October 21, 2013
Visitors to Kingaroy Shoppingworld are in for a bit of a surprise this week.
The Wondai Regional Art Gallery is mounting a temporary display in one of the centre’s vacant stores as a short-term promotion.
Curator Elaine Madill has brought along a small selection of the Gallery’s permanent collection to decorate the store.
And one piece sure to catch shoppers’ eyes is a giant portrait of Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen painted by Brisbane artist Jan Lewis, mother of sporting star Hayley Lewis.
The portrait was unveiled in May this year and normally has pride of place on the Gallery’s walls.
“The idea of running a promotion for the Gallery is to encourage more people from Kingaroy and Nanango to come visit us,” Elaine said.
“We have great crowds from Murgon and Wondai at our opening nights, and we do have a lot of visitors from other South Burnett towns too.
“But we thought that showing off a bit of the Gallery here at Shoppingworld might encourage other people to make the trip as well.”
The Wondai Regional Art Galley is the region’s largest public art gallery and opens new exhibitions on the first Friday of every month (except January).
Next month’s exhibition will open on Friday, November 1, and will feature works by well-known Cherbourg artists Venus Rabbitt and Stephen Bond in the main gallery; Kingaroy artist Jo O’Brien-Welch in the front gallery; and Nanango artist Karren Bolton in the rear gallery.
The opening will be accompanied by hot and cold finger foods, wine tastings and live music.
The Gallery’s Studio workspace, which opened in December last year, now hosts a wide range of arts, crafts and music workshops and training courses.
Many of these are completely free, and visitors to the Shoppingworld site will also be able to pick up The Studio’s current schedule.
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