“We’ve been bowled over by the number of entries and their variety,” says Gallery Curator Jo Besley. “Changing the Award to welcome entries in all media has opened the doors to a much wider field of artists working in all types of contemporary still life. It’s exciting to see that STILL has – in its very first year – been recognised as an important and nationally significant opportunity for artists.”

The overall winner will receive $20,000 and the winner of the People’s Choice Award will take home $5,000. Local Coffs Harbour sponsors support the award. Mercedes Benz Coffs Coast is the Major Sponsor alongside Supporting Sponsors Slater & Gordon, Saso Creative and Moving Art.

A total of 63 artists have been shortlisted. The selected artworks include painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, ceramics, glass, sculpture, video, printmaking and textiles.

The 2017 finalists are: Tony Albert, Louise Allerton, Kelly Austin, Tanya Baily, Elie Begg, Annette Blair, Rene Bolten, Mechelle Bounpraseuth, Terri Butterworth, Fran Callen, Tom Carment, Angela Casey, Tiffany Cole, Karl de Waal, Trisha Dean, Mary Donnelly, Scott Duncan, Sarah Edmondson, Nicolette Eisdell, Merran Esson, Ben Fayle, Guy Gilmour, Sarah Goffman, Ronnie Grammatica, Linda Greedy, Colleen Greig-Canty, Vanessa Holle, Alana Hunt, Susan Jacobsen, Laura Jones, Helle Jorgensen, Paul Kalemba, Laura E. Kennedy, Myriam Kin-Yee, Zai Kuang, Michael Langley, Sam Leach, Kellie Leczinska, Alison Mackay, Josh Mackenzie, Kiata Mason, Julian Meagher, Robert Moore, Stephen Nothling, Susan O’Doherty, Sarah O’Sullivan, Sassy Park, Victoria Reichelt, Elvis Richardson, Damien Shen, Brendan Smith, Tim Snowdon, Richard Spoehr, Vipoo Srivilasa, Nathan Taylor, Samantha Thompson, Anselm van Rood, Prue Venables, Lilli Waters, Kati Watson, Greg Weight, Mirra Whale and Cleo Wilkinson.

Richard Spoehr: Between Mind and Material, 2017. Handmade porcelain, metal found object / group of 3D objects. Courtesy of Stella Downer Fine Art.

The shortlisting panel comprised Director of Lismore Regional Gallery Brett Adlington, Sydney art collector and former board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art Lisa Paulsen, along with Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery Coordinator Cath Fogarty and Curator Jo Besley.

The award itself will be judged by Lisa Slade, Assistant Director Artistic Programmes, at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The exhibition will be on show from November 24 2017 – January 18 2018. The official opening will be Saturday November 25 2017. People’s Choice voting begins on Thursday November 23, 2017.

Media Contact: Sara Hinds, Senior Communications Officer, 6648 4093/0407 227 818

Council Online: www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au

The post Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery STILL finalists announced appeared first on .

Jenni Catt: Untitled 2017

For Jenni Catt, meditating on the life force while she paints loosely – almost ritualistically – in watercolours, opens up questions of absence, presence and the soul of animals.  

Angela Tay: Billow 2015

For Angela Tay, it is the way ebbing tides surge and retreat, creating ever-changing dramas. Experimenting with ink and watercolours on tissue-thin paper, along with video and paper sculpture, her work is as unpredictable as what we experience on the beach.

John Bennett, Jenni Catt and Angela Tay are on show at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery from 7 July – 12 August 2017: coffsharbour.regional-gallery

The post Absence and presence and the space between appeared first on .

The still life genre was proposed for the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery in 2007 as there was no pre-existing art award in Australia with this subject. Ten years later the EMSLA remains the only award for the still life genre in Australia and attracts entries from all around the country from artists in all stages of their careers. Building on the foundation established by the Gallery in 2007 with the support of Sydney based business man and sponsor, Dr. Mal Eutick, the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award has established Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery as the home of the still life genre.

Helle Jorgensen, Tableau II, 2017, mixed media. Photographer: Michelle Eabry

The still life award has become a signature event in the cultural calendar of the Coffs Harbour region and has a wide ranging audience demographic from curious community members to avid art lovers. Now, the gallery is set to raise the Still Life bar even higher. The National Still Life Award will become a biennial exhibition from 2019, alternating with Grafton Regional Gallery’s JADA (Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award).

The next still life award exhibition is on between 24 November 2017 – 20 January 2018.

East Coast Encounter

East Coast Encounter is a multi-arts exhibition involving Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, writers and songwriters to re-imagine the encounter by Lt James Cook and his crew with Aboriginal people in 1770. East Coast Encounter has had over 78,000 visitors across Australia’s East Coast since its inception in 2014. Coffs Harbour is its final showing before it returns home to the Australian National Maritime Museum.
East Coast Encounter will be opened by Donna Carstens, Indigenous Programs Manager, Australian National Maritime Museum.
This is a FREE event. However bookings are recommended.

Exhibition Opening Night
Friday 28 April, 6 – 8pm
Enjoy light refreshments

Join the Friends of the Gallery for an informative curator’s tour of East Coast Encounter, a multi-arts initiative re-imagining Lt James Cook’s first encounter with Australia’s Aboriginal people.
The Curator’s Private Tour with co-curator, John Waldron
Thursday 27 April 2017
5.30pm for 6.00pm start
This is a FREE event. However bookings are ESSENTIAL.
Reserve your ticket now.

Not So Solitary

On now until 24 June
Coffs Harbour Regional Museum

Poetry, music and linocuts inspired by memories of the place now known as the Solitary Islands Marine Park. Together with historical photographs and artefacts, this exhibition draws on an extensive oral history project by the NSW Department of Primary Industries with Aboriginal knowledge holders, commercial and recreational fishers, tourism operators, divers, marine scientists, surfers and more. Explore the rich heritage of this special place where warm tropical waters meet and mix with cooler currents from the south, bringing species, people and ideas together.

For more information on Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery go to: https://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/gallery

The post Past, present and future at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery appeared first on .