Don’t miss the new exhibitions, Heather + Kate Dorrough LINEAGE and Julie Slavin with Cross-Currents, on show at the Manning Regional Art Gallery from 1 February to 23 March 2024.
LINEAGE is a conversation across time. The artworks of mother and daughter Heather and Kate Dorrough explore the connection between the arts and crafts movements, female creative lineage, body and landscape, river and fertility, and environmental issues and activism. The exhibition includes fibre art, paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture, and video.
“We are excited to bring such a multi-disciplinary exhibition for the community to experience”, said Alex Mills, MidCoast Council’s Manager Libraries, Community and Cultural Services.
Drawing on the Hawkesbury River landscape over the last 25 years of her life, Heather Dorrough created a large body of prints and paintings, seen together for the first time at Manly Art Gallery and Museum. The exhibition includes her earlier fabric hangings and low-relief sculptures which were her most significant works. Her works were an important shift from a craft-based tradition to the arts, 1970s to 1980s. Originally trained as an Interior Designer, she worked in London and New York before arriving in Australia in 1962 and began making fabric and fibre works after the birth of her daughter Kate.
The practice of Sydney-based artist Kate Dorrough sustains a conversation between paint and clay. Her work launches an inquiry into the interplay and tension between the gestural mark and the hand-built ceramic form. The artist’s recent work explores the River as a metaphor, the gift of fertility with cycles of renewal and destruction.
Julie Slavin’s exhibition Cross-Currents is an exploration change through abstraction.
Cross-currents exist where forces intersect. We see them all around us, in nature, in social and cultural changes, in relationships and spiritual growth. Change is inevitable and can be devastating or full of awe and wonder. We must be flexible and buoyant in order to navigate our way. The question arises, do we sink, swim or go with the flow?
Everyone is welcome to attend the free official exhibition opening at 6pm on Friday 2 February.
