Artwork for Sale
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Gallery
Photographic Postcards
One of our resident photographers, Peter Granfield, has been very busy recently snapping shots of the beautiful Toowoomba region and has now produced postcards for sale. You can purchase these cards at Murray's Art and Framing & the Toowoomba Tourist Information Centre.
Feature Artists
The Myart Gallery is proud to represent this month's Feature Artists in a diverse and stimulating exhibit. Artists exhibiting this month include:
- Marianne de Graff
- Peter Granfield
- Deb Gilmartin
- Roslyn Hartwig
- Sharon Roberts
- Lorraine White
- Bruce N. Griffiths
- Christine Brassington
- Joanne Smith
- Paul McCormack
- Allan Scurr
- Catherine Parker
- Olga Voller
- Jocelyn Hunt
- Lyn Watts
- Robbie Erskine
- Ruby Eaves
- Anna Bartlett
- Sheila Greet
The exhibition for this month includes work in Watercolour, Acrylic, Oil, Pastel, Mixed Media and Prints.
Featured Artists
Marianne de Graff
Originally from the Netherlands, Marianne has come from the culturally established background of Europe to the raw boldness of the Australian landscape which has inspired her to use the full spectrum in her palette to create the most alive and innovative pieces from the moment she selects the paper. Strong vibrant colours are used and are important to her self expression. Marianne works mainly in pastel and watercolour.
Peter Granfield
Peter has had a life long interest in photography. Being of the old school of SLR cameras he prefers to compose the photo BEFORE pressing the shutter button. None of his images have been digitally altered in any way, nor has he used any filters to enhance lighting effects. These days he uses a Lumix pocket digital for most of his shots but occassionally brings out the Horizon swing lens panorama camera when travelling to new destinations, to capture those really wide shots.
Roslyn Hartwig
My first 17 years where spent on a grain farm at Bongeen on the Darling Downs. I remember especially, loving to watch magnificent displays of lightning over the flat plains. With my mother's encouragement, I developed, in my teens, a love of craft of many varieties and these formed the basis of my creative pursuits for many years. I also learnt to play the piano as a child and today, this is a great source of pleasure and relaxation for me.
After having a shop assistant position for several years, my main occupation for the last 20 years has been raising my four wonderful children. In 1998, as my children were all in school, I started thinking about what I was to do in the future, I attended a Christian Alpha Course which had a huge impact on my life. As our discussion group continues to meet later, they joined me in prayer about the direction my life was to take. In mid year, I also joined the Oakey Art Group and began to attend regularly.
With the immediate interest I had and the quick development I was making, it occurred to me that this was the direction God was taking me in. He had given me a talent that I was to develop and hone through much practice. Initially, I was using pastels and towards the end of that same year, I discovered watercolour for the first time. Even my initial attempts convinced me that I would love the way this medium worked. I love its freshness and light, while still being able to get a depth of colour and tone that I am only now exploring in depth.
During the next four years, I attended 15 workshops - all with different tutors. Mostly, they were watercolour classes, but also, drawing, pastel, mixed media and even oils (which I didn't like much). They all taught me something that I could incorporate into my own work, but at the end of 2002, I decided that I'd had enough of workshops and that I needed to put into practice what I had learnt and truly develop my own painting style and subjects.
During this time, too, I had been sending paintings to local art shows and throughout Queensland and New South Wales winning prizes and selling paintings. This has been a real encouragement to me to continue with what I'm doing. I also began to tutor others in 2004 and this has added to my practice immensely. I'm looking forward to doing more on this line. I have held two joint exhibitions in Toowoomba and have been included in many exhibitions with Oakey Art Group members. It has been my great pleasure to paint these works and especially to be able to present them to the public.
Sharon Roberts
My artwork of the past five years has been predominantly a response to landscape. The landscape has been somewhat abstracted; reduced to those aspects which I feel express my response to that place at the time, or to my memories associated with a place. I consider my work to be meta-physical in a sense of going beyond the physical landscape to an aspect of its essence, and in its inseparability from my faith and world view.
Acrylic paint on canvas has been my predominate media of choice, however I have recently begun exploring print techniques, reflecting similar ideas to those in my paintings but through a different process.
Deb Gilmartin
My background as an entomologist and science teacher influences my art at all levels where I am endlessly fascinated by the form and function. My work is mainly realistic and I am inspired by a wide range of subjects ranging from depicting the human form, animals, still life, landscape and aviation subjects. I have worked as Australian Aerospace “artist in residence’ during 2006-2007 culminating in a solo exhibition Tigers, Rotors & Blokes. I was a finalist in the Hans Heysen landscape Prize 2008 and I have exhibited in Qld, NSW and Victoria and I have work in private collections both here in Australia and overseas. My work focuses on telling stories and exploring the idea of using negative spaces as an important component of the story. I draw, paint (acrylics) print (relief & intaglio) and take photographs. I also teach traditional drawing skills. Although mainly self taught I regularly attend workshops.
Lorraine White
As a textile artist, I am interested in the textural surfaces of the environment around me and the challenge of reproducing them in a media not necessarily related to the original subject matter. The process of spinning and weaving is a fascinating medium, taking materials from their raw stage to the finished product, which combined with new fibres such as bamboo and soya-bean opens up a world of possibilities. With a particular interest in the history of female handicrafts and costuming, my work focuses on the corset as object.
Recent research has also informed my weaving, with regards to my cultural heritage in the production of tartans and exploration of card and inkle loom weaving, and my knitting through use of traditional fair isle patterning as a decorative element.
My practice also explores other media including oils, pastel, colour pencil and photography.
Bruce N. Griffiths
Artist Bruce Griffiths still works by the modem, never paint where you haven't been and never paint what you cannot feel. Located at the base of the Tallebudgera Valley on the Gold Coast, his sea and country landscapes reflect a lifetime of fishing and the bush has instilled a love of the outdoors, which is the preferred subject of his paintings. Through his brush, Bruce reveals the natural beauty of Australia.
Bruce has been a local and successful exhibitor through competitions from Hervey Bay North, Murwillumbah South and west to Warwick & Stanthorpe. His first solo exhibition was held in March 2008 and was a great success.
Joanne Smith
I am interested in the domesticity of everyday life, in particular that of food and it preparation. More recently I have stepped outside into the herb garden and olive orchard to find my symbols. The elements of design that I like to explore include size, shape, space, placement, relatedness, direction, weight and tone. I am keen to experiment beyond the traditional confines of printmaking in order to find my own process and type of mark-making. Some works may include a multiplicity of these techniques.
Paul McCormack
My interest in painting and drawing only began five years ago when I had a year's sabbatical. I began the year with a McGregor Summer School where I did "Introduction to Watercolour for absolute beginners". I loved it. Since then I have attended four Summer Schools at USQ and I do the odd weekend workshop at Murray's. I am a priest, teacher and musician and hve been appointed here in Toowoomba to Downlands College since 1984. I love being on the Downs. The subjects I tend to paint and draw come mainly from my contacts in Downlands. I do a lot of portraits. My greatest influence has been Maxwell Wilks, a tonal impressionist from Melbourne. I didn't like pastels until I saw his approach to the medium. My greatest inspiration is the French Impressionist school, in particular, I love Degas. For portraits I admire Velasquez and the American, Singer Sargent.
I am happy to just draw and sketch and try to fit some art into my daily routine, in between teaching French and Religion and taking the whole boarding school for their singing practice. I am always trying new approaches and love the adventure of discovery. The challenge as I see it, is to capture the magic of how the light falls on a subject.
Edwina Murphy
Edwina Murphy has artists in her geneology including her great grandfather Norman Peebles, a well known architect, who designed the Melbourne Library. Edwina has spent most of her life living in the bush, breeding various rare animals and caring for injured or orphaned wildlife. She began displaying her work at local craft cottages.
Edwina has been concerned about the conservation of animals and their environment since 1970 when she collected hundreds of signatures to stop whaling off the Eastern Australia Coast. She paints to celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of the world's animals in the hope that people will share her admiration and help promote their preservation. As a member of Greenpeace, she is passionate about world environmental health and preservation of the natural forests and each painting is a silent prayer for this cause.
In 2002, Edwina travelled to Arizona in the United States on a spiritual quest and to spend time with her beloved Native Americans, the original conservationists. She sold some paintings of American animals to help pay for her trip. It was after this trip that Edwina began to paint seriously. In 2006 she entered art shows around the East Coast, including Uralla, Stanthorpe, Coffs Harbour, Brooms Head and Port Macquarie, frequently selling her work. Two of her peices were selected in the Sydney Royal Show in the same year.
Edwina's first solo exhibition was held in Yamba in 2006, where twenty six pieces were exhibited. During the three month exhibition, seventeeen pieces were sold. Edwina sold more pieces in Grafton at local shops and the Bentleg Art Gallery. Edwina has lived in Toowoomba for three year and exhibits through several venues.
Allan Scurr
Allan has been interested in photography since age five, starting with miniature film, and hand printing black and white photos in the darkroom by the start of high shcool. During this time he enrolled in a part time course at a Brisbane TAFE to learn more about basic lighting techniques and more advanced darkroom practices.
After completing his Certificate IV and Diploma in Photoimaging in 2007 in Toowoomba, he now work as a custom picture framer at Murray's Art & Framing and as a freelance photographer for publications such as Style Magazine distributed through the Toowoomba Chronicle newspaper.
His passion for photography has seen him build a collection of Leica brand cameras, pioneers of modern photography practices. An in depth knowledge of their models has enabled him to acquire rare, production run models. An example being a scarce model made during war time for war correspondents.
Allan is currently using predominately Canon Pro-system digital cameras and lenses reanging from 14mm-400mm in focal length, with limited digital manipulation, but some is still from film.
Christine Brassington
In art I give myself permission to enjoy the the whole process of creating - conceiving the idea, immersing in background reading and research, experimenting with techniques and finally developing a collection of painting, prints or drawings (which sometimes seem to take on a life of their own) - deliberately seeking freedom from too many constraining rules and conventions... at the end of this process the finished picture hopefully gives some pleasure to someone else as well...
Contact
Murray’s Art & Framing
485 Ruthven Street
Toowoomba Q 4350
Ph: 07 4632 2727
Fax: 07 4638 4640
Email: art@myart.com.au