March is an exciting time to visit Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG) Ballina. Four new solo-exhibitions from local artists convey changing perspectives on landscape, climate change, metamorphosis of plant species, and migration and transgenerational trauma.
Separate Realities | Dave Sparkes
In Separate Realities, Byron Bay local watercolourist, Dave Sparkes, distills and condenses essential elements of the landscape, using nuances of light and shadow, to convey the essence of a place at certain times.
“There is no absolute reality. There are only different perspectives, and if you alter these, the average, everyday landscape can be transformed into the most magical Place” – Dave Sparkes
ICE COHABITATION | Louise Grayson
In late 2019 to early 2020, Louise Grayson joined an expedition to the Antarctic where she captured images exploring the natural dance between animals and their environment, as the shadow of human intervention and a warming environment, begins to stretch across this ice wonderland. ICE COHABITATION asks the question, can this ice environment, with its multitude of species, survive in the augmented race by humans for control of nature’s final frontier?
BLOOM | Mia Forrest
Mia Forrest’s BLOOM artworks of Australian native flowers, hybridize time, technology, and nature. Surreal stretching flowers bloom upward, embodying re-imagined cosmic forms and shapes, planting botanicals within a digital context using time-expanding techniques, immortalizing the otherwise impermanent and ephemeral nature of plants. As the flowers transform and bloom, they form a DNA-like helix structure, inviting the audience to contemplate how species morph, change, survive, and thrive over time.
Tracing Threads: across emotional landscapes of self | Katie Alleva
Katie Alleva’s new body of work zigzags through the family archives exploring the life of her Italian ancestors ‘pre-migration to post-migration’. Alleva is interested in uncovering how trauma affects emerging emotional cultural identities. Raising awareness of the impact of conflict on culture and society, the artist investigates displacement and intergenerational trauma.
All exhibitions open Wednesday 8 March 2023 and continue until Sunday 30 April 2023. The official exhibition launch will be held 5.30 – 7.30pm, Thursday 16 March 2023.
