Exhibition takes its audience on an artistic journey of discovery

Humanity’s relationship with water and the emotional legacy of childhood memories create a wellspring of inspiration in Scenic Rim Regional Council’s latest exhibition offering. 

Legacy, a free exhibition opening to the public at The Centre Beaudesert on Saturday 12 February, features works by artists Annique Goldenberg, who explores the transformative properties of water, and Karen Stone, who draws on images of childhood to discover the meaning of home. 

Scenic Rim Arts Reference Group Chair and Deputy Mayor Cr Michael Enright said while diverse in their subject matter and approach, both artists had collaborated closely over a number of years and their shared philosophy was reflected in their work. 

“Annique Goldenberg’s exhibition, Living Water: In search of equilibrium, illustrates the fragile relationship between humanity and this most precious element and Karen Stone’s exhibition, Home is Where One Starts From, is a creative outpouring from a childhood immersed in images of flowers,” he said. 

Living Water takes its audience on an artistic journey from the glaciers of the high arctic to the wetlands of the Tuckean swamp in northern New South Wales, once regarded as the Kakadu of the south, whose natural values have been diminished through human intervention. 

“Water, in its various forms, is both the central material and a metaphor which allows us to ask ourselves why we should care about our relationship with our living world,” Annique said. 

Central to Annique’s process is that works are created slowly over time, allowing chance and random events to trickle through layers of materiality and meaning, as she combines photography, digital media, drawing, found objects, sculpture, papermaking, and video. 

Karen Stone’s exhibition, Home is Where One Starts From, takes recycling and the creation of handmade paper to new heights, producing remarkable floor-to-ceiling artworks inspired by childhood memories and feelings of home. 

"In my family homes, flowers were everywhere - on the walls and bedspreads, on Mum’s frocks, and Nana’s best china,” she said. 

“In this body of work, flowers are presented as a metaphor for the social conditioning I experienced as a female child born in the 1950s. 

“When looking through the eyes of a single, older, non-home owning woman in contemporary society, this work is asking the question ‘what does home mean to me?’ and, by extension, what might we consider the qualities that make ‘home’?” 

Karen has exhibited her works in China and in Australia, at galleries on the east coast from Brisbane to Nowra, and Perth in the west. 

Annique’s works have been included in exhibitions throughout Australia as well as France, Spain and Italy and are represented in collections both in Australia and abroad. 

In 2017, Annique was selected for the Arctic Circle Residency in Norway, which supports the creation and exhibition of new and pioneering work.  

Both Annique and Karen will present artist’s talks at the official opening of the Legacy exhibition by Cr Virginia West from 10.30am on Saturday 19 February. 

Legacy runs from Saturday 12 February to Saturday 26 March, during gallery hours from 10am to 4pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 2pm on Saturday. 

To register for the free official opening event, visit liveatthecentre.com.au/Exhibitions-2022-Legacy-pg33285.html