Art of the month

Art of the Month - December 2021/January 2022

Title: Bush Potato by Esandra Colbung
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 420x260mm, 2016

Esandra Colbung is an artist and traditional Custodian of a number of Aboriginal sites in the Perth Metro area. She gained much of her knowledge from growing up and travelling alongside her father Ken Colbung AM MBE JP who was a notable campaigner for the recognition of cultural and human rights for Aboriginal Australians. Ken donated many of the Aboriginal objects currently on display in the Wanneroo Regional Museum and his legacy continues to inform our knowledge of Aboriginal history and continuing culture to this day.  

Bush Potato is an impression of the bush potato that grows in the City of Wanneroo and is dug up by women with the Wanna or digging stick.  This is particularly relevant given the name Wanneroo is ‘place of the digging stick’.

Art of the Month - October 2021

Title: Facility 6 by Stuart Elliott
Medium: Sculpture in three pieces, wood, cotton fabric, acrylic sheet, resin

By artist Stuart Elliott, The Facility is an abbreviation of its working title 'Memories of The Facility'.  The work is intended to read almost as forensic material, gathered for unknown purposes but all relating to multiple 'remembered' experiences at a facility of some kind.  These recollections have common denominators but vary wildly from straight but odd documentation to the darkly fantastic.  'The purpose or machinations of the facility are not clear, nor are the roles of those whose fragmented recollections are here exposed.  In keeping with my ongoing concerns with that of fakeology, that is, the development of utterly fictional museum-like artifacts and images, it could be said that The Facility exists as a form of poetic abstraction of places in the actual, or at least perceived, world'.

Art of the Month - July 2021

Title: An Index of Possibilities by Trevor Richards
Medium: Acrylic polymer paint on canvas

Trevor Richards continues to be inspired by pattern. These patterns are most often found in the everyday, whether that be the terrazzo-patterned floors in his own home, or the tessellated surfaces discovered on walls, floors and ceilings whilst travelling overseas. These art works were inspired by his chance encounter with The Salt Shed in Manhattan. The building houses salt rock used to deal with snowy street, and its facade has been described as looking like 'a modern art painting come to life, all angles and edges'. 

Art of the Month - May/June 2021

Title: In the Wake of War 1 by Alan Muller
Medium: Digital print on arches paper

In The Wake of War 1 is a very personal artwork and is the companion piece to In The Wake of War 2 (2015). It became the starting point for the later ANZAC Commission drawing. 

In Alan's own words, "There were many Western Australian families including my own, that ended up living in the shadow of World War II.  Husbands and fathers returned suffering from severe trauma ... Many men would not speak about the horror they had gone through."

Art of the Month - March 2021

Title: I faced reality a long time ago #2 by Mark Tweedie
Medium: Oil on canvas

Family bonds and interpersonal stories form the foundation of artist Mark Tweedie work.  Loved ones battling ageing, fading health and facing their own mortality, are enduring narratives.  

The subject of this work is of a much loved family friend, who is facing his own mortality.  Ultimately Ken expressed to Mark three concise questions: "who have I been?", "where am I going?" and "what am I leaving behind?"  

Public Art of the Month - February 2021

Title: Zamia by Lorenna Grant
Medium: Polycarbonate, steel and paint, composite sheet
Location: Zamia Park, Zamia Rise, Yanchep

The Zamia artworks are inspired by, and pay tribute, to the original plant – a cycad – after which the suburb of ‘Zamia’ is named.

The artworks are representation of certain aesthetic design elements of the ancient plant only found in Western Australia.  The Cycad originated here from an unimaginable backward distance in history.  It is thought they have been here for 200 million years and their bright orange seeds distributed through the grazing of the mega fauna, a task now reserved for the emu. collection

The artworks are laser cut painted aluminium and polycarbonate and the two smaller artworks are composite and aluminium.  The main artwork interprets these plants as intricate containers for our precious ancient history and the smaller artworks another impression of unrealised potential – as are all seeds.

Public Art of the Month - January  2021

Title: Branched by Leanne Bray
Medium: Sandblasted aluminium and digitally printed tempered glass
Location: Seeadler Park, Clarkson (Catalina Estate)

The sister work to ‘Furled’ this work continues the approach to a holistic community. Likewise embracing the concept of a ‘positive meeting place’ and creating a bold, clear statement that activates the gathering place and adds to the local aesthetic.

With the notion of ‘beach to bush’ as a theme, (for both works) the circle has become transformed and the surrounding framework represents the organic branching of the family tree. The lighter open framework, embracing and contrasting with the stability of the solid form.