1st Place: Works on paper

Kristen Flynn

Athena's moth, cow skull and dead bird

Athena’s moth, cow skull, and dead bird is a three-plate solar-etching printed with Prussian blue oil. I have created this artwork to investigate the ambiguity and beauty of mortality. Each living creature in my work is at the end of its life cycle, encouraging the audience to contemplate their own transient self. I have included an appropriation of a Botticelli artwork, as his work is iconic for beauty. His depiction of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, reminds us of the human constructs we put in place to understand our own kaleidoscopic world and its life cycles.

2022 Exhibition Works on Paper

Wayne Rasmussen

Outback kaleidoscope

The Queensland outback: vast, dangerous, magnificent. A kaleidoscope of mesmerising landscapes, as present as any sunrise or sunset. As visible as the flora and fauna, and standing in all weather, are the ever-present highway traffic signs. They are damaged, faded, vibrant, cracked, scratched, bent, shot, and have absorbed the weather conditions and dust into the very fabric of the sign. A visual ‘outback kaleidoscope’ assault.

The work can be viewed three ways, (1) in normal light; (2) under a black light (fluorescent); and (3) in the dark (phosphorescent).

2022 Exhibition Painting

Seth Gerke

Ominous silence

Ominous silence was created by capturing and editing over 700 photographs. This was achieved by utilising intervalometers that enable photographs to be mathematically calculated and taken every second. I chose to enhance a colourful lush green and yellow foreground to complement and contrast the powerful approaching supercell thunderstorm, which only produced these two visible air strikes that fell simultaneously together during its life cycle. The small insignificant house on the left side of the image reveals the scale of this uncontrollable beast.

2022 Exhibition Photography
Highly Commended: Photography - digital, and new media art

Kardia Stokes

From art to code

In a spirit of regret for the photographic medium, I temporarily put the camera aside and surrendered to an editing app.

All images of my 18 entries from previous Regional Artists’ Exhibitions, their struggles and their sense-making, were submitted to this app. With a few keystrokes each image was mirrored seven times. I could then arrange the images into any random pattern.

This exercise resulted in the visualisation of an idea, a kaleidoscope of encoded memories, which the future might unscramble and decipher as the current app is unable to.

2022 Exhibition Photography

Guy Breay

Aurora Kumbarilla

This sculpture is carved from a Budgeroo tree stump from our property. It reflects on the natural cycles of light, shapes, contrasting textures, and colours that are constantly changing in the forest.

The focal point is the optical illusion of the Aurora’s rising sun that has been carved inside the tree stump.

There is a depiction of a rocky creek with a variety of gemstones. At night, it illuminates a spectrum of coloured and dappled light within and beyond the sculpture casting variable patterns of light and shadows.

2022 Exhibition Sculpture

Patricia Hinz

Beyond blue

The inspiration for Beyond blue came from daily observations of the sunrises and sunsets filtering through the treetops outside my studio. The kaleidoscopic colours changing and reflecting on the shimmering leaves and branches was a reminder of how life, as well as the seasons, in nature evolve. Through the dark times we can look ‘beyond blue’ and hope for better times ahead. On the land we endure the disasters of drought and flooding rains and progress to the occasional triumph and magic season.

2022 Exhibition Painting

Kay Joyce

Nature the ultimate alchemist

Well before humans attempted to create wealth by transforming basic substances into something more rare and therefore valuable, nature was at work creating the building blocks of life from basic elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon etc. Colours, seen and unseen by humans, are vital to the continuation of the cycle of life. They play a pivotal role in the Blue Carpenter Bee as sole pollinator for this Polygala bush, in ensuring continuation of the species, production of honey, and providing enjoyment for its human observers.

2022 Exhibition 3D

Karen Gaskell

Not so common Bronzewing

A wildly colourful, unfinished abstract painting set the scene for this artwork. The idea of creating a subject in the ‘scene’ that mirrored the patterns and colours already there drew me to the male Common Bronzewing pigeon. However, ‘common’ the Bronzewing pigeon may be, the resplendent metallic colours in the wing feathers made it the perfect subject. The complex interplay of colour, pattern, and light between the ground and the bird, as the artwork was created and changed, mirrored the turning of a kaleidoscope. The result suggests that nature itself is a kaleidoscope that is reflective, dynamic, elusive, and beautiful.

2022 Exhibition Painting

Seth Gerke

Rippled duplicate

Rippled duplicate was created by finding a large reflective foreground that duplicated the illuminated sky. Long exposure photography techniques were required to capture the intensity of yellow, orange, pink, and purple colours underneath the high clouds. I chose the mirrored composition to improve the already stunning sky and separate the physical and deceptive worlds from each other. This is finalised with the balanced silhouette tree line that narrows the focus into the centre of the image.

2022 Exhibition Photography

Lisa Stiller

Blowing bubbles

Kaleidoscopes are fun and beautiful, random in their delight, just like blowing bubbles. But their real beauty is the joy they bring, allowing us to remember our inner child and become playful once again.

Gaze through the colourful bubbles floating on glass, to see the real beauty at the depth of this piece – you. Look at you. Look into your soul. You are the beauty, seen through the layers. It’s you.

This artwork has been lovingly framed with timber from our old hay shed, recalling things of old, just like the treasure of the old-fashioned kaleidoscopes we have all played with.

2022 Exhibition 3D
1st Place: Painting

Cindy Grimes

Me

We can describe our lives as a kaleidoscope of experiences, bold technicolour, pastel shades, or the grey of darker times; a journey of direction, changes and surprises which makes up a life. This self-portrait is a vehicle for reflection. Do I really see and respond to the detail and patterns in the turning tube of others’ stories? How well do I reflect on my own? Do the subtleties show on our faces? Or does everything blend together into one blur of colour and light?

2022 Exhibition Painting
2nd Place: Works on paper

Meg Noack

Going for gold

The Bunya Mountains is exploding with rain-refreshed life. Within this bounty, feral animals multiply alarmingly. Pigs. Cats. Rabbits. Mice. All recently arrived. Humans respond. Bait. Poison. Trap. Shoot. Drastic solutions have unintended consequences. In the bush, dingoes evoke an array of emotions. Anger. Horror. Fear. Revulsion. At the Bunyas, there is a need to twist our emotional kaleidoscope and look again. Here, dingoes are already playing their part in natural, feral-pest control – in plain sight! Perhaps differing kaleidoscopic emotions can be identified? Recognition? Respect?…

2022 Exhibition Works on Paper
2nd Place: Photography - digital, and new media art

Tim Tyrrell

Ancient rock art (triptych)

The cutting and polishing of stones reveal a kaleidoscope of different patterns, colours and cell structures. I have been collecting stones for over 40 years, especially fossilised tree fern, agates, jaspers, and petrified wood, and find the complexity within the stones amazing. The fossilised tree ferns are approximately 160 million years old, and all stones have a variation of patterns and colours. The jaspers were formed around the time of volcanic activity and the colours can be spectacular. These stones were all found in the Miles, Wandoan area.

2022 Exhibition Photography
2nd Place: 3D Works

Hilary Coulter

From sunrise to sunset (and then some)

In the fortnight leading up to the completion of this work, our babysitter had gastro, my son (3) had conjunctivitis, I spilt boiling water on my foot resulting in a considerable burn, my daughter (5) taught herself how to climb up on the trapeze and swing like a fairy, we had a night in hospital with my son, my husband and I contributed to the running of a fundraiser for our local kindergarten, my son chased 10 scary monsters out of the garden, and my daughter taught my son how to pronounce the word ‘balloon’ properly. It’s a crazy, precious, kaleidoscopic life.

2022 Exhibition Painting
1st Place: 3D Works

Kay Vidler

Reflections

This piece is a reflection of my journey in the world of ceramics: colours and shapes, the predictably and unpredictability of results, and the sheer joy of being part of the process. The parallels between the kaleidoscope, with its beautiful colours and shapes falling unpredictably on a mirror, and the glowing colours and patterns of this ceramic piece as it was removed from a Raku kiln are striking. The patterns and shapes are formed not only by me, but also by the method of firing over which I have no control, just as the kaleidoscope forms uncontrolled patterns.

2022 Exhibition 3D

Seth Gerke

Stacked staircase

Stacked staircase was created by finding suitable landscape compositions, capturing, and editing images. Long exposure photography techniques were required as this storm developed during low light conditions. Over 100 photographs were taken to capture the most suitable image of the continuously changing structure, and varying intensity of each illuminating lightning strike. I utilised an old shed in my composition to represent the significance and intensity of this thunderstorm as it surged across the landscape, uninterrupted yet continually evolving new layers of historical data upon itself.

2022 Exhibition Photography