Noosa Regional Gallery explores the diversity of techniques among an exciting crop of Sunshine Coast-based artists in the second group paint exhibition for 2022.
Earlier this year, Noosa Regional Gallery developed an exhibition titled PAINT that presented a snapshot of younger and emerging Sunshine Coast artists embracing painting in their art practice.
Supported by the Australian Government’s Culture, Heritage and Arts Regional Tourism (CHART) program, PAINT illustrated the pursuit of a new generation of artists embracing the medium with a bespoke vision and unique voice.
Says Noosa Regional Gallery director and curator Michael Brennan, “PAINT was such an exciting survey of new and innovative young artists here on the Coast. But it didn’t tell the whole story.
“A BIT MORE PAINT is the sequel. Despite no funding this time round, the revelation of further progression with the medium locally was just too good an opportunity for the Gallery to ignore.”
Bringing together six local young and emerging artists, A BIT MORE PAINT invites us to consider how far the medium of paint can be pushed and at which point the definition of ‘painting’ becomes subjective.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter” Brennan said, “but I think that when we push things to their limit, it helps us understand what’s important about them and what makes them what they are. Quintessentially, it also helps to expand our view of the world.”
Local artists Alex Lange, Alicia Sharples, BJ Murphy, Casey Hewitt, Pippa Makgill and Thom Stuart steer painting into different spaces, times, and dimensions.
Pushing the medium to places that Brennan says don’t typically come to mind when one thinks about the medium, A BIT MORE PAINT asks us to reassess our assumptions about what painting could and should be.
“I’m not certain if this is exclusive to the Sunshine Coast,” Brennan said, “but the prevalence of new artists building their practices here with emphasis on analogue and tactile processes of paint application is impressive to say the least.”
While it might not seem like such a remarkable thing to some, during this time when art schools often prioritise ideas over mastery of a medium, and when digital technologies are so prevalent in our everyday lives that we take them for granted, Noosa Regional Gallery is championing the way for a new age of painters, and that’s something we should all be excited about.
A BIT MORE PAINT runs from 5 November 2022 to 22 January 2023.
For more information about this exhibition, including booking free tickets to the official opening event on Friday 4 November, visit noosaregionalgallery.com.au
