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Join us for the official opening of Hearts of Absent Women by artist Ema Shin on Saturday 8th July at 2pm.

Ema will speak about her work,  and light refreshments will be served in the Gallery foyer.

Ema Shin is from a Korean family who immigrated to Japan in the 1930s. Born and raised in Japan, she moved to Australia in 2010. As part of a Korean tradition, Shin’s male family members keep a book illustrating their family tree. Shin’s family tree spans 32 generations, yet only the linage of sons is featured. All daughters are absent.

This solo exhibition by Ema Shin celebrates the efforts and creativity of women that have gone unrecognised. Her work is influenced by anatomical and botanical forms. She sees these as symbols of life and emotion. Shin highlights the cultural diversity of women living in Australia, drawing attention to their experiences with family and social expectations. She celebrates their resilience and achievements.

Hearts of Absent Women includes soft embroidered sculptures, handwoven tapestries, and installations. The works in this exhibition have been made over the course of thirteen years, which is how long Shin has lived in Australia.

Free entry, bookings essential to help plan catering. Please scroll down to book ↓

Join us for the official opening of Overlay by Cara Johnson on Saturday 11th November at 2pm.

Cara will speak about her work, and light refreshments will be served in the Gallery foyer.

Cara Johnson’s craft-based works interrogate tensions and narratives connected to the ways land is treated and used, through material, intention and invested labour. Her practice is entwined with her rural location in the Otways hinterland (Gadubanud country), where she works in isolation, surrounded by bushland and sheep paddocks. Cara’s work is primarily concerned with traversing the complexities between people and plants.

Overlay considers the correspondence between inflicted damage on the land and subsequent attempted repair. Materials have been collected based on their relationships to agriculture and landscape restoration: tree guards found tumbling in the undergrowth and floating in creeks; baling twine snagged on fence lines; silage netting tangled in the dirt; and weeds cut from where they grew. Adapting techniques connected to jewellery histories, these found materials are reprocessed to create works that reflect upon the hope and hopelessness of repair.

Free entry, bookings essential to help plan catering. Please scroll down to book ↓

Join us for the official opening of Panoply by Kasia Töns on Saturday 2nd March at 2pm.

Kasia will speak about her work, and light refreshments will be served in the Gallery foyer.

Panoply is an emergency shelter that aims to provide a place of retreat and safety in the first stage of displacement. Motivated by the uncertainty of life and a fascination for textiles and architecture, this project has been incubating for many years. This iteration of Panoply has been laboriously hand stitched over many months and utilises reclaimed fabrics and stuffing. The design elements of colour, shape, base, doors and ‘windows’ are personal to the needs of the artist with the idea that this modular approach can be adapted to the needs of different inhabitants.

Kasia Töns is a textile artist working and living on Peramangk Country (Adelaide Hills). Hand embroidery and mask making are central to her practice, which sits at the intersection of art, fashion, and craft. Her process is slow and intuitive, colourful, and expressive. The labour and time invested in creating her work acts as an antidote to the fast pace of the modern world and the addictive seeking of instant gratification through digital means. Recurring thematic interests include social impacts of digital technology use, the Anthropocene, and interpersonal/interspecies relationship dynamics.

Free entry, bookings essential to help plan catering. Please scroll down to book ↓

Join us for the official opening of Propositions: Tapestry Design Prize For Architects 2023, a touring exhibition from the Australian Tapestry Workshop, on Saturday 22nd June 2024 at 2pm.

The exhibition will be opened by Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) director Sophie Travers, and the ATW weavers will lead a tour of the exhibition. Light refreshments will follow, served in the Gallery foyer.

Since 2015, the Tapestry Design Prize for Architects (TDPA) has fostered exciting new creative dialogues between architects and tapestry weavers. In 2023, architects were challenged to design a tapestry for Kerstin Thompson Architect’s Bundanon Art Museum.

Showcasing the resulting ten finalist’s designs, sections of these were woven as large format studies by weavers from the Australian Tapestry Workshop. Leonie Bessant, Chris Cochius, Amy Cornall, Saffron Gordon, Tim Gresham, Pamela Joyce, David Pearce, Emma Sulzer and Caroline Tully all responded individually to a section of each design that inspired or intrigued them. These Propositions provide a glimpse into the potential for these designs to be realised as large-scale tapestries.

These designs and the resulting woven studies are a snapshot into contemporary thinking on tapestry’s ability to enhance architectural spaces; they celebrate the artistry and technical skills of ATW weavers and the creative and innovative possibilities available to architects, artists, and designers.

This event is free entry, with bookings requested and essential to help plan catering. Please scroll down to book ↓