July 6, 2015
When Brisbane’s Lance Lamb began his career as a full-time professional artist in 1994, it was earlier than he’d expected.
But the former customs officer said when his Department began issuing voluntary redundancies to staff in the mid-1990s, he thought the offer was too good to pass up.
And his 10-year association with the Wondai Regional Art Gallery began in an equally unexpected way when he and wife Anne, taking a drive through the South Burnett, decided to drop in one day for a look.
“I mentioned I was an artist to the lady behind the counter,” Lance told guests at Gallery’s July exhibition opening on Friday night.
“An artist?” said the woman, “would you like to have an exhibition here?” The woman turned out to be former gallery curator Alison Iszlaub.
This month the Wondai Gallery is exhibiting Lance’s watercolours in an exhibition he’s called “Near and Far”, because the artworks cover everything from Wondai streetscapes to views across Asian rice fields.
All have been expertly framed by his wife Anne, who is one of the few certified Master Picture Framers in Australia, and are mounted in the Alison Iszlaub Gallery.
On opening night, his work “Towards Wilpena Pound” took the People’s Choice award, which was voted on by guests.
And as curator Elaine Madill happily told the opening night audience, Lance has also picked up a painting commission from a local business since his works were hung earlier in the week.
The Gallery has three other exhibitions on show this month, as well.
In the Front Gallery, artists Gwen Olm and Betty Descovitch have a display of pyrographic artworks – some executed on wood, others on wax.
Pyrography is the process of creating an artwork by burning a design on the surface with a heated metal point. So the pair have called their exhibition “Two Hot Chicks”.
In the Rear Gallery, the Graham House Spinners and Weavers group have mounted an exhibition of woven and spun shawls, hats, scarves and rugs.
The group explained that they don’t exhibit at the region’s agricultural shows because members don’t like to compete against one another.
But since their first successful exhibition at the Gallery in November 2014, interest had grown and the latest exhibition shows craftworks created by 10 of the group’s 17 members: Enid Barford, Jo Bowler, Sam Bowler, Marion Darlington, Natalie English, Helen Bush, Judy Gray, Kathy Hansen, Judith Ogden and Chris Treloar.
Finally, this month Kidz Korner is showing works created by children from Cherbourg State School, many of which have an emu theme to coincide with the unveiling of a statue in honour of Wondai’s former “town emu” Charlotte, which will be a feature of this month’s Wondai Markets on Saturday, July 25.
- “Near & Far”, “Two Hot Chicks”, craftworks by the Graham House Spinners and Weavers Group and artworks by Cherbourg State School pupils will be on display at the Wondai Regional Art Gallery from 10:00am to 4:00pm daily until the end of July. Admission to view them is free.
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