Opening this weekend at Lismore Regional Gallery and on view until 23 March 2024, Earth Matter is an exhibition of works from artists who use natural materials and processes to explore a range of ideas. The contributing artists include Penny Evans, Kay Lee Williams, Kat Shapiro Wood, Lae Oldmeadow, Betty Russ, and Charlotte Haywood.
On Thursday 15 February you can join artists Penny Evans and Betty Russ in conversation where they will unpack their inspiration, processes and ideas, as well as connection to the exhibition theme.
Evans says ‘The focus of my art is always identity, country, and decolonising and my practice is a process driven enquiry. My artwork creates a trail over time, which mark and illustrate my decolonising journey back to who we are, back to country, back to country within me. There’s a lineage of ideas, a mapping. My interrogation is through the process of making, so it’s about DNA mixed with ideas gathered from many people and places, from country and kin.’
Where as Russ says she is ‘drawn to the unreal, unimaginable, the weird and eerie, queering, and provocative ideas that emerge from making experimental investigations of other possible worlds to describe these tensions.’
The gallery notes that some of the creativity will reflect on beauty itself where as other presentations are activist in nature. Lismore gallery says ‘The materiality of the works in Earth Matter embodies a message and a set of ethics that highlights or, in some cases, brings into question our relationship with the natural world. They are a reminder to appreciate the inherent beauty of the globe we inhabit and the importance of preserving it for future generations.’