 40-year history and who are presently producing work of outstanding quality.

Selfhood: Deborah Williams

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
31 Jan to 30 Mar 2014

Deborah Williams is a keen observer of dogs. Her works consider our human relationship with the canine realm, capturing moments which emphasize the animal’s spirit, character and form. Selfhood is an exhibition of etchings, engravings and roulette intaglio prints.

Mytho-Poetic: Print & assemblage works by Glen Skien

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
31 Jan to 30 Mar 2014

This exhibition will interrogate the human condition with 35 artist books, assemblages, collages and installations that will bring to life social histories and vexing questions of Australian identity, place and myth. Skien’s etching practice is the platform for his work in other media, while underlying narratives are presented through the use of symbolic imagery such as maps, letters, books and ephemera. The exhibition offers viewers an immersive experience rich in imagery that navigates residues of the past and creates new propositions for identity and historical awareness.

2013

Ah Xian: Metaphysica

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
13 Dec 2013 to 25 Jan 2014

Ah Xian is one of the most interesting artists to emerge from post-cultural revolution China.  This series of work was the result of a decade long philosophical journey in which the artist had sought to reconcile his own cultural background with the artistic language and values of the West. Taken from the holdings of the Queensland Art Gallery collection.

Blakely Lloyd: Never Again

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
13 Dec 2013 to 25 Jan 2014

In 1994 Angela Blakely and David Lloyd were commissioned by the History section of the Australian Army to accompany the first rotation of troops to Rwanda and (photo) document Australia’s involvement in the Rwanda genocide crisis. They returned to Rwanda on two other occasions to discover that for many survivors, there is no life after the genocide. They have lost, and continue to lose, their health, their dignity, their security and their liberty. Justice remains elusive. Never again consists of a number of chapters, documenting different stories and employing various forms of presentation through photography, objects and sound. This work makes visual, the voice of the survivors, and prompts the audience to ask fundamental questions of responsibility, humanity and racism.

Lloyd Rees: Life and light

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 Oct to 8 Dec 2013

Brisbane-born painter and draftsman Lloyd Rees (1895 – 1988) is one of Australia’s most recognised and awarded landscape artists. This exhibition explores the Queensland Art Gallery’s holdings of this significant artist’s work. Life and light honours the important connection between Lloyd Rees and Queensland, especially regarding his early development as a draftsman and artist. The exhibition explores the range of his artistic achievements throughout his long career. As a special complement to this exhibition in Mackay, Lloyd Rees works on loan from Bathurst Regional Gallery Collection will also be on show, together with prints by the artist from the Mackay Regional Council Collection.

10:100,000 Mapping the Island

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
25 Oct to 8 Dec 2013

Visual artists, poets, chefs, wine makers, dancers and musicians, each received a section of a topographical map of Tasmania. Their brief was to respond with an artwork on paper measuring 29 x 29 cm square. The results include works that are deeply personal, wonderfully witty and aesthetically masterful; each responding sensitively to the artist’s sense of the place on the map section they were given.

Insight: Hermannsburg Potters Collection of the Moreton Bay Regional Council

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Aug to 20 Oct 2013

This exhibition celebrates the diversity of art practice taking place in contemporary Indigenous communities. Insight features works by Irene Mbitjana Entata, Carol Panangka Rontji, Judith Pungkarta Inkamala, Clara Ngala Inkamala, Ester Ngala Kennedy, Lindy Panangka Rontji, Rona Panangka Rubuntja, Dawn Ngala Wheeler and Rahel Kngwarria Ungwanaka. This is a travelling exhibition developed by Moreton Bay Regional Council and toured by Museum and Gallery Services Queensland.

Creative Generation

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Aug to 20 Oct 2013

The Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art recognise and promote excellence in senior visual arts education throughout Queensland schools. This is an exhibition of finalists from across the region who will now compete with their peers state wide for the opportunity to have their artwork displayed at Queensland Art Gallery as part of Creative Generation, Queensland.

South of no North: Laurence Aberhart, William Eggleston & Noel Mckenna

McAleese & Foyer Galleries, Artspace Mackay
5 Jul to 25 Aug 2013

View the everyday world differently through the paintings, ceramics, videos and photographs of three visual artists whose works are connected by an interest in the commonplace, a regional sense of place and a similar visual sensibility. South of no North is one of an ongoing series of exhibitions at the MCA which places the work of an Australian artist alongside that of international peers. Primarily known as a painter, Noel McKenna (Australia) joins photographers Laurence Aberhart (New Zealand) who works predominantly with black and white photography & William Eggleston (USA) who works almost exclusively with colour photography. All three share an interest in the stories and poetry of everyday life, drawing their subjects from the world around them and turning our gaze to the humble and familiar. They tap into the wonder of childhood in their subject matter, Aberhart with his images of children and McKenna through his series of paintings of ‘big things’ – a very Australian civic obsession; while one of Eggleston’s renowned images Memphis (c.1969-70), takes on the view of a child, photographed while lying on the ground looking up to a tricycle that looms gigantically, dwarfing the landscape surrounding it.

Two islands, one home: A story of belonging

Orientation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
5 Jul to 6 Oct 2013

Two islands, one home is an exhibition of locally-owned artefacts, which commemorates the 150th anniversary of the arrival of South Sea Islanders in Queensland. Told through the eyes of local descendants of South Sea Islander indentured labourers, this collection of precious photographs, documents, ceremonial items and personal objects tells the story of our country’s largest community of Australian South Sea Islanders.

The Wandering: Moving images from the MCA Collection

Orientation Gallery, Artspace Mackay
20 Sep to 20 Oct 2013

This exhibition has been designed to introduce audiences to a selection of works by some of Australia’s most significant artists working in the video medium. Toured by Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), NSW.

2013 Libris Awards: The Australian Artists Book Prize

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
10 May to 30 Jun 2013

The Libris Awards are Australia’s premier national artists book prize. An initiative of the Mackay Regional Council through Artspace Mackay, these awards seek to develop awareness of the Council’s significant collection of artists books and to develop the collection further through the acquisition of new works by leading Australian artists working in this field.

The book as site: Reading resonance

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
10 May to 30 Jun 2013

Marian Macken was the recipient of Artspace Mackay’s Libris Award in 2010. Through processes of transformation, involving folding, cutting, embossing and watermarking, Marian expands on the idea of architectural drawing.

Body on the line & Mana Pasifika

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
22 Mar to 5 May 2013

Two exhibitions curated by Leo Tanoi from Sydney’s Casula Powerhouse, Body on the line is a portrait exhibition by international photographer Greg Semu featuring some of Rugby League’s current and former stars with South Pacific and Maori heritage including Jarryd Hayne, Fuifui Moimoi, Paul Aiton, Jared Waerea- Hargreaves and Petero Civoniceva. Mana Pasifika depicts NRL stars in the traditional dress of their forefathers, paying homage to the cultural practices of the past. Photographed by Frank Puletua and Ethan Mann.

Siamani Samoa Selu La’au (German Samoa Hair Combs)

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
22 Mar to 5 May 2013

Michel Tuffery is a New Zealand based artist of Samoan, Rarotongan and Tahitian heritage. This exhibition features a selection of intricate timber head combs recently purchased for the Mackay Regional Council Collection. Consisting of 70 individual oversized plywood combs, Comb over by Sherrie Knipe presents a humorous view of an everyday object.

Lorna Fencer Napurrurla: Yulyurlu

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
1 Feb to 17 Mar 2013

A stunning retrospective of the high profile senior Warlpiri artist Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla (c1924-2006). This exhibition will be the first major survey of the Lajamanu artist’s work and will trace her development as a highly original artist during her twenty years of practice. The exhibition will emphasise Yulyurlu’s importance within the Lajamanu region and position her within the broader framework of the western desert art movement. This exhibition is presented by Artback NT: Arts Development and Touring in partnership with Mimi Arts and Crafts.

Still life: Joachim Froese photographs 1999 - 2008

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
1 Feb to 17 Mar 2013

Over the last ten years Froese’s work has concentrated on photographic still life and often

explores personal family history. His photographic tableaux are laboriously assembled constructs that seemingly defy reality, and question the inherent nature of the photographic image as a reflection of the real. This exhibition provides a cohesive overview of the photographic practice of a significant Queensland artist of international standard.

2012

Ron McBurnie: Metal as anything

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Dec 2012 to 27 Jan 2013

Metal as Anything is a survey exhibition that showcases thirty years of the diverse and intricate etchings of Townsville artist Ron McBurnie. A place where misbehaving dogs, ducks in box kites, jumping cats and eccentric toad shooters meet to examine their place in the carnival of characters and landscapes that the artist has created. The diversity of events, both large and small, that inspires McBurnie’s artworks are telling of the artist’s greatest strength - his ability to highlight the weird and wonderful events that occur on our ‘mundane’ suburban environment. It is so easy for these fleeting, humorous moments to be lost, buried underneath the drudgery and commitments of our daily grind. McBurnie, unlike most, captures these moments in his own life and ensures they are not misplaced.

The Printbank award 2012

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Dec 2012 to 27 Jan 2013

This exhibition features selected works from local printmaking group, Printbank Mackay’s 3rd annual printmaking award. The Printbank Award includes recent works by printmakers throughout Queensland using a range of contemporary and traditional printmaking techniques.

Jenny Sages: Paths to portraiture

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 Oct to 8 Dec 2012

This travelling exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery explores the process of portrait making through large-scale portraits, abstract landscapes, preparatory and finished

drawings, photographs, and objects and materials related to the work of the

artist Jenny Sages. Sages has twice won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for portraiture, and has been a finalist nineteen times in the Art Gallery of NSW Archibald Prize for portraiture. She won the Wynne Prize for landscape in 2005.

Creative Generation

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
19 Oct to 8 Dec 2012

An initiative of the Department of Education and Training, this exhibition highlights a range of outstanding work by visual art and design students from secondary schools throughout the Mackay region. Selected finalists from the region go on to compete in the state wide Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art and Design.

Shaun Gladwell: Afghanistan

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
31 Aug – 13 Oct 2012

Shaun Gladwell is an internationally acclaimed video artist who represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The Australian War Memorial commissioned Gladwell to travel through Afghanistan and numerous bases in the Middle East for several weeks. He was attached to the Australian Defence Force which undertakes a range of training, logistical, reconnaissance, and battle operations. His task was to record and interpret the experiences of Australian servicemen and women who are part of Operation Slipper.

His commission continues a distinguished tradition of official war art, which was established during the First World War. His use of the video medium is the first in the history of the scheme.

Fiona Foley: Flotsam and jetsam

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
31 Aug – 13 Oct 2012

This exhibition is a series of recent works on paper by Indigenous Australian artist Fiona Foley. In contrast to her public art sculptures along Mackay’s Blue Water Trail, Foley’s latest work is a collection of colourful gouaches inspired by mangrove habitats and coastal flotsam and jetsam.

Ted Barraclough: A rare bird

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
8 Sep 2012 to 9 Feb 2013

Ted Barraclough is an emerging artist in his 70s working in Queensland who grew up in the bush with an affinity for local birdlife. He whittled and carved as a young boy and his continued interest in bird-watching and carving eventually melded into his present art form, creating small, whittled wooden sculptures which capture the essence of native Australian birds. For this exhibition, Ted has focused on the birdlife of the Mackay and central Queensland region.

The Denman/Fordyce collection: A recent donation to Mackay Regional Council Libraries Heritage Collection

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
2 Jul to 1 Sep 2012

A generous donation of photographs, diaries, letters, objects and ephemera, the Denman/Fordyce collection is a unique family collection that documents pioneering days and offers insight into the daily lives of those who lived and worked the family estates. The eclectic nature of the collection will appeal to local and family history enthusiasts and is a valuable addition to the Mackay Regional Council Libraries Heritage Collection.

History lost: The damming of the Connors River

Seminar Room, Artspace Mackay
14 Jul – 25 Aug 2012

To commemorate the history of Collaroy, a property two hours south of Mackay which is being resumed to make way for a large dam, a group of local artists worked in a variety of mediums to creatively document the land, it’s flora and fauna, and the people who call it home, for the last time.

Looking forward, looking back: 150 years of Mackay

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Jul to 25 Aug 2012

As part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the establishment of Captain John Mackay's camp at Greenmount, Artspace Mackay pays tribute to the region's past and present with a unique exhibition of historical artefacts and contemporary artworks. Historical photographs, paintings and objects, sourced from both private and public collections, are showcased alongside new artworks, especially created for this exhibition, by Mackay's leading artists. These contemporary artworks draw inspiration from the selected artefacts of the past and ask audiences to reflect on the events and people that have shaped our region. Through cyclones, floods, world wars and massive changes in agriculture and industry, Mackay has prospered and developed into a resilient, culturally diverse, dynamic community and region. Although we are already 'a long way down the track', Looking forward, looking back: 150 years of Mackay urges us to envisage a future for the Mackay region, built on lessons learnt from the past.

Karl Langer Drawings: Mackay’s future plan

Foyer Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Jul to 25 Aug 2012

Karl Langer was commissioned (by the Mackay City Council) to review the 1934 Mackay City Planning Scheme in late 1948. Langer’s proposals for residential Mackay were visionary. The Langer Plan was gazetted in 1952, however, the plan was to be surrounded in controversy which led this concept of neighbourhood planning to be completely abandoned in favour of a street layout based on existing streets and traffic patterns.

In Bed by Ron Mueck

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
30 Mar to 19 May 2012

Australian-born, London-based sculptor Ron Mueck creates figures in both emotional and physical states of exposure, suspended in self-consciousness, introspection or deep contemplation. Widely acclaimed and astounding in their realism, Ron Mueck’s works are some of the most evocative sculptures of our time. In Bed is one of Mueck’s largest and most engaging works. It elicits strong feelings of empathy, despite its overwhelming scale, and invites audiences to reflect on the psychology of everyday situations. The work has a genuine human vulnerability and an undeniable poignancy that resonates strongly with audiences.

Martin Smith: A perfect price for Donny

Artspace Mackay Foyer
30 Mar to 19 May 2012

Artist photographer Martin Smith creates collages telling stories of lived experiences and family histories. By painstakingly hand carving text into his photographs, he creates a type of  intricate self portrait, an assemblage of moments and memories to which many will easily relate.

Perspectives: Jon Cattapan and Ex De Medici

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
3 Feb to 24 Mar

Perspectives presents the unique insights of two contemporary artists commissioned by the Australian War Memorial to respond to the subject of peacekeeping. Jon Cattapan travelled to Timor–Leste in July 2008 and the work he subsequently produced evokes a unique vision, offering viewers a profound insight into the nature and significance of Australian peacekeeping in the twenty-first century. eX de Medici went to the Solomon Islands in March 2009 and created finely rendered watercolours and drawings which offer a visual history of the events that inform the current fragile state of the Solomon Islands, the complex nature of peacekeeping and the legacy of colonisation. Both artists gained insight into the role of Australian peacekeepers, and from their experiences, created a series of works that reveal a personal vision and artistic style.

Veils of illusion: In search of self

Artspace Mackay Foyer
3 Feb to 24 Mar 2012

An investigation into the fragility of the human spirit, Veils of illusion is an exhibition of recent works by Janine Whitling. Now a Brisbane-based artist with strong ties to the Mackay region, Whitling ponders the screens or facades people use to survive and hide their innermost selves.

2011

Colliding Islands

McAleese Gallery
2 Dec 2011 to 28 Jan 2012

Colliding Islands explores the idea of contemporary landscapes through the work of selected Australian and international practitioners working in a range of artforms. The exhibition features works on paper, film and installation work by artists Jillian Conrad (US), Olivier Dollinger (FRN), David Hamill (US), Archie Moore (AUS) and Heeseop Yoon (KOR/US). Except for Archie Moore, the artists are exhibiting in Australia for the first time.

A travelling exhibition curated by Louise Rollman and toured by Museum and Gallery Services Queensland. This project has received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

Camino: Recent works by Kim Demuth

Artspace Mackay Foyer
2 Dec 2011 to 28 Jan 2012

After completing an Australia Council Barcelona Studio Residency in 2005, Kim Demuth was inspired to return in 2008, this time on foot to embark upon a 900km pilgrimage across the Northern regions of Spain (‘El Camino de Santiago’). After completing the walk, he spent the following year constructing sculptural photographs that celebrate particular times and places from the experiences and discoveries that the journey had provided.

Subject Matters: Postcard Exhibition

Artspace Mackay Foyer
7 Oct to 26 Nov 2011

This exciting event combines a competition, exhibition & art sale to raise funds for Artspace Mackay Foundation to invest back into arts in the Mackay region. Participating artists are provided with a small format canvas and encouraged to use the medium of their choice to create an artwork. Once completed, the artist donates the finished work to the Artspace Mackay Foundation. All canvases are eligible to win first prize, and are made available for public auction & sale at the official exhibition opening.

Alison Lester’s Kids Antarctic Project

McAleese Gallery
7 Oct to 26 Nov 2011

In 2005, Alison Lester travelled to the Antarctic as an Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow. Thousands of children from schools all around the world were inspired, using her on-line diary and photographic journal to track her journey. By keeping in touch with Alison, children followed her trip, leaving Tasmania on the ice breaker Aurora Australis, to travel to Mawson Station and to Casey station on the Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. Alison encouraged the students to draw in response to her descriptions and photos and on her return home she was inundated with beautiful drawings of Antarctica as imagined by children. Alison used these illustrations to complete this exhibition of work combining the children’s line drawings with her design and colour.

Who Am I? Self portraits by students of the Mackay Region

McAleese Gallery
7 Oct to 26 Nov 2011

Throughout history, artists have used the self-portrait as a means of exploring not just their appearance, but often how they feel, what interests them, and other things that make them who they are. Who am I? is an exhibition of self-portraits by hundreds of students from 13 schools throughout the Mackay region and also students from Mackay’s Japanese sister city, Matsuura.

Batik of Java: Poetics and politics

McAleese Gallery
19 Aug to 1 Oct 2011

On the 2nd October, 2009 UNESCO recognised Javanese batik as an item of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To celebrate this, Caloundra Regional Gallery brings together two batik collections: one of batiks from the North Coast of Java and the other now held as memory and represented in the recent paintings by contemporary Indonesian artist Dadang Christanto (now resident in Brisbane). An element of these paintings depicts as fragments of memory and loss, batiks from the collection of his mother’s shop. The selection of batiks from the Sunshine Coast collection of Greg Roberts and Ian Reed includes exquisite examples of North Coast Javanese textiles. Batik of Java is a Caloundra Regional Gallery touring exhibition.

Creative Generation

Artspace Mackay Foyer
19 Aug to 1 Oct 2011

An initiative of the Department of Education and Training, this exhibition highlights a range of outstanding work by visual art and design students from secondary schools throughout the Mackay region. Selected finalists from the region go on to compete in the state wide Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art and Design.

Happily Ever After: Alternative Destinies in contemporary feminine narrative

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
29 Jul - 28 Oct 2011

Happily Ever After was conceived as an interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, writers and craftspeople invited to work together to create handmade books which explore female narratives within the fairytale genre. While the classic fairytale ending ‘happily ever after’ envisages a single, finite destiny, the contemporary feminine experience encompasses a multiplicity of roles, expectations, endings, beginnings and relationships. Thus the exhibition theme is probably best conceptualised as a celebration of diversity within destiny, with the fairytale genre used as the narrative vehicle to explore this idea.

The Lyre Bird Sings

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
4 Nov 2011 to 30 Jun 2012

This exhibition showcases a stunning array of artists books and livres d’artistes produced by Townsville’s Lyre Bird Press during the 1990s and early 2000s, held in the Mackay Regional Council Collection. Established by renowned printmakers Tate Adams and Ron McBurnie, the press produced work by many of Australia’s leading printmakers including George Baldessin, Fred Williams, Jan Senbergs and John Brack.

Contemporary Miniatures

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
1 Jul to 13 Aug 2011

A collection-based exhibition drawn from the Queensland Art Gallery’s holdings of miniature paintings from South Asia, Contemporary Miniatures explores the dynamic visual language of miniature painting and its continued importance in contemporary art practice. A significant thread in the exhibition is the citing of imagery, texts and events from the past to contextualise and comment on contemporary issues. This is a Queensland Art Gallery travelling exhibition, supported by the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments, administered by Arts Queensland.

Bonney Bombach Memento Mori: Tree of life

Artspace Mackay Foyer
1 Jul to 13 Aug 2011

In an deeply poignant year for the artist, Bombach salvages memories from her family home. Honouring her late centenarian parents, refugees from 1938 Vienna, the photographs, letters and pieces she recovered not only translate as a remarkably personal genealogy, but act also as a symbol of permanence and transition. From the Latin phrase meaning a reminder of mortality, Memento Mori embodies a rich generational and spiritual connection.

2010 Ranamok Glass Prize

McAleese Gallery
6 May to 26 Jun 2011

Now in its sixteenth year, the Ranamok Glass Prize aims to encourage creativity, skill and innovation in contemporary glass from Australia and New Zealand and has become a pivotal event in the Australian visual arts and craft calendar. Attracting over 100 entries throughout Australia and New Zealand in 2010, this exhibition displays stunning contemporary glasswork from the award’s finalists and includes the winner of the valuable annual prize.

Clem Forbes: Recent additions to the Mackay Regional Council Collection

Artspace Mackay Foyer
6 May to 26 Jun 2011

Renowned local artist, Clem Forbes was a major driving force behind the visual arts in Mackay. In 2009, Mackay Regional Council accepted two generous donations of works spanning approximately 20 years of his career, and ranging from synthetic polymer and oil paintings to pastels.

May’s: The May Lane Street Art Project

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
11 Mar to 1 May 2011

The May Lane project began in Sydney in 2005 when Tugi Balog turned the walls of his business into an outdoor gallery space for street artists. The May’s collection now consists of over 100 panels by celebrated Australian & international street artists who have worked in May Lane. MAY’S: The May Lane Street Art Project features a selection of 25 works from this collection and explores the history and evolution of the Australian street art movement with particular reference to the May Lane project. A partnership project between Bathurst Regional Art Gallery and the May Lane Arts Association Inc, MAY’S is the first comprehensive exhibition of street art to tour nationally.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose: Recent works by Corey De Muth

Artspace Mackay Foyer
11 Mar to 1 May 2011

Using text and watercolour portraits, Corey De Muth’s series is a close observation of young men who belong to a generation that is at the fragile endpoint of the decline of western civilisation. While they may be at different places, they share a common link; the awareness of a generation, a society, doomed.

C/O Poste Restante: Mackay Regional Council Artists Book Collection

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
29 Oct 2010 to 12 Jun 2011

Curated by renowned local artist, Wanda Bennett, C/O Poste Restante highlights a selection of works from the Mackay Regional Council’s permanent collection of artists books. Increased use of electronic technology combined with the environmental need to work towards a paper free society, continuously threatens the book’s role as humankind’s primary communication tool. This threat to the well loved book has led to an increased interest in book arts amongst artists, with a growing number choosing to work with artists books and altered books as a way to define and express issues present in contemporary society. This exhibition explores and examines the preciousness and sentimentality of letters, diaries, journals, scribbled notes, travel tickets and indeed the art of handwriting itself.

Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R. Ian Lloyd

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
14 Jan to 6 Mar 2011

The extensive photographic and journalistic work carried out by National Geographic photographer R. Ian Lloyd and acclaimed art critic and writer John McDonald has culminated in the exhibition STUDIO: Australian Painters Photographed by R. Ian Lloyd. Their aim was to capture a broad cross-section of artists from all over Australia, including traditional Aboriginal painters, working in a variety of styles. The photographic studies reveal each artist, in fascinating detail, in their working environment. STUDIO provides insights into the complex blend of motivation and inspiration that sustains these 61 individual artists, revealing the way their studio space affects and stimulates their creativity.

The Artist’s Studio: Ron McBurnie Prints

Artspace Mackay Foyer
14 Jan to 6 Mar 2011

This series of etchings by Townsville printmaker Ron McBurnie explores that intimate space and personal environment of the artist at work. This collaboration with well known Australian artists involved McBurnie working directly onto the etching plate, in situ, and inviting each collaborating artist to contribute to each print by etching their own work directly into McBurnie’s composition.

2010

Paolozzi + Kitaj: British Pop Prints from the Art Gallery of NSW Collection

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
16 Jul to 12 Sep 2010

This exhibition features two major British print portfolios from the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Eduardo Paolozzi’s Bunk 1972 is a collection of 45 screenprints derived from collage scrapbooks made by the artist in the 1950s. The second portfolio In our time: Covers for a small library after the life for the most part 1969 by R.B.Kitaj is a collection of 50 screenprints of second-hand book covers.

Working through/Turning pages: The artists’ books of Robert Jacks

Artspace Mackay Foyer
16 Jul to 12 Sep 2010

An exhibition of Robert Jacks artists’ books ranging from one-off works to multiples and editions using a variety of printing techniques from hand stamping and etching to collage, photography and other media.

The A - Z of artists books

Cox Rayner Gallery, Artspace Mackay
26 Feb to Sep 2010

By using the alphabet to showcase a selection of artists books from the Mackay Regional Council Collection, Artspace Mackay have created an informative and entertaining exhibition.  Each work has been selected based on the starting letter of a concept or theme that relates to the world of artists books.

Namatjira to now

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
17 Sep to 31 Oct 2010

The great Albert Namatjira’s adoption of the European medium of watercolour for his landscape paintings remains an inspiration to contemporary artists from Ntaria (Hermannsburg) and surrounding regions of Central Australia. Since the 1930s, artists there have been producing vibrant and highly regarded art that has made their country celebrated throughout Australia. This exhibition will highlight work by Indigenous Australian artists from the Hermannsburg School and will include watercolours (from the original and subsequent generations), ceramics and acrylic paintings on canvas.

Maelstrom: Recent works by Kelvyn Cunnington

Artspace Mackay Foyer
17  Sep to 31 Oct 2010

Drawings, collage & assemblage drawn from the artist’s inner vault. Cunnington’s creations oscillate between genuinely disturbing and quiet prayerful contemplation. The artist describes this exhibition as “A turbulent, anxious and unsettling river of imagery. A grinding whorl, a droning dirge, flooded with symbolism, these are works not easily defined.”

Simryn Gill: Gathering

McAleese Gallery, Artspace Mackay
5 Nov 2010 to 9 Jan 2011

This solo exhibition presents the work of leading Sydney-based Malaysian artist, Simryn Gill. It reveals the artist’s pursuit of meaning through materials, forms and ways of working and is focused around new works from the past five years including photography, objects, collections, books and text pieces.

The Printbank Award 2010

Artspace Mackay Foyer
5 Nov 2010 to 9 Jan 2011

This exhibition features selected works from local printmaking group, Printbank Mackay’s 2nd annual printmaking award. The Printbank Award includes recent works by printmakers throughout Queensland using a range of contemporary and traditional printmaking techniques.