Canowindra locals Nerida Cuddy and Heather Vallance together with Heather’s work when it was exhibited in Bathurst earlier this year.
Arts OutWest will showcase some of the region’s most exciting visual artists as they each respond to original music reflecting on the challenging and changing times over the past two years.
The regional tour for the While the World Waits Exhibition will open at 2pm this Saturday 6th August at Canowindra Art Gallery.
The launch includes a half-hour session of original music by Cowra’s Josh Maynard who performed on the While the World Waits album.
“The last two years have been tough in the arts. Lockdowns and loss of work ran right across all artforms. Live shows took a hammering. We wanted to help by creating opportunities for those most affected,” said exhibition curator, Arts OutWest’s Steven Cavanagh.
“Last year Arts OutWest commissioned 15 Central West songwriters to each write a track reflecting their experiences of 2020. We created a compilation album of original music titled While the World Waits,” Mr Cavanagh explains. “Then we opened the conversation up to visual artists to see what they were feeling.”
In 2022, artists from across the Central West were asked to use the album of music as a jumping off point and inspiration for new work. The resulting While the World Waits Exhibition is a curated works of selected artists, each responding to one or more tracks, title or words on the album.
The exhibition will showcase work from across all mediums. You will see painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, moving image, animation, photography, glass and textiles.
Canowindra artist Heather Vallance has work in the exhibition ‘Resonance and Reverberation’ (2022) a work of mixed media on paper. She created the work inspired by songs on the album from Canowindra’s Nerida Cuddy ‘Virtual Folk Club’, Cowra’s Josh Maynard ‘Atomic War’, Orange’s Lynda Manwaring ‘Tomorrow’ and Millthorpe’s Genni Kane ‘The Trouble We’re In’.
“My work touches on the temporal aspects of creativity. How despite the machi-nations and impositions of modern life, especially the past two years, creativity can still shine. It can be a personal journey, a shared journey or a fleeting moment that captures the inherent power of creativity to nurture our very humanity. I hope my work offers windows into these worlds, where music and music makers are not silenced,” Heather Vallance said.
The exhibition will run at Canowindra Arts Gallery in Gaskill Street from 6th – 27th August on a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 2pm.
The While the World Waits Exhibition is a 12month touring exhibition produced by regional arts development organisation Arts OutWest. The work will travel to galleries and venues across Bathurst, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra, Forbes, Lachlan, Lithgow, Mid-Western Region, Oberon, Orange, Parkes and Weddin LGAs.
The Artists showing their works in the exhibition include: Gus Armstrong (Rylstone), Laura Baker (Blayney), Helen Carpenter (Grenfell), Steven Cavanagh (Hill End), Gemma Clipsham (Bathurst), Heather Dunn (Bathurst), Lise Edwards (Lithgow), Harrie Fasher (Portland), Robert Hirschmann (Portland), Cate McCarthy (Yetholme), Hugh McKinnon (Orange), Christine McMillan (Kandos), Shani Nottingham (Cowra), Timothy Seager (Bathurst), Henry Simmons and the River Yarn-ers (Bathurst), Bridget Thomas (Bathurst), Jane Tonks (Orange), Heather Vallance (Orange) and Stephan de Wit (Parkes). After Canowindra the exhibition will travel to Cowra Civic Theatre for a showing from 11th – 18th September.