Downlands College 2013 Art Exhibition
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Betty E. Adams
Betty counts perspective, lettering, commercial art, sign-writing and calligraphy amongst the formative influences on her current style. Her subjects include mothers and babies, portraits, wildlife, pets and vintage cars.
Therese Alcorn
Therese’s earliest artistic journeys were oil painting lessons from an aunt. She moved with her family to Bathurst Island in 1973 and was exposed to the world of Aboriginal art and craft – carving, weaving, screen printing and sewing. She felt privileged to be offered the management of the “Bima War” sewing factory on Bathurst Island at 20.
She explains that her influences are omnipresent. She uses pen, water colour and oils.
“In 2010 I realised a lifetime’s dream when I travelled with an art group to the Greek
Islands of Leros, Lipsi and Kalymnos with artist and tutor, Cees Sleidrecht. This was one of the highlights of my artistic journey. Spending three weeks drawing and painting under the Mediterranean sun was an adventure of a lifetime.”
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Ian Barralet
Ian grew up in New Zealand and says he has been drawing since he was a boy. He is strongly interested in natural landscapes as well as those influenced by human activity.
He explains that, whilst his work is strongly representational, he sometimes looks to the
French Impressionists to try and keep fresh. “The fall of light on what I’m painting is a source of inspiration to me. I’m interested in subjects in a state of decay and I try to imagine how something looked in its original state to help me appreciate the subject.”
Ian’s background is in Architectural Illustration and he credits this with his interest in detail. “I started with pen and ink illustrations, then moved through to water colour and gouache, and also touched on computer illustration. My working interests as an artist now cover Architectural Illustration and children’s book illustration as well as fine art.”
Diana Battle
Diana says she “particularly likes to paint the changing seasons here in Toowoomba city and tries to capture the atmosphere of the moment whether it be the colour of the jacarandas in spring, the green shades of summer, falling leaves in autumn or the foggy mists of winter”. She describes her style as Impressionistic, “which helps the viewer feel the pervading mood of the time and place”.
Rebecca Berrett
Rebecca has become well known for her botanical and zoological images, especially her more illustrative works. Published over 20 times, including 4 books she wrote and illustrated for children, her works have reached a wide and appreciative audience. She

has also been in demand throughout her career as a calligrapher and as a tutor who was often to be found at the MacGregor Schools.
Glen Beutel
Glen’s work endeavours to record the diverse wildlife around his home in Acland whose habitat is threatened by coal mining and its proposed expansion.
Justin Bishop
Since graduating from the University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba in 2000,
Justin has been actively involved in visual arts in regional Queensland. For over ten years he has pursued a career as a curator, arts administrator and has established an arts practice. Justin travelled extensively from 2003- 2006 through Europe, Canada and
SE Asia. This period away from Australia contributed to a change in his practice and the development of subject matter by turning inward rather than outward.
While freely acknowledging the influence of European Modernism on his work, Justin is determined to strike his own path. He combines his love of abstraction and the genre of still life to reflect his responses to his personal circumstances.
For Justin, the motif of the still life is the centre point into which is poured his expression. By visually simplifying personally significant domestic items or vessels, his forms become representative of a place, person, feeling or event: the composition is a transubstantiation of the artist’s emotive state. The work is self-reflective and intensely personal in an attempt to capture the ineffable.
Despite an intermittent exhibiting history since 2003 Justin is represented in public and private collections, currently holds the position of Exhibitions Manager at Cairns
Regional Gallery and is undertaking Postgraduate study at James Cook University. Justin lives and works in Cairns with his photographer wife, Fanny, and their Warwick-born farm cat, Watson. Justin’s second solo exhibition in 2013 is scheduled for September
24 th at Canopy Artspace, Cairns.
Yvonne Blakeney
Yvonne’s favourite medium is water colour, but she also works with mixed media and silk. In the past, a common theme of Yvonne’s work was the landscape of Fiji, which she rendered in water colour. She has completed numerous commissions and has published a children’s book, “Where’s Elf”.
Rhonda Brown
Rhonda’s work marks the memories of loved ones. Following the death of her mother and younger brother, she has turned to art fulltime as an emotional release.
Jenny Burgess
Jenny has been involved with textiles for over thirty years. Her first work was an
English, paper-pieced cot quilt made from off-cuts of Liberty of London cotton fabric.
Recently, with a Canberra-based textile tour group, Jenny has ventured to Laos,

Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Flores and West Timor, spending time with local women, watching and learning dyeing, weaving, printing and ikat techniques.
Graham S. Burstow
Australia’s Icon
“The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the longest arch bridge in the world. It is, perhaps,
Australia’s most recognised icon. It has been depicted in all forms of the visual arts. It is always alive with activity. People are now keen to climb it. Modern luxury super liners are being made so huge that some cannot fit beneath this magnificent and imposing structure. The whole area around the bridge is a photographer’s delight.”
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Jandamarra Cadd
Working Progress (Mick Dodson)
This portrait of Mick Dodson is one of Jandamarra’s portraits of Aboriginal leaders, included in a recent touring exhibition, Past, Present, Future.
Mick Dodson is current chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies and Director of Dodson, Bauman & Associates Pty Ltd – Legal and
Anthropological Consultants. He is also Director of the Australian National University’s
National Centre for Indigenous Studies and was formerly the Director of the Indigenous
Law Centre at the University of New South Wales. As such, Mick is regarded as one of
Australia’s living treasures. He participated in crafting the text of the Declaration of the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nation Working Group on Indigenous
Populations and the Inter-sessional Working Group of the Human Rights Commission, adopted overwhelming in 2007 by the United Nations General Assembly. He was also the 2009 Australian of the Year.
Maree Cameron
There have been moments in Maree’s career which she says she will never forget.
Painting a portrait of R. M. Williams was a rewarding, yet nerve-wracking experience.
After only two sittings, Maree remembers how nervous she felt when R. M. saw the painting. She says he studied it for what seemed like ages and then said, “There’s only one thing I don’t like and that’s the skin on my arms. It’s not dark enough. Make them darker”. Maree has contributed to ‘The Artist’s Palette’ magazine as a demonstrator, has had 20 solo exhibitions and has represented the Wambo Shire with three portraits displayed on the lawns of Parliament House in 2001.
Karen Canning
Karen uses wire extensively and finds the versatility of this medium produces outcomes that are various and sculptural. She describes The Legend of the Red Thread as a metaphor for the invisible red thread that connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.

Tiffany Cant
Tiffany was born in North Carolina in 1954 and grew up in rural Connecticut. She graduated with a BFA and certificate in Communication Design from Parsons School of
Design in New York City. She has lived in New York, the Bahamas and California and has travelled extensively. She has been a resident of Delray Beach, Florida, since 1983. She freelanced in Graphic Design for a few years and has been painting in oils for about 25 years.
Her background in Graphic Design informs her sense of composition and colour. She has an affinity for the life, colour and rhythms of the Caribbean which is clearly apparent in her subject matter and style.
Jane Carroll
Mixing realism with imagination, Jane Carroll’s images evoke contemplation and a sense of peace amidst vibrant colour.
Upon graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York with a Bachelor of Fine
Arts, Jane was apprenticed to Japanese and Korean master painters for six years and has incorporated their techniques into her own style. She then relocated to Los Angeles to begin work as a freelance artist.
In addition to Asian-themed subjects, Jane also depicts brooding Scottish landscapes.
Tina Cherry
Ten Titles, a figurative acrylic painting, is an historical, personal and symbolic layered narrative, with what Tina describes as “a satirical, tongue-in-cheek approach”. In contrast, Tina believes her graphite drawings are more solemn, inspired by her local environment with an ensuing environmental message. She feels that humans, in their industrious pursuit of progress, have forgotten their role as the earth’s custodian.
“Through a simple monochromatic approach, I hope to deliver a recall in the mind’s eye of the viewer of that which is precious and vanishing.”
Doug Clarkson
Doug left school with three enduring interests – painting, horses and natural history.
Now, almost 70 years later, his bookshelves still reflect these passions – Alfred
Munnings, Betty Edwards, Darwin, Simpson, Bakker and others. His interest in natural history led him towards evolution and horses became his business. China mice have been a recent addition to his shelves. He paints them in an attempt to scale the evolutionary tree. He says that his reward comes from the quest rather than the achievement. He also explains that portraits have become a current interest, as is evident in his Chinese Girl, in which he tries to reveal the thoughts and feelings hidden behind her youthful face.
M. Clinton-Kemp
“My oil paintings are developing into works of feelings – feelings of being in water, feelings of meeting some creature of spiritual beauty – all captured in blended colour tones and moving lines.”
Georgie Cousin

Georgie was born in Dalby and grew up on a farm. She has a deep love of nature and the environment. She has exhibited in Toowoomba and Brisbane. She describes her style as fresh, varied, colourful and whimsical. “Some works portray a modern twist to the
Australian bush. Works range from illustrative designs to abstractions, as well as realistic depictions.”
Rosemary Cuskelly
“In my advancing years I am still enjoying my art work. I was introduced to pastel when
I first started art and enjoyed using the vibrant colours for my Territory landscapes, but
I find, now, at 82, that my fingers are not as supple for finer work, so I have started to use more water colours, especially for the roses I love to paint.
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Chris Darvall
“The double benches are made from old strainer posts and railway sleepers. The hemp rope is recovered from a theatre. Adze and other tool marks are left on the timber to give visual interest to the surface and reflect the handmade nature of the work, as opposed to the precision machined components of mass-produced furniture.”
Maree Davidson
Maree is a full-time professional artist living in Brisbane. She has a passion for contemporary realism in oils, acrylics and pastels. It can take weeks, sometimes months to complete one of her works of art. Each piece has a purpose and is an exploration of a theme close to Maree’s heart.
She has a Diploma in ‘Cartooning and Animation’ and spent many years as a private art teacher.
Maree explains, “Being an artist is the core foundation of who I am. Painting is my life’s purpose and makes me feel alive! Art has a powerful effect on people. My dream is to inspire and enrich people through art.”
Marianne de Graaf
Marianne has been painting for approximately 15 years. She says that her inspiration comes from the outdoors and animals. Her observations of landscapes, zoos and backyard wildlife have informed her practice in pencil, charcoal, ink, watercolour and pastel. She describes her palette as limited to no more than five colours; very often, only two. Water colour is Marianne’s favourite medium and she says that ‘wet in wet’ is her favoured approach.
Johanna De Maine
A leading ceramic artist, Johanna’s work can be found in the collections of H.M. The
Queen, Crown Prince Frederik and Princess Mary of Denmark, The National Gallery of
Australia and Jing-de-Zhen Institute in China. She works exclusively with porcelain and strives to constantly hone her techniques. She is currently carving with an etcher into the surface of many of her pieces to give texture as well as image.

Devil
Devil’s pottery is inspired by the powerful glazes of the Sung dynasty and by Japanese ceramics. He says that, for him, research of these glazes is an ongoing obsession and that he only uses glazes that he has developed, tested and fired in his own kiln.
His paintings have been inspired by the “raw power” of heavy metal music, primarily guitar. “We are so lucky that in a free country we can experience such self-expression and respect those who fought and laid down their lives for such freedom. My father
(Ray Day) was a World War II veteran who spent time convalescing in the Downlands’ war hospital.”
Debbie Dieckmann
Debbie Dieckmann is a mixed media artist from a remote part of southern Queensland.
She accounts living all her life in the bush with her love of colour, sense of humour and innovation. Debbie says that these works are her journey and fascination with feminine images, mystique and the spatiality of bygone ages, which she feels are still relevant and intriguing.
Mary Donnelly
Mary is a teacher from Allora who has discovered the potential of rock and steel as media. Her ‘Pepperocks’ begin as carefully chosen rocks from a variety of landscapes.
She then whimsically turns these into characters that enable people to add art to their outdoor spaces.
Dianne Downton
Through the Gorge
This work was inspired by remembrances of a holiday in Northern Queensland. Dianne has attempted to express the striking brilliance of the colours and reflections in the river to show the energy and power of a gorge.
The Kookaburras
Dianne loves kookaburras and has studied and photographed them for many years.
The Red Capped Parrots
Dianne feels that her works are as much visual records of local wildlife as they are artworks.
Rowley Drysdale
Rowley grew up in Western Queensland and later found his calling to pottery in
Toowoomba. Formerly a journalist, he graduated in 1993. He has been a practicing and teaching potter since and has gained recognition for his metallic and red glazes and his more rustic wood-fired works. His work has been exhibited across Australia and in New
Zealand, Japan, Korea and China.
Barbara Dunstan

Barbara has completed many classes and workshops in a wide variety of media in a wide variety of places. She says her ‘great delight’ and ‘most successful result’ has been being able to pass on her love of watercolour to several small groups of extremely enthusiastic students at ‘Raw Canvas’ in Canowindra.
Roslyn Dux
Roslyn describes herself as ‘a bit of an anomaly’ in that she doesn’t find painting relaxing. She says she tends to suffer through the early hours of creation and, it is only when the promise of the work begins to reveal itself, that she feels any satisfaction at all with her work. Intense fatigue and chronic pain as the result of polio dictate her creative output.
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Robbie Erskine
Trained as a Graphic Designer, Robbie feels that it has only been in the last ten years that she has turned to her real love – art. Robbie loves the work of the old masters, especially Caravaggio and Vermeer, and has studied their methods to develop her own practice. She says that, in many of her works, she endeavours to create a narrative to connect the viewer to a deeper meaning by introducing an element of surrealism and whimsy.
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Cathy Finch
If you think you have done everything you can do, if you think you can’t possibly take one more step, you are only half way to what you can actually do. You can do anything you want to do. If you don’t really want to do it, you will simply find an excuse.
“My initial motivation for this gallery of images was inspired by ultra-marathon runner,
Pat Farmer, who has run from the North Pole to the South Pole among many other feats of strength and survival. Ultimately though, the stimulus comes from ordinary people all around me. Those who start things and have the courage to finish them, no matter what the cost, no matter what the pain, no matter what the placing. There is always something far more beautiful than you can imagine on the finish line. Bringing these images to life on metal was the enduring thing to do.”
James A. Flood
Born on the fourth of July, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, James has carried a love for ships and the sea dating back to his early childhood. Today, his home is a veritable maritime museum filled end to end with models and paintings of ocean liners, battleships and sailing ships. The primary focus of his paintings is almost always a ship.
Frequently depicted in an historical context, his subject is often framed by a familiar background such as the Gold Gate Bridge, Isle of Wight or New York Harbour.
His work is characterised by diffuse and colourful atmospherics and meticulous attention to detail. His love of art extends well beyond the canvas. Step through his modest framed door and time reverses – from his hand-tailored Edwardian suit, chain watch and pince-nez glasses, to the chimes of his pendulum clocks and the intricately

carved gold frames of his pictures – the haunting grace of a more elegant era creates the ultimate backdrop for his paintings.
Educated in Philadelphia and South Florida, Jim attributes his obsession with portraying ships and the sea to his earliest classroom teachers, claiming that, by the time he was in college, the move towards Postmodernism had such a strong hold that his hyperrealistic technique was looked upon with disdain. Today, he is quite satisfied that he ignored their criticism and stubbornly held true to his style.
James joined the navy in 1965 and served on the USS Laffey, the USS Wright and then, as quartermaster, on the USS New Jersey, before returning to civilian life in 1969. He made ends meet by singing and playing piano at local jazz clubs and teaching sailing classes until he eventually landed a job at Eastern Air Lines, where he worked his way into the art department. There, he sketched, modelled and painted aircraft images, while continuing to paint portraits of ships on the side. After the fall of Eastern Air Lines,
James decided that what he really wanted to do was to paint ships fulltime. It was a decision he never regretted.
Glenda Fuller
Until 1990, Glenda painted traditional landscapes, mainly in oils. Since then, she has discovered acrylics and pastel, which she now acknowledges are her favourite media.
She enjoys the reputation of being a ‘diverse’ artist. From My Studio Window and Haden
Rural depict her local environment. Algal Pool and At Walker Gorge were influenced by a trip to central Australia.
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Olga Garner-Morris
Olga has exhibited in London, New York and Australia. Her works have been acquired by a wide variety of the world’s who’s who and she has received many awards.
Jocelyn Girle
Etching has been an important addition to Jocelyn’s artistic expression since she attended a McGregor Winter School printing class, tutored by Wim de Voss.
She enjoys the nuances gained by aquatinting and then applying colour to plate (a la poupee) which she says give depth and warmth to each work. She is now experimenting with water colour monoprints. Jocelyn says that this one-off form of printing has a clarity and a simplicity which is appealing.
Betty Goldie
Betty describes herself as a ‘late starter’ but says she now is making the most of a variety of techniques and media, although she particularly enjoys painting murals and large canvases.
June Graham
As a child, June enjoyed drawing and painting and received tuition in pencil, conte and oil painting. During her teenage years she exhibited at the local agricultural show.

She put art aside after marriage and children until fifteen years ago when she joined the
Pittsworth Art Group and was introduced to watercolour. Flowers, landscapes and portraits are her main subject matter.
Janet Geisel
These works are a mixture of wheel thrown and hand built pieces. Janet’s hand-built pieces are constructed using cut out templates from a slab. All her work is non-porous.
Janet says she loves that “there is always something new to learn and experiment with and I enjoy testing new glazes with the hope of finding that outstanding one”.
Julie Greig
New Zealand born painter, Julie Greig was encouraged by her late father to begin drawing while very young, using charcoal and soft pastels. Julie uses a multi-layered pastel technique, rendering fine details, texture and atmosphere and finds the infinite possibilities of painting enthralling. She experiments with other media and “texture under soft pastel and the resulting delight of serendipity”. She also paints in oil on canvas or panel, and creates oil mono prints and expressive works in graphite or charcoal.
Stockmen and women, horses and portraits are Julie’s inspiration, along with the unique and varied landscapes of Australia and New Zealand. Born in Raetihi, near Mount
Ruapehu, then living in Canterbury and the Wairarapa, she developed a love of mountains and wide-open spaces. Julie states "I endeavour to paint the sense of quiet and vastness we are so lucky to have in our light filled dramatic lands. I always travel with sketch book and camera, and if I could just live until I'm 150 I might get all the paintings out which drive me every day in front of my easel. As I grow older I have a sense of urgency in my painting - so I work on simplifying my life, reducing interruptions and distractions so I'm able to maintain focus and concentration and just paint in my quiet studio.”
In 2012, Julie was recognised as a Distinguished Artist Member of Pastel Artists of NZ
(APANZ), in recognition of excellence in technique and the work she has achieved to date.
Sheila Greet
Siblings
In this work, Sheila says she has attempted to capture the aloof, cheeky disposition of emus, following a visit to the Darling Downs Zool.
In the Swim
Inspiration for this work came after viewing the Thames river swim in the London
Olympics.
Taking Turns
This hand-burnished linocut followed a visit to Robinson Gorge where Sheila observed
Currawongs drinking from a dripping tap.
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Carolyn Harrison
Carolyn says that she enjoys the immediacy of the fast drying medium of acrylic on canvas. She explains her working method as intuitive and determinant of the next phase of her painting. She says her work reflects on her inner landscape and references places she has seen and the feelings evoked by those places. Her work tends towards abstraction whilst still containing formal elements. She aims to capture a sense of place and time.
Jenny Hartley
Jenny has painted traditional and representational works in watercolour, acrylic and graphite since 1990. Her childhood on the family farm informed her subject matter, colour and chiaroscuro. Her mother’s love of gardening influenced her interest in floral subject matter. Since 2007, Jenny has explored printmaking.
Roslyn Hartwig
Watercolour is Roslyn’s favourite medium. She says that she draws inspiration from the various aspects of God’s creation that she sees around her every day, whether a sunset, people in their daily lives, flowers or reflections in still water. “Because of this, as often as possible, I work ‘en plein air’. Painting on location challenges me to depict not only what is actually there, but also to express it in a way that shows the sometimes intangible character of the subject. I seek to give my audience a sense of peace and contentment to replace, even for a time, the hardship and distress that are often a part of live. The “Love of God” symbol with my signature is my way of acknowledging that my painting ability is a gift from God. This is a blessing that I hope to pass on to others through my works.”
Rhyl Hinwood
Rhyl is known for her many monumental works such as the Coat of Arms in Parliament
House, Canberra and the RAAF Memorial in Queen’s Park, Brisbane and her ongoing multiple works at the University of Queensland, including Gatton Campus, since 1976.
Working predominantly in bronze or sandstone, amongst her many commissions notably are the 120% life-size “Man from Snowy River” on the Gold Coast, “Mary
Poppins” in Maryborough and over 75 other three dimensional portraits.
Patricia Hinz
Patricia lives and works on a cattle and grain property in South-western Queensland where her subject matter, the bush, is right outside her studio.
Noelle Hodges
Noelle’s textile journey began as a young child with sewing, knitting, wool, fabric and garden design. Along with these, Noelle has moved between ceramics, patchwork, quilting, landscape gardening, bookbinding, printing and mosaics. Travel, exhibitions, collecting and books are important parts of her appreciation. Her focus for some time has been on the skills required to construct a book that is visually pleasing, tactile with the integrity to fulfill its purpose.
Natasha Hodgson

Natasha has recently focused on water colour which she says she enjoys for its luminous glow, unpredictability and ability to express photographic techniques such as depth of focus and layering of translucent light. In the past Natasha has sculpted animals and this subject matter has stayed with her with her change of medium.
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Dianne Ilka
Most of Dianne’s work is pastel, acrylic or pastel, although she admits to enjoying experimenting with unusual media such as coffee, tea and salt. Dianne says that she likes to capture snippets of the world around her as fantasy. Her goal is to illicit an emotional in the viewer through such things as the initiation of childhood memories.
Kenneth Inwood
The Exhibition
“Exhibition banners are displayed around the sunlit entrance to an art gallery. One is being unfurled from a small balcony under the gaze of a young woman. Two are already in place and another woman walks by, taking no notice. The sun is bright, but clouds are massing and threaten the light. On one high banner, the image of an angel appears to mimic the role its predecessors would have played in the ‘real’ skies of classic art. On another, a woman holding a large jar gazes downwards at the unfurling banner, which bears an image of unvarnished imperial power. Steep architectural perspectives push back and forth in the picture space, whilst vertically, the ground plan and balcony offer separate registers of activity. Within this rigid structure lies a compilation of literal and depicted images hinting at relations between art patronage and the vagaries of cultural confidence.”
The Times of Day
“Painting a triptych complicates the point of view of a single panel work. I did not want to fracture pictorial space, but to arrange a sequence of related locations, connected by the theme of time. ‘Morning’, ‘Noon’ and ‘Night’ will serve as subtitles, metaphorically dividing the ‘Day’, or lifetime. The choice of each location – seaside, country town and racecourse – is intended to carry a symbolic connection to the time of day, and of life, represented. Each panel is assembled from disparate materials and forms a synthetic image in both the visual and literary senses. These initial compilations are then multiplied in a triptych, where the formal challenge of visual relatedness and the progress of place and time continues over three panels. The three part structure is emphasised by an approximately central vanishing point, anchoring the left to right timeline.”
Bev Irwin he many unique and beautiful species that inhabit our world have been Bev’s love since childhood and, although she has painted in a variety of styles, realism satisfies and inspires her the most.
She has travelled extensively throughout Australia, North and South America, Europe and the United Kingdom to source material for her work and to observe animals and

birds in their natural habitats. Where possible, she aims to get up close and personal with her subjects.
Bev feels that every painting is a special creation and a struggle at times to transfer her emotions for her subjects on to the paper. She describes the process as a jigsaw puzzle in which various elements combine to make a visually appealing and emotionally satisfying piece of art. For Bev, an idea can come from anywhere – a sign, a colour, an interesting habitat, even an emotion – so she keeps a pencil and her trusty camera close to hand to capture that fleeting piece of the puzzle.
Bev uses photographs and sketches as reference material. She is passionate about her art and the environment and is dedicated to raising public awareness of the unique animals and plants that share our planet, and, to capture in paint a moment in time in their short lives for future generations to enjoy.
Inflated Ego
“On a recent trip to the fascinating Galapagos Islands, I was able to observe the
Magnificent Frigate birds with their glossy black feathers and fascinating gular sacs, which they inflate like large red balloons to entice a female to their nest of sticks. I have chosen the back view of one of the males to show his glossy feathers and inflated gular sac.”
Easy Pickings
“The Lava Heron, unique to the Galapagos Islands, prefers to be invisible. Their colour blends perfectly with the Lava, thus enabling them to lie in wait for one of their favoured snacks, the striking red and orange Sally Lightfoot Crabs. I chose a moody colour for the background to give a feeling of tension to the scene.”
Nowhere to Hide
“The Noisy Pitta used to visit our Withcott property and could be heard hopping through the dry leaves in search of insects and snails. It is referred to as the Anvil Bird, as it cracks open the shells of the Giant Panda Snail on a selected rock or stone. I thought the colourful Syzgium Wilsonii was an appropriate background for this stunning bird, as both are found in the rainforests of Queensland, as well as my back yard.”
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Daniel Jean-Baptiste
Daniel Jean-Baptiste was born on the Caribbean island of St Lucia in 1963 to parents of
Dutch-Jewish and African-Carib descent. He and his brothers were schooled in the town of
Soufriere and spent each weekend and holiday in the tiny fishing village of Choiseul. The brothers travelled between Soufriere and Choiseul each week, travelling the eight miles eagerly on foot. They explored the surrounding forest and hills, enjoying the sweetest mangoes as they curiously sought the fastest route home. Their spare time was spent fishing with homemade bamboo poles off the village’s long wooden jetty. This gave Jean-Baptiste his first glimpses of the colourful creatures that inhabit the sea. The plants and fish that intrigued him as a young boy later came to dominate his art. His childhood days were as sweet as the perfumed breezes of St Lucia.
To tame her young explorer, Jean-Baptiste’s mother encouraged him to draw and paint.
Soon, visitors to the island began to notice the little boy who had the gift of capturing the cobalt blue sea with his watercolours.

Life became very different for him when he moved to Canada in 1978. His carefree days were gone, but he benefitted from a Canadian education and exposure to different art forms.
He was introduced to silk painting during his eight years working in commercial art for a
Toronto display company. In 1988 he began his own company, Cobalt Illustrations, producing hand-painted silk banners for shopping centres and real estate developers across
Canada.
Jean-Baptiste and his family moved back to St Lucia in 1995. His work reflects the beauty of the island.
Gail Jinks
Gail describes herself as a ‘hobby artist’. She is a member of the Toowoomba and
Pittsworth Art societies and enjoys all media.
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Michelle Kennedy
Organic networking of vibrant colour, tropical landscapes and Japanese mood music inspired this, the third, in Michelle’s series Couleur Sompteuse. She uses colour to mimic weather erosion in landscapes, river systems and mountain ranges. Michelle has chosen vibrant colour as a metaphor for being ‘full of life’.
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Barry Leighton-Jones
Leighton-Jones was born in London in 1932 and is a direct descendant of the Victorian artist and President of the Royal Academy, Lord Frederic Leighton. Leighton-Jones began his artistic career at the age of five, winning a major art competition and later completed seven years of training at Sidcup and Brighton where he was tutored by the acclaimed English artist and illustrator, John Minton.
His breakthrough came in 1985 when he was selected by the Kelly Estate to create a series of images based on the life and work of the famous American clown, Emmett Kelly. Taking a page out of Norman Rockwell’s book, Leighton-Jones devoted a great amount of time to preparation. The Kelly Estate supplied him with black and white photographs of Kelly throughout his career which Leighton-Jones studied, along with Kelly’s work on film and everything he could find that had been written about the great man. He even visited the
Ringing Museum in Sarasota. The result was a comprehensive series of paintings archiving different periods of Kelly’s life. Some of Leighton-Jones paintings and sketches were reproduced as limited edition figures and prints.
Between 1986 and 1992 Leighton-Jones was commissioned by various licensors to produce paintings for the purpose of reproduction as prints, collectors’ plates and figurines. To this end, he created the “Gone With the Wind” collection and “The Wizard of Oz” collection as well as portraits and collages of famous people such as Albert Einstein, John Lennon and
Princess Diana.
Leighton-Jones’ work, whether clowns, children, social situations, pub scenes or ‘weighty ladies’, is characterized by its mix of classical and modern. Human forms are realistic rendered on Impressionistic backgrounds. He defines his oeuvre as ‘British humour’.
Tony Lewis

Tony was born in the UK, is 89 years young and has been a professional artist in New
Zealand and now Australia for over 35 years. He studied and worked as a graphic artist prior to this, but his passion for and ability with watercolours took over. Amongst many awards amassed over the years he was winner of the Rotary Art Spectacular in Brisbane in 2007. Travels to the Red Centre and overseas have expanded his subjects.
Nev Logan
After a career as an electrical engineer, Nev retired in 1987 to concentrate on painting.
His preferred medium is watercolour. Nev counts street scenes, townscapes and harbour scenes amongst his favourite subjects. He enjoys travel and his experiences feature in many of his works.
Sue Lostroh
“An anchor is a device that is used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current.
A windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights and it creates a mechanical advantage.
A hawser is a heavy rope for mooring or towing.
These works, ‘Anchor’, ‘Windlass’ and ‘Hawser’ have grown out of an idea that I recently entertained where I decided that the boundaries of how I thought about right and wrong were formed very early on in life. While these boundaries are not exactly fixed, my moral compass moves around an initial point. Hence, I see my moral self anchor at a point in my development, and, while I may move around that point, I am limited by the length of the hawser and the power of the winch to keep me safely attached to the seabed (the landscape of life that the vessel that is me must negotiate).”
Kirby Sue Lyons
Kirby Sue is a seasoned Downlands’ exhibitor whose scarves and hats are highly sought after by visitors.
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Kaye Marsh
Kaye looks to find beauty in our daily mundane lives. She says even the most banal task of washing can be made magical by watching the clothes on the line moving in the wind, telling their own story and creating their own life. Kaye enjoys using water colours on
Japanese paper. She explains that her rural Queensland childhood gives her an affinity for the wooden poles propping up the long, usually singular, line, as opposed to “the new fandangled” rotary lines. “These rural clothes lines naturally appeal to me and I believe assist in merging the water colour backgrounds and the free-flowing cut-out clothes.
The water colour background dictates the presentation of the paper clothes, how I cut them and how they hang on the drawn line. I experimented with many other media before being comfortable with these two, both free-flowing, just like actual clothes on the line.”
Tom McAulay

Tom was born, and grew up, in Innisfail and has been a professional artist since leaving school over 45 years ago. His love of the Outback is matched by his love of the racetrack, not as a punter, but as a rich subject for his art. He captures the feel of the meet – from jockeys in the mounting yards to the thunder of hooves down the home straight.
He paints in acrylics and oils, but is equally adept drawing with charcoals or inks.
Theodore Mariano Mesquita
Theodore was born in Goa, India, and graduated in Fine Arts from the University of
Mumbai in 1988. In 1990 he completed post graduate studies in Painting from the
University of Baroda. In 1998 he completed a Residency at AR.CO in Lisbon, Portugal.
He has lectured in Art History, Drawing and Painting at the Goa College of Art. He is considered one of India’s foremost young painters and has received numerous awards, scholarships, fellowships, artist in residencies. In 1991 he founded the Goa Art Forum, a collective of Artist and Cultural Theorists. He is also the Founder and Curator of the
Vice ∼ Versa: Festival of Art and Ideas.
Mesquita’s work deals with notions of identity constructed through representations of signs, symbols and the body in art. “The practice in my paintings is described through the combative posture delineated. A position which manifests itself, by regaining the self through the exploration and understanding of peripheries and boundaries.
Boundaries that constrain the human sentiment to perceive alternate realities, realities that are concerned with all constant human activity, cerebral and physical. Peripheries that divide the longitude lines of reason, stirring dissonance… as these are the central issues that have always afflicted the human condition. I investigate, through my art, the edge of demarcated boundaries and isolated peripheries - those which can be opened to definite possibilities and infused with new ideas and at the same time to also contain the erosion of them, as they are abundant with their distinct cultural impetus. My work proffers in this direction, to address these issues of import and contemporary significance.”
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Roland Nancarrow
Responding to forms found in the lush tropical landscapes of Far North Queensland,
Roland Nancarrow blends the geometric and the organic to create vibrant, intensely colourful paintings, watercolours and sculptural works. In The Shape of Light,
Nancarrow explores the theme of light filtering through foliage, both in his local environment and in forests and gardens that he has visited in Southeast Asia.
Bob Nason
Bob has lived his entire life in Southern Queensland and it continues to be his inspiration for his beloved landscapes. Bob explains that some of his work is conceptual, the result of his personal interpretations of his landscape.
Kathy Nolan
Kathy started with mixed media before discovering collage. She now combines acrylic, pastel and collage and enjoys vibrant and exciting colour use.
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Sharon O’Phee

Sharon is primarily a printmaker and enjoys the “endless array of techniques that are part of the wonderful world of print”. “I am passionate about printmaking because of the broad scope it offers me as an artist. It allows me to be very flexible. The repetitive and diverse nature of prints means they become less precious and more accessible to a wide variety of people.
The imagery in the two etchings in this exhibition is concerned with showing fragments of my personal space, both material and spiritual. I have always been fascinated with interiors and what they can tell you about a person. We never really know an artist’s exact intentions, for our own perceptions are very individual, but we can examine and interpret an art work and create our own stories from what we see before us. I invite you to find your own story within my work.”
Anne O’Sullivan
Within traditional formats, Anne’s artwork is laden with narrative symbols and images, some obvious, some incongruous and open to interpretation. She is interested in the sensuous quality of paint and attempts to emulate the luminosity achieved by the Old
Masters. A recent finalist in the Lethbridge 10000 Small-scale Art Award, Anne has been both tutor and exhibitor. She teaches at St Mary’s College, Toowoomba.
Kevin Oxley
Kevin has been an Archibald Finalist, a lecturer, a regional gallery director and a sculptor, but always a renowned painter. He has been a professional artist for over 40 years, has exhibited across the country and gained a reputation for his finesse with etching, but equally his skill in oils and more. Recent exhibitions have been influenced by a life-changing illness, but his quest for originality and perfection have not waivered and he continues to be a regular finalist in major awards.
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Nan Paterson
Nan is now 90 years of age. Her rigorous training at the National Gallery School of Art in
Victoria in her youth still shows in the calibre of her work today – from its composition and quality to its archival soundness. Nan has paintings in the National Library in
Canberra and in the QUT collection. She continues to draw nude studies and still lifes.
Sandy Pottinger
“Portals frame entrances and exits. They are thresholds. Balancing on the edges, we are reluctant to cross the void. Do we continue or do we retreat? Is this Dante’s gateway to
Hell: the city of despair, the eternity of grief, the netherworld of the lost? Do we abandon hope as we enter this Gotham City of the damned?
We pause on the precipice of choice. We move forward through dark portals shadowed by reality to seek salvation coloured by hope.”
Christine Porter

Christine has been making artworks about shearing sheds since 1984. She says that the bulk of her practice is about the sheep and wool industries of rural Australia but that 15 years ago she was introduced to printmaking which has extended her subject matter.
Implications of a Fairytale Childhood I
Christine describes this work as an exploration of the way the lessons, ideas and ‘truths’ in childhood stories inform our adult understanding of the world.
She says that while recently visiting her mother she re-read the bookshelves of her childhood. She was astonished to recognise narratives and morals she didn’t know she had remembered. She wondered how these and other stories had informed her adult world and the nature of this childhood indoctrination. Had these early lessons made her a better person? Had her understanding of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ been stained rather than just coloured by the culture imparted by these narratives which, by her own admission, were already archaic when she first read them forty years ago? She concludes, “What happens to a culture when the next generation is weaned on stories on violence, anger and disrespect?”
Implications of a Fairytale Childhood II
Christine says that “the widespread use of fairy stories in the enculturation of generations is evidenced in the way appropriations of these stories litter our screens, monitors and bookshelves.” “Fairy-tale characters and narratives exist in the public domain, all the while populating our minds and characters with a way of interpreting our own personal narrative.”
Journey
This body of work was inspired by the return, after 500 years, of the Lindisfarne
Gospels, from the British Museum to Durham. The size of the work (20 x 60cm) is the proportions of the scroll, one of the oldest book forms known. Christine’s work is made up of a selection of many small etched images from her past works. Christine says that these images tell the story of her journey as a printmaker, although not chronologically.
“Thus describing the way memory is, itself, episodic, organic and multi-layered.” One image is an embossed pattern of her grandmother’s crochet. This is important to
Christine as it speaks “of the patterns of time-keeping imposed on time that contextualise memory’s episodes into something recognisably linear, when it is palpably not.”
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Nadine Reynolds
“I have been increasingly fascinated with the idea, both visually and metaphorically, of falling. A few years ago I painted a series of four paintings explaining how Alice would feel upon returning to Wonderland at forty. I was particularly with the background of her falling down the rabbit hole. I wanted to explore this image and feeling some more.
The sensation of falling, when dreaming, is common and is said to mean that the dreamer is feeling a loss of control. In this vein, it is interesting to examine relationships. At the same time, feeling a loss of control can promote both anxiety and excitement. I find the tension between this dichotomy fascinating.”

Sharon Roberts
Waiting for Rain
In this work Sharon has endeavoured to catch the shimmer of a distant mirage contrasted with the darkness of the soil and the indistinct shapes of vegetation.
Wendy Roche
Wendy is an Australian Impressionist photographer who travels the world capturing images provoking a deep sense of mystery and mood. Her images of nature, often intertwined with human form, invoke movement, colour and light to mesmerise, move and often, magnetise. Often, her photographs depict a place of hope, a favourite refuge or a meditative land. Her style is sensual and natural. Born on the Darling Downs,
Wendy’s photography is all completed “in camera”. Effects are achieved with filters and lenses. She even photographs through glass which has been painted to achieve dramatic results.
Pixie Roediger
Pixie sees her world in vivid shades. Colour is her focus and, though she enjoys different media, including painting, printmaking and mosaic, all her images are created in controlled schemes. Her stalwart theme is the documentation of the interiors of old homes. She says that her interpretations are brighter than the reality, but that this serves to revitalise these urban treasures.
Joan Ryan
Joan has an art history spanning over thirty years. She enjoys working in most media and the discipline and challenge of realism. She says she enjoys painting the most ordinary of moments, especially children and animals and their idiosyncrasies.
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Michael Sankey
“The democratisation of photography has gone hand-in-hand with the advent of the devices used to allow for the ubiquitous production of images that speak to an individual’s interaction and engagement with the world around them. From the Kodak
Instamatic, to the Polaroid Land Camera, to the digital point and shoot, to the iPhone
(mobile device) and Instagram. As the various photographic formats have changed over the years, largely aligned with the impact of the medium/cameras used, it’s interesting to note how social photography, now largely facilitated by the online space, has introduced a new universal immediacy to art. However, this only serves to highlight further that the photographic medium is less important than its underlying social component. In other words, it’s all about the relationship between the subject matter, the artist and how the two provide a unique perspective on our world and make that public. These images pay homage to this same journey I have been on for the last 35 years. They are produced on an iPhone and made public in the online space Instagram.
Cath Schlyder

Cath says she draws her inspiration “from the Spirit of life that embodies all”. “This
Spirit gives colour, texture, shape and form its qualities. It is an ever-changing omnipresence that reveals to the receptive eye and heart its beauty and movement.
Nature reveals to us the perfection of this, opening the senses to deeper vision and feeling.”
Cath spent 11 years in the central desert region of the Northern Territory, 7 of those living and working on remote indigenous communities. She was greatly touched by the extreme variations in colour and texture that continually change with the time of day and season in the Northern Territory. She reports that the desert’s vast serenity awoke within her a deeper vision and sensory awareness that enabled her to experience in a much more connected way, bringing her an aliveness and richness to all she saw and felt.
Chantelle Schott
Chantelle’s describes her current work as a metaphor for ‘vintage’. She says “a world of colour, collage and delicate line anticipates the familiar becoming extraordinary”.
Recycled items such as magazines and books, past artworks, text, photographs and found objects are all used in her work to alter sense of place and time. Chantelle’s objective is to build pathways between past, present and a possible future of contemporary imagery using elements of myth-making and dream states to reconstruct images which may potentially, one day, be considered vintage.
They Had Ribbons in Their Hair
This work is a circular and unconventional presentation of a fictional relationship between humanity and birds. In mythology, it was believed that, when the soul was released from the human body, it took the appearance of a bird, and this is the focus for this painting. The work is made up of finely detailed lines (acrylic) with some mixed media, portraying the natural world and the beauty of people/birds. The work is intended to be thought-provoking, symbolic and uplifting.
A Tangled Web We Weave
This work is also circular and includes fine detailed lines (acrylic) colour, and a torn page from “Yates Garden Guide”. It is inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem,
“Marmion” (1808). It’s about deception versus truth and how fragile and complex our webs can become in life through even the whitest of lies. What if we were completely truthful? Our world would no longer be a labyrinth. The death of illusion and the birth of authenticity would create freedom and choice.
Evoke
This work is an historical narrative with children encased safely in a climbing gym bubble becoming adults in wartime out wondering where their soul mates could be.
Using acrylic, ink and collage, the work is meant to be reflective of the past and take on its own vintage appearance.
Sandra Sengstock-Miller
Sandra is self-taught, has won several awards and has exhibited in England, Germany and Australia. Her works, in this exhibition, are mixed media and depict flora and fauna, common themes for Sandra.

Graham W. Smith
Graham’s prodigious career spans over forty years. He has won many prizes and has completed many private and public commissions. He is best known for his realistic landscapes.
Jacqui Smith
Femininity, delicate line and pattern are symptomatic of Jacqui’s work. Jacqui explains that female emotions, love and romanticism are expressed in her work, with the addition of found objects, such as feathers and leaves, which symbolise loss and searching.
Joanne Smith
Shell
Joanne feels a deep resonance with nature and its many forms of life. The subject of this work is two pearl shells which were given to her by a friend. Her friend has retained the corresponding halves of the two shells.
Two Shells
The directional movement of the oyster shell depicted in this work interested Joanne, is it occurred to her that it was reaching out to the viewer. As a result, Joanne has purposefully exaggerated this feature.
Michael Smith
Michael explains that he doesn’t follow any particular style but admires many artists including Van Gogh, Whiteley, Rees, Dali, Geoffrey Smart and Freud. He says there are artists he admires, as much for their triumph over adversity, as for their acclaimed virtuosity. Michael says he would have liked to have met with Margaret Olley as she was colourful in every sense. Dali would have been interesting to chat with, but Michael thinks it might have been difficult to get him to shut up. That being said, he admits he is attracted to Surrealism and finds it a useful form of expression. Michael’s The Dining
Room which is exhibited here, is an idea he has had for many years. While biographical, it attempts to expose the universal feelings of institutionalisation, isolation and loneliness and makes oblique references to a number of the artists he admires.
Julio D Souza
Julio graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts with first Class Honours in 2001. He has works in private collections in Australia and India and has run workshops in painting and drawing. In 2002 he won the State Art Award for Graphics and Painting.
Helen Stumkat
Helen works with multimedia to create fashion statements, apparel, artworks and wall hangings. Her hopes are that her work “allows the viewer to take time to engage the mind fully and become bewitched by her seductive use of fibre, colour and design”.
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Norman Tagore
Norman studied a Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Goa College of Art in India. He works from his studio in Fonatinhas, Panjim, Goa and has exhibited in many exhibitions both in
India and overseas. Norman has received numerous awards. He describes himself as, basically, a figurative artist. “I love to draw with black inks on paper. I love the works of
Picasso, Modigliani, Lucien Freud and Larry Clark.”
Ron Towson
Pal dal Gu is located in Gyeonggi Provence in South Korea where Ron lived and worked between 2000 and 2009. The images exhibited are from an on-going series of small scale works that record the seasonal variations and transitions in the physical and social locale.
Thomas Tribby
Tom Tribby is a celebrated painter, sculptor and printmaker currently residing in South
Florida. He looks like he might be an extra for “The Great Gatsby” or a stand-in for
Inspector Clouseau. His, clearly evident, world view is influenced by his unique childhood.
He grew up in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Guam, and Casablanca. He received his formal art education at the University of Washington in Seattle, the University of California,
Berkeley and the Arizona State University.
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Olga Voller
“One Vision – Modelling of the Universe. Dream Vessel.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
- Ralph Waldo Emmerson
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Carol Walden
Carol has been painting and sculpting for over 25 years. Her father was a wood carver and “the best sketch artist I have ever seen”. “He was whipping up lightning sketches for
VIPs at the age of 15 and tumbling in his family’s travelling circus. Thus my interest in speed painting. With speed painting I attempt to capture the vision I see of my painting before it changes with the work. Capturing the pure inspiration, from mind to canvas, is the biggest challenge for me as an artist.”
Peta Warner
No Tea or Sugar
Peta describes this work as “an exercise in still life composition and technique drawing upon tonal impressionism, traditional approaches and the use of drapery”. Domestic items in the work act as metaphors from the past. The blue canisters symbolise the
British colonial presence in Australia. Their contents are Australian Quandong seeds.

“As the title suggests, there is no tea or sugar, which were staple handouts to indigenous labourers working in outback Australia.”
Transparency
“This is another still life exercise, dealing with light, shade and transparency. It gave me an opportunity to test out blending techniques when depicting folds within drapery. It’s a flippant comment upon life in general, as we don’t always have the appropriate tools on hand to achieve our goals. Especially when juicing cumquats!”
Multiculturalism
“Australia is a country whose traditions have been informed and influenced by diverse cultures from many countries. This exercise references traditional use of still life fabric drapery, embracing fruits that have been cultivated within Australia for many years.
None are indigenous to this land but are now considered everyday parts of the
Australian diet.
Jessica Wasilewski
Jessica grew up in New Jersey and has been painting since childhood. Primarily selftaught, she was influenced by her mother, artist, Ann Reeves.
Her heritage of New England settlers including Mayflower passenger, William Bradford, greatly influences her work. Passions for history and heritage have been her creative catalysts since childhood.
Her folk art style paintings reflect tradition, family, friends and simpler times and contain recurring symbolism such as her pet pug, Buddy. She paints walls, furniture, collectables, canvas, old doors and shutters with a range of subjects including landscapes and Americana.
Kaye Watkins
Kaye was born in Perth into a creative, extended family where painting, drawing and making things were always encouraged. She became an art teacher and lived in a small wheat and sheep farming town in Western Australia where she completed many paintings, mainly oils. A move to Perth coincided with Kaye’s experimentation with watercolours, resulting in her style becoming looser and more spontaneous. Later again, Kaye moved to Broome, where she journeyed on painting trips into the
Kimberleys. Kaye now resides in Toowoomba and continues to paint.
Lyn Watts
“My enjoyment of using acrylics continues as it is a medium well suited to adding paper, acrylic media and ink, which I have done in my artworks. The quick drying process allows me to create as I go. The backgrounds take shape as each process in applied and then the animals and birds go on last.”
Mary Weaver
Mary explains that she is captivated and excited by images from nature. “In 2013 I still dare to dream of catching that ‘magnificent moment’ in time that nature beholds.”

Maryika Welter
Maryika is originally from Victoria and comes to Toowoomba via South Australia. She says that a change of relationship and moving house have informed her work as they have provided the impetus to adapt to different physical, emotional and mental spaces.
The Intimacy of Solitude and With Myself I Make the Other are her observations of the process of experiencing different ways of living and have provided Maryika with a journey of self-discovery. The works’ titles are influenced by the Stephanie Dowrick’s novel The Intimacy and Solitude.
Bernadette Whisson
“I enjoy the discoveries painting provides and the camaraderie it brings. Oils are my preferred medium for their luscious qualities. Still life subjects greatly appeal to me, but the bush and its moods is another lasting interest.”
Alana Wilkie
Alana was born in Toowoomba but is currently living in Melbourne, where she recently graduated from RMIT with a Bachelor of Fine Art (with distinction) in painting. She was the recipient of a scholarship to reside in Rome and Florence and, whilst there, won the
Rome Art Program Prize for Plein Air Painting. Alana is interested in juxtaposing images to create a narrative through their interaction in her oil paintings. Her images are sourced from her ‘hot rod culture’ background and archetypes of women in pop culture, past and present. This emphasises her desire for the creation of a precious object in an image saturated world.
Jennifer Wright-Summers
Impact of Colonisation
In this work, Jennifer has coated Agathis robusta (South-east Queensland’s native conifer, the Kauri pine) branches in layers of shellac to represent the first peoples of this area. “They hang from a chain, representing the incarceration and attempted genocide of our first peoples. The branches are attached to tea bags strengthened with shellac and attached to an acorn cap from an oak, representing the colonisers. Text of the tea bags challenges the viewer to read about our history. Viewers are encouraged to touch the work and read the words.”
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