Disappearing: Painters and Writers Exhibition

12 March - 3 April 2021

Overview

Disappearing : to cease to be seen; vanish from sight; to cease to exist or be known; pass away; end gradually.

In our islands, their past, the land, seas, the movement of air, its peoples, the cadence of life and in the place itself is something unfathomably beautiful. You sense it as much as see it. It’s about connection and time not the here and now. It’s a secret that has been closely held, cherished, sustaining our soul.

Entwined with that secret has been a hope that one day Tasmania would be recognised, acknowledged and able to stand on its own two feet. This has been elusive but now we are told that perhaps it is so close as to be reckoned by the beads on the accountant’s abacus.

Then again, perhaps not. Is the price we are paying a disappearing, a disappearing of the very stuff that sustains us? Or, is it a more complex story, shedding a skin as part of the inexorable march of renewal?

Disappearing.

We are at a unique time in our life on these islands of Tasmania; forced to pause, reflect, revaluate, to consider, to reset, to look again at where we live with new eyes.

Over the last few decades Bett Gallery has explored what it means to live or have lived in this place we now call Tasmania in a series of important exhibitions including Future Perfect (2003), South of No North (1991) and six Poets and Painters exhibitions over three decades.

It is time to again look deeply into this place.

In March 2021 Bett Gallery will host a Painters and Writers exhibition entitled Disappearing.

A small group of Tasmanian artists and writers are invited to join curators Carol Bett (Bett Gallery), Gerard Castles and Pete Hay and to explore the idea of what it means to be Tasmanian, our island and who we are and might be as islanders at this moment in our unfolding story.

It requires a leap of faith and collaboration. Writers and artists will respond to each other’s work, challenge thinking, stimulate discussion and reset ideas.

Fourteen visual artists and fourteen writers will be paired and work collaboratively to produce new work that reflect both the artist’s and writer’s experiences, their responses to the current and future situation and to each other's perspective. The finished works will take the conversation beyond the confines of the gallery.

Participating artists and writers are:

Heather Rose and Michaye Boulter

Simon Bevilacqua and Tim Burns

Rachel Leary and Helen Wright

Greg Lehman and Brigita Ozolins

James Dryburgh and Richard Wastell

Ben Walter and Tom O’Hern

Danielle Wood and David Keeling

Justin Kurzel and Rob Connor

Katherine Johnson and Amanda Davies

Leigh Woolley and Neil Haddon

Carol Patterson Amber Korolu Stephenson