December 5, 2012
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It will be a big weekend for art lovers with two major South Burnett galleries launching major summer exhibitions.
The Wondai Regional Art Gallery will kick off the season this Friday night with its final exhibition for the year, oil paintings by Hivesville artist Shannus O’Sullivan.
Shannus moved from the Hunter Valley to the South Burnett in 2004 and has enjoyed popular had exhibitions at the Wondai, Kingaroy Art Gallery and Nimue.
During his career, he’s won more than 120 awards and his paintings are held in collections around Australia and in the United States, Asia, England and Germany.
He’s best known for his mastery of “indirect painting”, a 500-year-old technique that involves applying several layers of colour to achieve a richness in the finished work not often seen in contemporary paintings.
Indirect painting was a technique widely used from the mid-16th to mid-19th centuries by many acknowledged masters, including El Greco and Rembrandt.
For the latest exhibition, the Gallery will be displaying a number of Shannus’s latest works as well as paintings from his Henry Lawson and Beach Life series.
Gallery curator Elaine Madill said she was “excited and delighted” about the show and was sure visitors would be, too.
“Shannus’s work is really beautiful. I own a small picture of his myself that has pride of place at home. We also have one of his works in the gallery’s permanent collection,” she said.
Meanwhile, the front gallery will feature stained glass, encaustic and pyrographic art by Val Usher, Betty Desovich and Gwen Olm and the Third Gallery will be showcasing watercolours by Gold Coast artist Neville Logan and fabric collages by his wife Barbara. Children from the Home Schooling Group will be mounting their own show in Kidz Korner.
The Wondai exhibition will open at 6:00pm with finger foods and punch, wine tastings from Bellbird Vineyards and live music.
There’ll also be raffle ticket sales for an artwork donated by Shannus O’Sullivan, worth several thousand dollars, which will be drawn in April next year.
Admission to Friday’s opening is $5. The exhibition will remain on show at the Wondai Gallery from 10:00am to 4:00pm daily (except for Christmas Day) until January 26.
Meanwhile, the Kingaroy Art Gallery will kick off its own summertime exhibition on Saturday (December 8).
The gallery is playing host to the annual South Burnett Disability Art Show. All the artworks and craftworks on display have been created by people who are living with some form of disability.
The exhibition was quietly unveiled on December 3 to coincide with International Day of People with Disability.
But iy will be officially opened at 10:00am on Saturday when visitors will be able to enjoy a free morning tea and meet some of the artists.
The artworks in the show cover everything from modern and traditional through to abstract, and take up the entire main gallery as well as one of the side rooms.
Selected works from the South Burnett Regional Council’s own art collection will also be on display in other gallery areas.
The exhibition will remain on display from 9:00am to 4:30pm weekdays and 10:00am to 4:00pm on weekends and public holidays (except Christmas Day) until January 7.
During the exhibition, visitors will also be able to vote for their favourite piece in a People’s Choice Award.
The winner of this will be announced in early January.
