Rusten House - Networks Australia exhibition

Members of the Networks Australia Group exhibited at Rusten House, Queanbeyan New South Wales.

8 – 30 April 2022
Networks Australia
Site Specific - artists respond to Rusten House

This exhibition draws public attention to the history of Rusten House, its architecture, surrounding heritage garden, uses of the building and relationship to community. The artworks of this textiles-based group convey ideas about the early development of Queanbeyan, its health and social systems, its people, approaches to land use and landscape design. There are many stories to be told.

Rozalie Sherwood

Sandra Obst

Susan Hey

Valerie Kirk

Wendy Dodd

Liz Perry

Monique van Nieuwland

Ola Robertson

Beverly Moxon 

Cheryl Jobsz

Cheryl Jobs 

Deborah Faeyrglenn 

Dotti Le Sage 

Gail Nicholls

Janet Long

Janet Long

Jenny Manning 

Josie Cosgrove

Entwined Jenny Manning and Vivian Lightfoot

 

Entwined

Vivien Lightfoot and Jenny Manning

West Gallery, Belconnen Arts Centre

Opening 6pm Friday 20 May 2022

20 May – 3 July 2022

Artist talks from 5 pm on 20 May 2022 

Jenny’s drawings and prints, and Vivien’s ceramics address our joint concerns about the viability of the unique Australian flora that once astonished Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander, and artist Sydney Parkinson when they arrived on the east coast of Australia in 1770. Sadly, many of our wilderness areas are now colonised with weeds or fast-growing native species that find their footing following such disturbances as land clearing or bushfires.

Our work develops a language of plant interactions. The strong forms of Australian flora are mingled with stems, flowers, and seeds of introduced plants. Banksia cones are strangled by honeysuckle and kurrajong pods are contained within a tangle of bristly oxtongue.
Weeds are now endemic to the Australian landscape so that, to the untrained eye, they are often accepted as normal. Native plants are dangerously outcompeted by many rambling species that have been carelessly introduced. Biodiversity suffers as the native plants are subsumed.

Belconnen Artrs Centre Website