Bass Coast Arts news and features

The art of reconciliation

22/7/2022

BCAL students visit the NAIDOC Exhibition of Indigenous Art. Photos: Kate Harmon

AS THE echoes of a thousand people marching over the Phillip Island Bridge reverberated across Bass Coast, a group of artists and photographers visited ArtSpace at the Wonthaggi Centennial Centre to view this year's NAIDOC Exhibition of Indigenous Art.

The group consisted of students from Bass Coast Adult Learning's (BCAL) Thru the Lens photography and Exploring Art classes, capacity building programs funded through the NDIS to enable people to use their talents and abilities in a welcoming environment.

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Calling artists

22/7/2022

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The third PICES pop-up exhibition attracted a great range of work
by diverse artists.

By Sandra Peeters

IT'S an exciting time of year for PICES (Phillip Island Contemporary Exhibition Space) as it seeks contemporary artists across Bass Coast and beyond for the fourth PICES summer pop-up exhibition.

PICES is calling for expressions of interest from established or emerging contemporary artists who have not yet exhibited in the pop-ups. The exhibition will be at the Ramada Resort in Cowes from January 3-31, 2023.

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Lighting up winter

30/6/2022

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A Grand Band Finale capped off a great afternoon of local music at The Goods Shed.

By Ellen Hubble

A WARM attendance of talented musicians and attentive audience came in from the cold to The Goods Shed Open Mic on Sunday 12 June. Not quite on the winter solstice but close to it. Most of the musicians came from Bass Coast and South Gippsland shires but some came from as far away as Pakenham with audience members from the Dandenong Ranges.

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Hallelujah!

30/6/2022

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Larry Hills conducts the Bass Coast Chorale, which returns on Sunday
for its first concert in three years.

By Larry Hills

NEXT Sunday afternoon, at 2pm, July 10, the Bass Coast Chorale will present their first concert in three years at “The Shed” at the State Coal Mine.

At the beginning of 2020, we started rehearsing for a very ambitious mid-year concert which was going to highlight songs from the stage and screen. We were six weeks into rehearsals when we had to halt proceedings due to the COVID pandemic. We couldn’t meet in person so we tried ZOOM rehearsals online and we created a couple of virtual performances for YouTube but we were unable to gather together in person. It was a very difficult time for the Chorale as it was for most community groups.

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Calling Gippsland writers

17/6/2022

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Rees Quilford, left, Karen Bateman and Linda Cuttriss are judges for the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.

TWO former winners of the Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction take their place on this year’s judging panel for the writing prize, one of the richest competitions for non-fiction in Australia.

It’s also one of the few regional writing prizes, open to any writer with a strong connection to Gippsland. Entries must pertain to the Gippsland region, issues or people.

The first prize winner will receive $5000, second $2500 and third $1000. This year there is a new section for shorter pieces (2000-4000 words) with a $1000 first prize and $500 for second.

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Full strings ahead

22/4/2022

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The Concordia Mandolin & Guitar Ensemble returns to Cowes
after a three-year absence.

By Marion Blaze

IF YOU’VE never heard a mandolin orchestra, I can tell you it’s a unique and thrilling experience – sometimes delicate and often dramatic.

I play mandolin with the Concordia Mandolin & Guitar Ensemble, which has a long association with Bass Coast, having played annual concerts in Cowes for the past several years.

We are thrilled to announce our upcoming concert at St Johns Uniting Church in Cowes on May 1, our first performance outside Melbourne since 2019

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The non-talking cure

7/4/2022

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Making art has allowed Maggie Bell to work through the
trauma of domestic violence without having to talk about it.

Q&A with Maggie Bell

Bass Coast Post: Your work is very impressive. Have you exhibited before? Are you a professional artist exhibiting under a nom de plume? Or are you a new artist?

Maggie Bell: Thank you for the feedback. I did once exhibit a poem which I printed by hand and mounted on a skiffle board. It didn’t fit in at all with the rest of the exhibition which was all very traditional paintings. I never really considered myself an artist. I’m still getting used to that idea.

I use a nom de plume for this art installation about domestic violence for reasons of personal safety.

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Family secrets

26/3/2022

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Photo: Geoff Ellis

AFTER book launches of Triple Helix: my donor-conceived story in Sydney and Melbourne, Inverloch writer Lauren was among friends for her local launch, at Hare and Tortoise Books in Korumburra this week. She was in conversation with Catherine Watson, editor of the Bass Coast Post.

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Short and sweet

25/3/2022

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Marny Javornik prepares to hunker down for Bass Coast’s
inaugural film festival.

By Marny Javornik

MOVE over Cannes and Venice! Bass Coast is having its own film festival.

Bass Coast Shorts was launched in 2021 when it began accepting submissions, and the inaugural festival will screen over three sessions on Friday-Saturday, April 8-9, at the Wonthaggi Cinema.

Bass Coast Shire Council and Australian Short Film Festivals have come together to create a new film festival, which organisers say will showcase our region and build local technical capacity in screen production.

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Push and pull

25/3/2022

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Donna Wright: Push Pull, 2021. Mixed media on linen

By Ellen Hubble

Kiss the Sea by Donna Wright
ArtSpace Gallery Wonthaggi until April 25
Open Thursday to Monday, 11am-3pm.

DONNA Wright has been a practising visual artist and art educator for over 30 years, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Kiss the Sea at ArtSpace Gallery Wonthaggi is her first body of work to be exhibited since her move to Venus Bay in 2020. The work and exhibition form part of a recently awarded Creative Victoria Art Grant.

With a PhD in philosophy, her arts practice explores how cultural memory, its residues and movements across generations, and its aesthetic influences inform the way we perceive, shape and engage in the world around us.

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Pop-up art returns

16/12/2021

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Guilio Marcolongo’s wooden bowl

By Sandra Peeters

Following the past two successful summer pop-up exhibitions, Phillip Island Contemporary Exhibition Space Inc (PICES) presents its third series of unique weekly exhibitions over four weeks in January.

This popular event will again be held in the Garden Room 3, Phillip Island Community and Learning Centre (PICAL), 56-58 Church St Cowes from January 5-31. The exhibitions are open from 10am-4pm daily except Tuesdays.

The exhibition opens at 7pm on Tuesday January 4 and all are welcome.

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Beyond fish `n` chips

3/12/2021

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Sue Lambert and her husband David run Kite Haven Olive Oil, producing a range of extra virgin olive oils, as well as seven flavours of infused oil from their 500 olive trees. Photo: Steph Thornborrow

A NEW coffee table cookbook released this week celebrates the farmers and chefs working hard to make Bass Coast a foodie destination.

Over the Bridge features more than 30 stories, recipes and hundreds of photos, including landscape shots of the island and surrounding ocean.

Author Sarah Hudson said the 200-plus-page book offered a different perspective on Phillip Island and the Waterline communities, away from the usual tourist attractions.

“Phillip Island hasn’t always been known for its food, with fish and chips probably our signature dish for the past few decades,” she said.

“But there are chefs in this region who are working hard to put our coast on a plate. They are sourcing local ingredients, even foraging on the clifftop for Australian bush foods such as saltbush, and they’re celebrating provenance, and their own traditions, including migrant heritage.”

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Fifth time lucky for the Gondoliers

3/12/2021

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WATERLINE residents and other Gilbert & Sullivan fans will be crossing everything that a long-awaited performance of The Gondoliers will finally go ahead in late January.

The Corinella performance by Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria (GSOV) was first planned (in pre-Covid days) for June 2020 but cancelled in March when restrictions began. In January this year, it was reprogrammed for July 10 … then for September 18 … then November 20.

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Happy DOPLWD day!

3/12/2021

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Master of the light

19/11/2021

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Bottle Keys by Trevor Foon. On the one hand, a professional photographer; on the other, an acclaimed creative artist, his new exhibition is a rich and magical glimpse of his vision.

By Trevor Foon

I HAVE been a photographer all my adult life. My father was a prominent photographer in our local area for 50 years and I grew up with a firm knowledge of the business side of picture making. I photographed my first wedding when I was just 17; my mum had to drive me to the wedding.

During a three-year stint of study at the RMIT where I was exposed to a previously unknown high standard of technical quality, I saw my first taste of darkroom based “Alternative” or “Historic” photographic processes. I was enthralled and seriously hooked.

For the next 35 years this fascination has been a driving force behind my personal photography and art endeavours.

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Going, going, gone!

18/11/2021

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Pat Wishart’s chainsaw sculpture Crouching Wombat is one of the works up for auction.

WORKS by some of Gippsland’s finest artists will be auctioned in support of the campaign to save the Western Port woodlands.

Former Bass Coast mayor Brett Tessari.will conduct the auction at the Gurdies Winery on Sunday, November 28, after the woodlands concert.

WILD: Celebrating the Western Port Woodlands features works by John Adam, David Adam, Mae Adams, Jari Cooper, Warren Nichols, Ellen Hubble, Lynda Horsborough, Trevor Foon, Trish Hart, Lisa (Burrell) Buckley, Bev Watson, Jill Shannon, Natasha Williams-Novak, Pat Wishart, Alan Whitmore and Peter Walker.

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Woodlands on song

18/11/2021

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Colin Hay, pictured in a Save Western Port Woodlands T-shirt, has recorded a message from Los Angeles and will deliver a new version of his smash hit song “Down Under” for the concert.

By Noel Maud

MEN at Work’s Colin Hay is a long way from the Western Port woodlands. But from his home in Los Angeles, with help from one of his local owls, Colin will join indigenous singer songwriter Kutcha Edwards and many of Gippsland’s popular musicians in a free picnic concert on Sunday, November 28.

The concert, at The Gurdies Winery, is being organised by community group Save Western Port Woodlands.

Hay will deliver a powerful video message of support for the group’s campaign, then present a newly recorded version of Down Under, still one of the nation’s best loved songs almost 40 years after its release.

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The Archibalds and me

4/11/2021

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Giles Parkinson. Portrait by Ursula Theinert

By Ursula Theinert

I’VE been entering The Archibald Prize since art college days, starting as an art practice exercise in 2005. I haven’t been successful in getting into The Archibald but have gotten into the Victorian Salon des Refuses or the Hidden Faces of The Archibald each year.

Now a special exhibition of portraits created by Gippsland artists who have entered past Archibald Prize exhibitions has been organised at the Rosedale Mechanics Hall. It is open on Saturdays and Sundays to coincide with and celebrate the touring Archibald Portrait Prize at the Sale Regional Gallery.

I've actually got six portraits in the Rosedale exhibition, mostly because I still have them! Giles Parkinson is the middle image in the exhibition poster. Also in the exhibition are my portraits of Rob Oakeshott, a self portrait, Deb Forster, Gerri Christie and Lenore Taylor.

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Local artists hold the line

22/10/2021

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John Adam’s Bushwhacker received the first bid.

By Catherine Watson

SOME of Gippsland’s favourite artists have thrown their artistic might behind a campaign to save the Western Port woodlands by contributing works for an exhibition and charity art auction.

The event is a fund-raiser for the Save Western Port Woodlands campaign to preserve the forest corridor between Lang Lang and Grantville, which is threatened by a surge in sand mining.

Artists include John Adam, David Adam, Mae Adams, Lisa (Burrell) Buckley), Jari Cooper, Lynda Horsborough, Ellen Hubble, Warren Nichols, Jill Shannon, Pat Wishart, Anna Neil, Norma Neil, Trevor Foon, Peter Walker, Bev Watson and Pat Wishart.

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Paint, print & plinth

19/10/2021

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Marlene Abela In Deep Glass
Glass on stand, 42 x 42cm

By Ellen Hubble

Two painters, a printmaker and a glass artists combine in a brief exhibition to celebrate the re-opening of ArtSpace.

These four professional Gippsland artists explore and express their visual responses to create this delightful inflorescence of 2D and 3D artworks.

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'Right time, right place'

24/9/2021

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Let's talk about it: Bold new vision for a Wonthaggi creative arts and cultural precinct.

By Catherine Watson

IMAGINE spending the day in our own local arts precinct. Checking out the latest exhibition from the vast Robert Smith collection of international prints and paintings. Or perhaps you’ve come for the touring Archibald exhibition, or just to enjoy some of old favourites from Bass Coast’s own collection.

You’re booked in for a print making workshop in the afternoon. Just time for a coffee and sandwich in the sunny café courtyard and to wander through the sculpture park before heading into the studio …

That’s the bold new vision for a Wonthaggi creative arts and cultural precinct envisaged by the council’s arts and culture advisory committee, made up of local artists and supporters.

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The line of beauty

23/9/2021

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The Ballerina, air dried clay and bones,
by Lizz Meldrum.

By Catherine Watson

“I COLLECT road kill,” Lizz Meldrum says, as casually as another person might mention they collect stamps or teaspoons.

The statement hangs in the air while I consider it. Of course I knew Lizz was no ordinary artist. Her stunning work The Ballerina, made from air dried clay and a set of jawbones, is at once humorous and unsettling.

What kind of imagination looks at a set of toothy jawbones – and envisages a ballerina en pointe? A very pink and bandy legged ballerina at that.

“The Ballerina .. is beautiful and will not let the oddness stop her from living her life,” Lizz wrote in her artist’s statement, “instead of just existing because society won’t see her as the ‘typical’ ballerina.”

The judges of the Women with Disabilities Australia 2021 art prize loved the work, awarding it a high commendation.

Lizz is proud of the accolade but ever prouder of the fact that she actually put a work into competition.

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Lights, cameras, action!

3/9/2021

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Calling local film-makers and wannabe Steven Spielbergs, entries are open for the first Bass Coast Shorts film festival.

WITH time hanging heavy for many of us, it’s a great opportunity to work on your entry for the first Bass Coast Shorts film festival.

In conjunction with the Australian Short Films Festival, Bass Coast Shire Council will present the festival at the Wonthaggi Cinema next January.

The festival will include screenings, forums with guest speakers and social events to allow filmmakers and audiences to network and interact with each other.

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Last call for entries

27/8/2021

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Writers have just over two weeks to complete their entries for
the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.

By Catherine Watson

“I love deadlines,” wrote Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. “I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

The famed author could afford to ignore the deadlines but Gippsland writers can’t afford to miss the deadline for the 2021 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction.

This is one of the richest competitions for non-fiction in Australia, with a total of $10,000 in prize money. The first prize winner will receive $5000, second $3000 and third $2000.

Entries for this year’s competition close on September 14 and prize winners will be announced in November 2021.

The prize is open to writers living, working or studying in Gippsland, or who have a strong connection with the Gippsland region.

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A kind of magic

13/8/2021

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Sue Saliba has done it again with another magical novel of adolescence, set in a place near us.

By Vilya Congreave

WHEN I open Sue Saliba’s new book, I’m confused. I thought it was a novel but this looks a lot like poetry. Oh well, I’ll give it a go.

I start reading and within a couple of pages, I’m swept away by the story. I also realise the layout of the book is exactly right.

This book is a special work in every way: the words, the exquisite drawings by Ann Shenfield, the typography, the printing.

Sue’s last two novels have been set in part on Phillip Island – it is a special joy to see our familiar places brought to life.

Once at the edge of the sea is the story of Alice. Something has happened to her. We’re not quite sure what it is but she is leaving the island to start a new life in the city.

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