Ritual and Revelry is the theme of the 2026 Western Downs Regional Exhibition; 44 artists who live and create in the Western Downs Region submitted work to be a part of the exhibition. The word curate derives from the Latin curare, meaning ‘to care’. Curating this exhibition therefore became an act of care: for the artists, for their stories, and for the conversations that emerge when works are brought together within Gallery 107.

Ritual may be understood as an intentional act repeated over time. Whether spiritual, familial, creative or deeply personal, rituals are the actions through which we shape identity, cultivate belonging and find meaning in everyday life. Revelry, by contrast, is the polarity, it refers to celebration, debauchery, exuberance, it speaks to wild, loud, festive activity. Ritual often provides the structure from which celebration emerges, while moments of revelry frequently become rituals themselves, repeated across generations and woven into the fabric of our lives.

The works chosen articulate the theme, Ritual and Revelry, through meaningful personal stories. Artists told stories through their work about engagement with a spiritual ritual, rituals binding us to time and tradition, the ritual of travelling, rituals within the everyday, rituals within nature engaged with as a means of meditation. Revelry was often explored as a result of a ritual, and the breaking down of ritual and revelry.

Spiritual rituals are explored by Meg Noack and Kristen Flynn, who explains that her work conjures inner primal feelings, and explores how humans have a long history of using animals to celebrate, enter spirit realms, conduct rituals, and perceive their own existence. Regina Hyland speaks about ritual as a pilgrimage to spend time with women and the revelry as they laugh and listen to each other’s stories, and in doing so recalibrate their sense of self. Rituals binding us to time and tradition are identified by Isabelle Weier and Shirley Makin whose work tells stories about annual rituals from her childhood.

Isabella Moodley’s work also identifies ritual as inherent within her Filipino culture, as a celebration of everyday life and family. Her work titled Celebrating the small moments is a depiction of herself and her cousin, performing their daily ritual of brushing their teeth and experiencing revelry through singing into their toothbrushes, using them as microphones. The ritual and revelry of travelling to the beach with family and friends for holidays is explored by Patricia Hinz, and Helen Dennis who depict a generational retreat from the reality of everyday life for rural communities, that is shaped around the ritual of holidays at the beach.

Artists that have based their work on a consideration of the rituals inherent within their everyday include Kay Vidler, Sharron Colley, Lily Cant, Kath Legdin, Nix Perry, Mia Wilce, and Lillian Stevenson, who explains that her painting, which captures her mother and friends, portrays moments of revelry in simple pleasure. Steve Cant’s work is a nod to his afternoon ritual of carving timber and tending to his bonsai. Sarah Davis discusses tending the garden no matter the weather as an inherited ritual from her grandmother, she explains that watering became a way of reaching back, towards the woman whose rituals taught her to find joy in the everyday.  Emily Bramich’s work observes the ritual in each day having a rhythm and the same routine, rain or shine, whether it’s a day of work or practice for the rodeo.

Rituals within the natural world are explored by Coraline Milne whose work is based around nest building, a ritual carried out by a vast array of species on the planet, she refers to the process of making the nest back to an innate human trait. Carly Walker muses, that if only we allowed ourselves the daily ritual of revelling in the magic of each moment; remembering that we, in fact, are not separate from nature. Artists also found ritual to be inherent within the consideration of a material and making process. Michelle Black explains the “processes of gathering, dyeing, printing and sewing unfold as a ritual of attention and repetition and the resulting work is quiet collaboration rather than spectacle, a slow accumulation of marks”. Guy Breay’s work identifies the ritual of observing the shape of the natural rock.

The boundary between ritual and revelry is explored in Meg Stevenson’s work, while Charlie Mulligan’s work The absence explores the dichotomy between socialisation and community and his ritual of doom scrolling, and the lack of happiness he gets out of it. A transition for what exists as ritual and revelry is shown in Sorry, I have plans by Melody Walker which articulates a transition in the notion of ritual and revelry over time, she explains that her artwork celebrates the transposition of ritual and revelry throughout one’s life, and that revelry ten years ago was late nights with friends; and now for her, it is a coffee enjoyed in silence, choosing presence over obligation, imagination over distraction, and rest over expectation. She muses that “sometimes the most meaningful celebrations are the ones we keep entirely to ourselves”.

The rituals inherent within ceremony are explored within Lisa Jane Stiller’s work, whereas the collapse of ritual is depicted in Katie Robertson’s The last hand. Stiller explores the collapse of rituals, resulting in a compelling desire to seek validation and authenticity within, and the revelry that is entered into when one returns to self.

Within Gallery 107 these works create conversations across media, generations and lived experience. Together, these works suggest that ritual and revelry are not opposing forces but complementary experiences. Ritual provides rhythm, grounding and continuity; revelry offers release, connection and joy. Between these two states lies much of what makes us human. The artists of the Western Downs remind us that celebration often begins with the smallest repeated gestures, and that the ordinary moments of everyday life can become extraordinary through attention, memory and shared experience.