By Abbey Cannan
An upcoming event featuring 30 local artists is bound to impress Noosa art lovers with their unique touch on beach deck chairs as part of an auction fundraiser.
The event, in collaboration with Noosa Open Studios and Tourism Noosa, will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 3 October at the amphitheatre in The Botanical Gardens in Cooroy.
With Covid restrictions putting a stop to all previous forms of fund raising for the annual Noosa Open Studios Art Trail (NOS), Sunshine Beach artist Yanni Van Zijl developed an idea with the NOS executive around a safe outdoors event that is an inventive way to showcase the trail’s artists.
Noosa Open Studios president Trevor Purvis said, “This unique event will showcase our local creativity to launch a new and iconic symbol for Noosa, embracing the beach and hinterland culture of the region. Thereby establishing a permanent link in Noosa between beach and hinterland art cultures to all visitors.“
Tourism Noosa also saw great opportunities for underpinning the destination’s primacy in the cultural tourism space and partnered with NOS on the project and provided an enabling special financial grant.
“It occurred to me that the beauty of this idea is that we get to showcase the beautiful hinterland and the multitude of artists living in this region and mirror this installation on the coast, further underpinning Noosa’s arts credentials,“ Yanni said.
Yanni is no stranger to public art installations and recently won overall first prize at Sculpture on the Edge at Spicers resort last year, in addition to the 2017 and 2018 environment award for installations at this event.
“Given the diversity of the region it was a no brainer to me to install all these deck chairs painted by the local artists and create a promotional video of the art work in situ,“ Yanni said.
“I often work on large scale site specific art installations and this was a way to bring all these ideas together as both a means to promote our artists, and our region as a creative destination.“
“The 25 deckchairs making up the installation all have unique canvas slings painted by top Noosa shire artists, enabling each chair to double as a frame for original art, rather than a painting on an easel … an iconic and novel way to celebrate the cultural aspects of Noosa.“
The chairs have been lovingly crafted from local blue gum by Cooroora Woodworkers in Cooroy and can be viewed on Saturday 26 September at the Butter Factory Arts Centre in Cooroy.
On Saturday 3 October all art lovers are invited to the public installation ’Deck Chairs on the Green’ at Noosa Botanic Gardens Amphitheatre from noon till 3pm. At the conclusion all 25 deck chairs will be auctioned with proceeds supporting the staging of this year’s Noosa Open Studios Art Trail.
Bring along a picnic lunch and enjoy the artist’s creations on show and bid for your favourite artist’s piece of practical artwork.
