Lime Flamingo Collective
Lesley Andersen, Jenny Blake, Jodie Cunningham, Sarah Earle, Roger Hancock, Gillian Jackson, Diane McWhirter, Angella Price and Jo Walters
West Gallery
5 February – 21 March 2021
Opening 6pm Friday 5 February 2021
“It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of love and kindness.”
– Gandalf, The Hobbit
Artists from the Lime Flamingo Collective, a networking group for emerging professional artists from the Canberra region, have worked together to create this group exhibition, OutsideIn | InsideOut.
In such uncertain and challenging times, it is focusing on the small and ordinary things, the light ‘within the cracks’ and our internal world that give us hope and solace. Lime Flamingo Collective artists reflect on the current COVID-19 crisis, life in quarantine, the recent bushfire disasters and the climate emergency, and respond to these large challenges through the lens of both vulnerability and strength; through diverse perspectives and artistic practice; looking at our collective experiences of looking from the ‘outside-in’ during the bushfire & climate crisis and the ‘inside-out’ during COVID-19 shutdown. The exhibition will include a small body of work from each artist including drawing, painting, printmaking, video, textiles, photography and sculpture.
For more info on the Lime Flamingo Collective, visit their website and Instagram.
About the artists
Lesley Andersen
“I see creativity as part of my personality. It is ever present and shapes the way I perceive the everyday things I encounter. I can bury creativity under life, family and work but it pulls at me until I pay it attention.” For this reason, emerging artist Lesley Andersen started a successful practice in 2013 screen printing Canberra themed textiles. Recently she diversified into other mediums including sculpture, digital design and painting while studying Visual Arts at CIT. In late 2019 Lesley created Mirror Bus as part of the ACT Government’s City Renewal Program; a large public artwork using discarded CDs, Lesley transformed a city bus into a shimmering, light-catching, kinetic sculpture attracting both public and media attention. Lesley also entered the Woollahra Municipal Council Small Sculpture Prize in 2020 with a piece called 21st Century Covid Man inspired by protective face masks.
Follow Lesley on Instagram.
Jenny Blake
Jenny Blake grew up in regional NSW, she describes her childhood as deliriously “free range” where she was encouraged to explore and investigate nature. Her imagination was seeded and flourished. After 10 years of self-taught painting, Blake completed a Diploma of Visual Arts with a High Distinction from the Canberra Institution of Technology 2017, winning the Graduates Emerging Artist Prize and The Professional Practice Prize. The common theme in her work is vulnerability and fragility of nature and people. Her work highlights many of the pressing issues of our times. Blake uses a mix of non-traditional and traditional tools, mixed mediums to create layers, peeling back, and adding further layers, building and eroding the surface. Since 2006 Blake has exhibited her work in seven group shows and eight solo shows. Blake currently works out of her studio at Strathnairn Arts, Canberra.
Follow Jenny on Instagram, Facebook and her website.
Jodie Cunningham
Jodie Cunningham has an obsession with colour, pattern, and the emotional resonance of objects; she has over 25 years experience as a practising artist and regularly exhibits in group and solo exhibitions. Her last major exhibitions were the public art installations Canberra Futures projections for Enlighten 2020 and Canberra Journeys for Woolley St Dickson in 2019; and a solo exhibition of images about transformation, Bloom, at M16 Artspace, 2018. She makes art in her studio at the M16 Artspace and works as Assistant Director at ACT Historic Places and facilitator of the Lime Flamingo Collective. She delights in making the world more colourful, parenting her gorgeous children, managing her menagerie of pets, and creating engaging art, museum and learning experiences.
Follow Jodie an Instagram, Facebook and her website.
Sarah Earle
Sarah Earle is a visual artist based in Canberra, Australia. Graduating from the Canberra Institute of Technology in 2019 with a Diploma of Visual Arts, she continues to enjoy learning new techniques and experimenting with new mediums. Her work is expressed through painting, drawing, collage and mixed media to communicate memory, reflection or contemplation on landscape and human nature. She has exhibited her work locally in a number of group exhibitions and drawing prizes including Belconnen Arts Centre, Strathnairn Arts and M16 since 2014.
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Roger Hancock
Roger Hancock is a Canberra-based emerging artist with a passion for creativity, love of Bauhaus, Art Deco, Impressionism and abstraction. His oeuvre is eclectic with works ranging from structure and precision-shaped by his background as a cartographer, to spontaneous gestural mark-making triggered by experimentation. Roger’s artistic career started on retirement from the Department of Defence, having served 40 years in both the Army and the Australian Public Service. In 2019, Roger was awarded the NAVA Ignition Prize for achievements in professional practice on graduation from the Canberra Institute of Technology with a Diploma of Visual Arts. Since graduation, Roger has exhibited works in group exhibitions at Belconnen Arts Centre and Strathnairn Arts Association.
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Gillian Jackson
Gillian Jackson is a talented researcher, teacher and artist who sees everything as an opportunity for exploration and enjoys pushing the limits of materials. Artistic expression of any form has been an essential part of Gillian’s life for over 25 years. Formal education developed and refined her skills, awakening new creative possibilities. While studying a Diploma in Visual Arts and Advanced Diploma in Creative Product Design, Gillian showcased her work in group and solo exhibitions. In 2017 Gillian proudly presented a solo exhibition at Belconnen Arts Centre, displaying innovative artworks inspired by and created from snake shed.
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Diane McWhirter
Living in Canberra, with its natural abundance of native flora and fauna, Diane McWhirter is particularly drawn to studies of nature and seasonal colours and textures. Colour pencil is a signature of Diane’s artwork, which, along with her tutorials, have been published in international art magazines, including in Denmark and America. Diane completed a Visual Arts Diploma with the Canberra Institute of Technology in 2018 and is currently enrolled at the Australian National University School of Art and Design.
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Angella Price
Angella Price is an emerging artist from Canberra who explores connection to places and objects. Through sculpture, painting and installation she investigates how materiality, scale, colour and composition convey sentiment and create conversation. Angella studied at Canberra Institute of Technology, completing her Diploma of Visual Art in 2016. During her studies, Angella was awarded a scholarship from Vocational Education & Training (VET) Mobility Program and Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) to undertake inquiry and research in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
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Jo Walters
Jo Walters is a visual artist based in Canberra. She has an Advanced Diploma in Visual Art from the Canberra Institute of Technology and has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions since graduating in 2012. Jo uses a variety of mediums, in both 2D and 3D, to communicate research-based points of view that encompass a variety of contexts, from historical and political to the philosophical and personal. Jo is particularly drawn to the tradition of vanitas — Dutch paintings, using symbols of decay and wealth to convey the ephemerality of life — and re-imagining them in contemporary form. Jo’s first solo exhibition in 2014, Embodied, held at the Manuka CCAS gallery, examined how collective anxiety over human fragility has been projected onto the body throughout history. This work consisted of large and small 3D assemblages, incorporating found objects and textile work. Jo was invited to exhibit work from Embodied at BLAZE, an annual Canberra showcase for emerging contemporary artists, curated by Alexander Boynes.
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Date
Sat Feb 27
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Location
Belconnen Arts Centre
