WESTERN DOWNS ARTS

Shirley Makin

Aftermath

On 18 May 1980, Mount St Helens, in Washington State, USA erupted, decimating everything in its path.

Mark Morrison

The secret garden

The secret garden – you never know what is around the corner.

Jodie Adams

Flowering gum

I painted this flowering gum as raging bushfires burned across our beautiful country.

Kay Vidler

Seeds of renewal

The body of this piece represents the chaos the world is facing.

Cindy Grimes

After the rain

The calendar year of 2019 saw our part of the Western Downs measure a mere 100 millimetres of rain which sounds much more impressive than the equivalent four inches in old speak.

Corrine Reynolds

Tempest

This work represents the perspective of a risen phoenix looking from above, using a palate of blue tempest.

Kylee Cooke

Silver lining

The world we recognise seems to be crumbling and burning down around us.

Jodie Adams

Life after ashes

As the ashes settled on bushfire devastated land, nature began the long journey of recovery. Darkness and despair were felt by many Australians and is represented in the artwork’s dark depths and layers of background. The Rainbow Lorikeet is the centre of this artwork. Its beauty has been captured in abstract ways to evoke a sense of hope and recovery. The use of bright and bold colours evokes a feeling of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Trina Hartwig

Hotspots, waves and clusters

As humans we are a single strand of fibre, we are delicate, fragile and weak; but when we are spun together or gathered in groups our strength increases.

Jo Kucks

Life on the street

Sometimes we find ourselves lost, covered up by all that happens – to us, by us, for us.

2020 Exhibition Photography

Kristen Flynn

Daisy flesh

The Phoenix is a symbol of the never-ending cycle of life and death.

Sharleen Smith

River cycles

Water in our waterways changes and goes through different cycles depending on what is happening around it.

Anna Vogler

Beyond the yesterdays

Beyond the yesterdays is my interpretation of this year’s theme, ‘Phoenix’.

Mary Penfold

Nature restores

After fire destroyed the house and garden on this property at Yaraka, this resilient Bougainvillea showed us that there is always a way to start anew.

Sharleen Smith

Animals dreaming

Unfortunately, not all animals survive, but the spirit has risen and travelled on to the spirit world.

Dion Cross

Fearing the fire

Australian fire hawks had long been thought of as an Aboriginal myth until recent studies have proven their existence.

Roseanne Steele

Australia arising

This painting is a patriotic picture sending a message that we as Australians will arise despite what confronts us.

Karen Gaskell

Emu

Out of the ashes, cracked dry earth, remnants of forest and a new virus, a new life emerges.

Alicia Streten

Eos

Rising from the ashes is a difficult process that every person faces.

Roseanne Steele

Out of the ashes a new era dawns

2020 has been difficult with lockdowns because of the Covid pandemic.

Amanda Marchant

Le kiss

The story of this painting is of two jilted lovers that lost all hope of finding passion in another.

Jo Kucks

True colours

This multimedia piece celebrates the rebirth of our community through inclusiveness and acceptance.

Helen Dennis

Ephemeral lagoon

Like the Phoenix, the Ephemeral Lagoon, also known as a billabong, has its own cycle of life.

Guy Breay

Phoenix the fire bird rising

Inspired by the natural shape of a salvaged, bushfire damaged tree stump, this artwork depicts the legendary Phoenix as a graceful fire bird rising from its ashes.

Patricia Hinz

Regeneration

For years we have been consumed with fears about terrorism, drought, fire, flood, climate change and now the pandemic.

Mary Tierney

Promise of regeneration

As neighbours helped us extinguish flames of a bushfire threatening our farm in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, we feared for Quails nesting under a bush on the edge of the timberline.