July 5, 2022
Visitors who braved Friday night’s chilly, wet weather to attend the opening of the second month of the Winter Craft Festival were handsomely rewarded for their efforts.
This month, the Kingaroy Regional Art Gallery is hosting one of the most striking exhibitions it has displayed so far this year.
The main gallery has been given over to an exhibition of new works by the Tangled Threads textile art group, while the rear gallery displays a genuinely delightful selection of crafts created by the two-year-old craft group Voodoo Sistas.
And oddly, while the two exhibitions show completely different approaches to the use of fabrics and colours, they merge into a strikingly beautiful whole.
Tangled Threads have been taking part in the Winter Craft Festival since the event started in 2016, using it to launch their own annual exhibition.
While members’ work is also seen at other galleries and some public events during the year – such as March’s opening of the new South Burnett Woodcrafters workshops – all the works in their 2022 exhibition are new and show the expertise that a decade of dedication to textile art can produce.
Most of Friday night’s audience were immediately struck by a glowing Jan Scudamore tapestry hung on the main display wall.
But very soon, they found themselves drawn into a dazzling circuit of works, many of which would not look out of place in any of Australia’s State galleries.
Meanwhile, the Voodoo Sistas exhibition offers a colourful, warm display that mixes whimsy and domesticity, bringing the power of art to everything from humble door stoppers to cushions, and pottery to wall hangings.
As well as being diverse, the exhibition is also vibrant and energetic, erupting from the smaller third gallery to draw in visitors with the promise of enchantment and delight.
This is a promise it then goes on to fulfil through a surprisingly wide variety of works that range from the size of a child’s hand through to a several large pieces that grace the room’s walls and a handy clothes horse brought in for this month’s showing.
Gallery curator Fran van Vegchel said she was very proud to bring this month’s exhibition to the South Burnett.
She was also pleased that despite the pandemic still raging through the State and a much wetter than usual year, participation numbers in the Craft Festival’s many workshops and visitation at the Gallery during the festival was “the best yet”.
She believed this indicated the Winter Craft Festival was now gaining recognition and traction in the broader community.
This month – as it did last month – the Gallery will also be running a jam-packed program of craft workshops and demonstrations, capping things off with a weekend Quilt Trail around the Kingaroy district on September 23-24 and a $2-a-ticket quilt raffle.
- Details about all of these can be found the Kingaroy Regional Art Gallery’s website
Thank you for a wonderful write up of our exhibitions. It has certainly made us proud of what we do.