Coming SOON: Willandra Three Rivers

This October will see the culmination of a two-year project launched at the Griffith Regional Art Gallery. Willandra Three Rivers has been a partnership project between Western Riverina Arts, the Griffith Regional Art Gallery, and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services. 

During 2015/16 participating artists (all based in the area of NSW bounded by ‘three rivers’, the Lachlan, Macquarie and Murrumbidgee) travelled to the Willandra National Park for a number of residencies, staying at the old Willandra Homestead. While there they talked, roamed, and made new work. 

‘NSW boasts an amazing array of National Parks, taking in rainforests, mountain ranges, and coastal landscapes,’ says Regional Arts Development Officer Derek Motion. ‘ But then there’s also a specific allure to the broad flat plains of the Western region, such as those bounded by Willandra National Park. Sometimes it is the artist’s eye that really brings the curious beauty of these landscapes to our direct attention.’ 

Willandra Three Rivers was developed with the aim of bringing artists from different areas of regional NSW together to learn from each other. Local artists Melanie Baulch, Jo-Anne Southorn, Cory Mckenzie and Kerri Weymouth worked alongside five other artists from across regional NSW to create works of amazing variety and quality.  

‘I think all of the artists were influenced by close contact with other artists, by the intensely immersive process of living and working remotely at Willandra. Artists from regional NSW are producing work of an amazing quality and when they are brought together new conversations, new networks, and new ideas develop.’ 

Willandra Three Rivers will open at 6pm, Thursday 20th October, with special guest speaker CSU Art Historian Dr. Neil Overton. The exhibition will then run until 20th November. Plans are underway to mount Willandra Three Rivers in Narrandera during Januray 2017.