History of Artist written by her daughter Helen Hanson.

Elaine Helen Clark was born in Horsham in 1940. She was the youngest daughter of Stan Clark and Ruby Clark [nee Kemp]. Elaine inherited her artistic abilities from her father who was also a gifted artist painting with colored inks during the war onto canvas sheets.

At the tender age of 5, circumstance changed and Elaine and her siblings, Noel, Marlene, Thelma, Gary, Max, and their mother Ruby moved to Natimuk.

Elaine's artistic abilities showed up early in her life. When attending school she was always asked to decorate the blackboard at Christmas time and other special occasions. Her first painting was painted on the back of a cereal box.

In the mid 50’s Elaine worked at several places including a shop own by Costas [Con] Aristides, who migrated to Australia in the early 50’s, they married in 1956. Elaine worked very hard in the shop and raised six children. Helen, John, Chris, Mark, Paul and Gary.

Elaine had very little leisure time but found some time at the end of a long day to do some sewing and in the early days she use to make dresses for me by hand as she didn’t have a sewing machine. Elaine did find some time to paint and had two exhibitions, one at the Natimuk Memorial Hall and the other in Horsham Gallery in the 70’s and 80’s.

Apart from painting Elaine enjoys many other activities such as: sewing, gardening, ceramics, doll repairs, knitting and other activities which are too many to mention. Elaine is a perfectionist in everything that she does.

What I'm after:
It's all digital art, I'm combining it with different techniques to get some texture in it, as digital art can lack the warmth and complexity that texture brings.

What's inspired me:
The landscape (obviously!) suggests these things to me in quite a direct way. I've been coming to the Wimmera for 20 years and living here for 8 and, like any good relationship, I just find it more beautiful. The harshness seems to make the beauty and delicacy more pronounced, the epic skies, the perfect lines of the salt lakes, the elegant trees.

On a human level I have been encouraged by selling work at the Nati frinj festival, and by people (like Greg Pritchard) having their first visual art exhibitions at the Goat Gallery. This is my first exhibition, and I have loved the process, feel really inspired and hope it's the first of many. And on that note, all of the work is for sale!

Background:
I've been doing freelance graphic design, web design, projection for performance, animation, programming and video production since 2001. My work's been at Fed Square, the Sydney Opera House and part of the
Commonwealth Games cultural programme. Locally I have worked on the silos shows with Y‐Space and produced several DVD's such as Long Time Wet, Long Time Dry for the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority. I am currently making a documentary on the history of rockclimbing in Australia.

Douglas Hockly

Multi award winning artist Nichola Clarke’s first solo Wimmera show. Bright and vibrant oils and monoprints. Full of life, no shades of grey.

Address:	35 Palk St Horsham Vic 3400
Phone:	03 5382 3661
E-mail:

Norm Greenaway has three fields of artistic endeavour: his home and garden, the pottery he has created for thirty years and with a change of direction, painting.

Norm’s artistic career began when at 15yrs old, his enthusiasm to learn pottery instigated (with the help of a wonderful teacher) the development of a pottery department at the Tech school he attended in Sale.

Norm worked for thirty years in Horsham teaching pottery at the Tech school Art Department including junior, senior and adult classes.

Norm developed many different techniques in his pottery in order to pass his knowledge onto students and develop his own work. He continues this adventurous approach with his paintings.

Upon retiring to Port Fairy in 1988 Norm began a new creative direction when he took up painting, particularly oils. As with his pottery Norm continues to experiment with different styles and subjects.

Norm presents this exhibition as a demonstration of the breadth and skill of his 2D direction for your enjoyment.

Jan Grenfell too is well known to the artists in the Wimmera, in particular her botanical style watercolours.

Jan Grenfell has recently retired to Port Fairy. She continues to develop her style of painting with further refinement of form and composition.

Since the move to Port Fairy Jan has changed her paintings from botanical dryland flora and fauna representations to a more environmental interpretation.

Contact:

"I have lived in Natimuk for 3 years now. The surrounding landscape has now started to influence my work, and landscape is a theme that I have not consciously chosen to pursue prior to this. This exhibition contains semi-abstract landscape designs, so that that the viewer is able to identify various levels within the paintings, for example, where the mountains meet the sky.

"I wanted to keep it simple, and because I am tackling the landscape as my subject, that is a new direction for me.  I am still learning a lot about myself as an individual, and my life is taking new and different directions, particularly currently.

"Those who saw the exhibition I had in the Goat Gallery in Feb 07 will recognise some similar themes still presenting themselves in my work. The use of stencils, although I have specifically used them more discreetly in my backgrounds this time, and under layers of other paint, rather than them being a focus.

"My colour palette in this Exhibition is distinctly different to the last Goat Exhibition, a return to tonal colours, of which I first started painting with. I have also utilised darker colours and tones of which I really haven't pursued previously.

"I have focused particularly on creating sensitive areas within my paintings, which has always been a focus for me. l love line and utilising it within my work. Making marks and scratching back into the paint to create these areas. I have also used it in this Exhibition to portray basic shapes that we find within the landscape, for example, a curved line to suggest a mountain, or a paddock corner.

"I would consider the paintings very well worked and layered, and I have focused on spending more time to create a kind of history within the paintings, a discovery of the past and what lies beneath.

"I teach Art at Murtoa College, having been an artist in residence there for the past 4 years doing various Art Projects, such as mosaics, bollards and murals."

Contact:

A collection of paintings, featuring still life studies and scenes from the wimmera and afar.

The group consists of artists from the beginner to the experienced.

www.michellemcfarlane.com
+61 419 770 035

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
This collection of images was captured in an era of my life that was spent as a passenger on several voyages. A two-year period studying the changes in landscape travelling to, from and around Natimuk.

The very first shots were born on the Melbourne – Natimuk V/Line train/coach trips armed with a newly acquired second hand digital camera, severe boredom, a passion for image making and a fascination for the changes in landscape and light.

‘The sickness of long thinking’, was inspired by a theme featured in a book given to me by my partner Simon Barley that he read on his return trip to France from his mother’s funeral. I finished the book on my journey from Africa to his funeral two months following.

The story is a book of journeys, disappearance, the fields of heaven, grief, the isolation of living in a remote town, winter partners and the sickness of long thinking. “You cannot tame a wild animal, because it will always remember where it is from, and yearn to go back."

On occasion I stand back and view a sequence of these pictures taken in response to my circumstances. If I allow my soul to listen carefully I can hear the land murmur tales of its own transformation through love and loss.

Anthony Pelchen was born in the Wimmera, left in 1978 and returned in 2003. He studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts and has exhibited widely in artist-run, institutional and alternative spaces in Melbourne. Since 2000 he has had ongoing visits to Japan, exhibiting in Osaka and conducting over 30 paintings/drawing workshops in Nigata prefecture. This installation teases out links between a new 231 piece floor work and past works in other mediums, all of which have surfaced since 2003 (shown at the National Gallery of Victoria and in Osaka). Friend and performer, Josephine Fisher, emerged at the opening from the back passage to crank up the tempo.

www.josephinefisher.com

www.anthonypelchen.com

Floor
2008: digital prints of paintings, wood, acrylic paint:
181.5 x 231 cm (231 pieces, each 16.5x11 cm)
Wall
2004: photographs, wood, glass, canvas, paper, pomegranate/beetroot juice on paper
184x158cm (4 panels, each 90x78cm)
Suitcase
2003: found suitcase, figure (wood. toilet rolls, cotton gauze, pomegranate juice, bubble wrap), cardboard, tape, wood, acrylic on paper, wood frame:  approx. 48x53x77cm

Jill is a Natimuk-based artist whose paintings are a response to both the subtle beauty and extremes of the Wimmera landscape.

Her latest series of paintings explore the atmosphere of the region whilst contemplating the effects that weather conditions have on the land and the psyche of the people who live there.

www.jillmcleod.com.au