Passages and Portals Networks Australia Exhibition opening

 

Networks Australia members, ACT poets and Grenfell poets
 Photographer Fiona Bowring

  Lizz Murphy, Poet, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Sarah St Vincent Welch, Poet, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Networks Artist, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Christine Appleby and Monique van Nieuwland, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Grenfell Poet, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Grenfell Poet, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Passages and Portals - Networks Australia exhibition

 

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Tree-Sisters, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Christine Appleby, The Evidence is Everywhere, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Karyn Fearnside, The Stamp of Rubber Magpie and New Roman Times, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Susan Hey, Pathways, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Foreground: Ola Robertson, The Wasting Body; Background: Valerie Kirk, Namadji – Rocks, Photographer Fiona Bowring 

Sandra Obst, Rhythms, Photographer Fiona Bowring

Passages and Portals - Part two

September 9

-

October 19 2022

Networks Australia is a group of practising visual artists, living and working in Australia. We work in all mediums including textiles, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing.

Our exhibition titled ‘Passages and Portals’ consists of artworks inspired by Australian poetry. Poems are often passages and portals, offering new ways of seeing our natural surroundings and life experiences. In this exhibition, each artist has interpreted an Australian poem visually.

The Networks artists have invited a group of local Grenfell poets to include their own poetry in the exhibition, addressing the themes of Passages and Portals. These poems will be displayed among the artworks in the gallery.

Grenfell Art Gallery

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

Small Works Art Prize : Deborah Faeyrglenn

 

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Burnt Sisters 2019-20, 10cm, 20cm, 35cm diameter, found tableware, graphite, embroidery thread and mirror board

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Burnt Sisters 2019-20, 10cm, 20cm, 35cm diameter, found tableware, graphite, embroidery thread and mirror board

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Burnt Sisters 2019-20, 10cm, 20cm, 35cm diameter, found tableware, graphite, embroidery thread and mirror board

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Burnt Sisters 2019-20, 10cm, 20cm, 35cm diameter, found tableware, graphite, embroidery thread and mirror board

Artist Statement: Deborah Faeyrglenn

These small works continue my interest in forests and in particular the impact of catastrophic bushfires and how trees survive. Stitching, drawing, and found materials are ongoing elements in my arts practice. In these works, I have rescued discarded tableware, cut away damaged/stained areas, stitched a network of underground tree roots and drawn the burnt forests. The mirrored background and tableware are metaphors for human inter-connection with forests.

Brunswick Street Gallery 

Deb Faeyrglenn - Work in Progress

Deb Faeyrglenn Underground Forest: sharing water, sharing danger. raffia, recycled cloth, silk and cotton thread, found bird and insect charms. 270cm x 300cm x 150cm 

Deb Faeyrglenn Underground Forest: sharing water, sharing danger. raffia, recycled cloth, silk and cotton thread, found bird and insect charms. 270cm x 300cm x 150cm 

Deb Faeyrglenn Underground Forest: sharing water, sharing danger. raffia, recycled cloth, silk and cotton thread, found bird and insect charms. 270cm x 300cm x 150cm 

Artist Statement 

Science is revealing what indigenous communities and poets have long known: trees are connected and communicating via vast underground symbiotic networks of tree-root and fungal thread (mycelium). Trees share water, sugars and chemical information about threat of disease or insect invasion with nearby trees of same species and even with other species of trees. Older ‘hub’ trees have memory of chemical they can use to repel threatening insects and diseases. Sharing helps the trees survive tough times but the sharing web can also pass on deadly new diseases. 

By Installing a tree-root and mycelium web from the gallery ceiling I am tipping our above-ground perception of trees upside down – revealing the underworld of trees. 

Coiling, Stitching and knitting are processes that mirror the slow-time of tree-life. This artwork took two years to weave, stitch and knit.               

Installation of Trees: As Above So Below No 3

Deb Faeyrglenn detail of Underground Conversations, 2017 - ANBG Exhibition

Deborah Faeyrglenn, Underground Conversations 2017

Monique van Nieuwland, Wasted 2017

Janet Long, Gratitude for Trees 2017

Nancy Tingey, 'Creepers' 2017

Trees: As above, So Below

The artworks visible on and around the Eucalypt Lawn are part of an exhibition titled Trees: As above, So Below, created by members of Networks Australia, a group of primarily Canberra based visual artists who have exhibited extensively nationally and Internationally, addressing a variety of issues, social, political and environmental.


In this instance inspired by the work of the ANBG and a slew of recent books on the subject of trees, 1 the artists focus on the broader and often overlooked if not hidden aspects of trees to expand perceptions beyond the visible structure to root systems and canopies and various interdependences and interactions with other life forms vital in maintaining a healthy eco-system.

Bev Moxon

Deborah Faeyrglenn

Members discussing Trees: As above, So Below exhibition works

Nancy Tingey

Rozalie Sherwood