​At our March meeting we were given a lecture by Bryony on portraits in the Simpson Gallery.
Bryony concentrated on the two portraits of Henry Johnson and Caroline Johnson by Joseph Backler.

Unfortunately not much is known about Henry and Caroline Johnson - were they husband and wife or brother and sister for instance? A quick check of NSW historical records does not throw up any information. As the paintings were done before the Gold Rush it is unfortunate that nothing is known of the figures as they could have been significant members of the small community.

However we do know something of the Artist Joseph Backler. Joseph was an ex convict who after his ticket of leave was granted made his living as an artist. Convicted of being a forger he was transported to Sydney and during his early years in Australia suffered further heavy punishment because he was suspected of further forging activities. But even when he was on Norfolk Island he managed to do several paintings. He was not an Artist who mingled with the art crowd in Sydney, but nevertheless a number of his paintings have survived. He travelled around the colony with a handcart carrying his art supplies advertising his capacity for portraits. His portraits concentrated on showing details of the face and leaving the rest of the portrait with general impressions. It could be that he used props to fill in details of clothes etc. However his portraits do show a certain amount of character and appear to make no attempt to improve the beauty or otherwise of the sitters.

Elsewhere there are other portraits by Clifton Pugh and Albert Tucker that are worth viewing and are valuable assets of the Gallery.
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Neville Gibb

Next Monday 4th March at 10am Bryony will speak about Face to Face - Portraits from the Collection.

Bryony has requested that some changes are made this year as she is keen to expand the Art Appreciation group. She will attempt to get more people involved and will be inviting the public to also attend our lectures. The Gallery will be collecting the $2 coin donation directly but we ask that you tick your attendance off in the attendance book.

On Monday 1st April Julie Shiels to speak about All That Remains.

On Monday 8th May Bryony will speak about Collection Digitisation.

Neville Gibb

Ivan Durrant spoke to our group about his latest exhibition. Colouring Lake Mokoan, on display until March 3rd at the Benalla Regional Gallery. These restored local wetlands, formerly the Winton Wetlands, are now cycling through their natural periods of dry and wet.

Ivan talked about his childhood fascination with water and reflections and his ability to see glowing colors in the landscape. He became very familiar with Lake Mokoan when living in Benalla and visiting friends who lived by the lake.

​This exhibition brings these influences together in shimmering displays of reflections, water and sunsets, all reimagined by the artist. Ivan talked about his love of color and his technique for
creating the lost edges of the abstract shapes that bring this landscape to life. His paints and brushes are on display too–a colored confection of the artist at work. Well worth a visit. You will never look at Lake Mokoan in the same way again.

Meg Dillon, co-convenor

Five local schools submitted works of some of their final year VCE art students. Participating were Benalla Secondary Collage, Euroa Secondary College, FCJ Benalla,  Galen College - Wangaratta and Mansfield Secondary College. In their final year, students spend two terms researching an art project that they developed into an art work in their final term.

The art diaries, which are also on display are worth looking at as they capture the experimentation and detailed research leading up to the final production of a work. Some of the small experimental drawings and painting in the diaries are fine work.

The exhibition successfully  reveals the interests and emotions of the students as they transition towards adulthood.  Personal experiences, environmental issues and social commentary formed the basis for some of the student work.

The works of the photographers were particularly fine exploring portraits, landscape and experimental techniques that utilize digital photography and computer processing of images.

Well done to all the exhibitors! Well worth a visit  before it finishes on 9th December.
 
Meg Dillon
 
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This local group of thirteen potters now ensconced at the Barc huts, exhibited their recent works in a stunning display of local creativity. Their range included functional wares, architectural sculptures and carved clay pieces. A broad range of techniques were used including coil construction, slabs and pinching, slip casting and wheel thrown pieces.

Each potter deserves a mention, but space precludes that. I was entranced by the lovely raku works of Ruth Terry and Melissa Grimwade, whose pot “Feathers”, contrasted the fragility of the decorative feathers with the sturdy rounded pot shape upon which they were placed. Figurines have been explored by many of the potters who produced models of birds and animals both real and imagined.

​Particularly striking were the three stark goddesses of Jo-Ellen Jackson contrasted with the funky witty ladies  produced by Elspeth Keith. These hand built objects included high plain huts and the arresting totem poles of Katrina Carter made from wheel thrown pot shapes that towered over a meter and would look especially lovely in a garden. These works showed the special glazing skills of this group, who can surprise and delight viewers with their variety of visions for clay.
 
Meg Dillon

This week we had a poorly attended meeting but it coincided with the Gallery starting to hang the anniversary exhibition.  Consequently, we had little to look at except for a video installation relating to East Berlin. 

​Bryony explained her plans for the upcoming anniversary and advised us that the Nolan Tapestry will be rehung. She also showed us some Nolan prints that will be on show.

We look forward to the anniversary celebrations. 
​
Neville Gibb

Members were excited to meet the curator of the Benalla Gallery’s new exhibition “Looking but not Seeing”.  Kiron Robinson is an art lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts who specialises in the art of photography.

He has selected twelve contemporary Australian photographers whose work illustrates the new directions in photography. Selfies, the internet and photographic software has revolutionised the way massive numbers of photographs are produced by all of us on our smart phones and uploaded to Facebook, Snapchat etc. Kiron emphasised that we can never see all that is being produced so why are we uploading our photos and who are they for?

Kiron argues that we are producing these images for ourselves rather than for others: the act of making photographs is the real point of our images – creating the world not reflecting it. 
 
Despite this, the twelve photographers he has selected share their images with us in this exhibition. They electronically print, scan, rephotograph, distort and manipulate their images using all the technology made available by programs like PhotoShop, ON1, Corel Paintshop Pro., Cyberlink Photodirector etc. These are photos like you have never seen before – they represent the individual ways the artists have seen and constructed their images.

If you have ever taken a selfie, uploaded your holiday snaps to  Facebook or wondered what on earth you are going to do with all these images sitting on your computer – then come along to the Benalla Gallery  and see some of the new possibilities of image making.

The group are to meet on Monday 8th October at 10am when Bryony will speak about the 50th Anniversary Exhibition - all works on display from the Gallery’s permanent collection, with a focus on those that were first acquired.  
​
Meg Dillon

Photographs: Margaret Walshe

This morning we were fortunate to have Shanley explain to us the delights of the
​See HER Land' exhibit.

This is an exhibition of recreations of Indigenous artefacts lovingly produced by Indigenous women artists. The object of their intentions was to recreate the spirit of the art and craft of their forebears and not all objects are exact reproductions.  The artists have researched original sources and have studied both drawings and descriptions of aboriginal artefacts and have brought these objects back to life.  Both Art and Craft have been used in the manufacture of these exhibits.

We thank Shanley for her generosity and her expertise.
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Neville Gibb

At our July session at the Benalla Gallery,  Bryony informed us about a special exhibition of paintings currently on show at the Gallery by the current Archibald Prize Winner Yvette Coppersmith.
 
These paintings - all portraits of female relatives of the painter - were painted after the death of a relative and were meant to mitigate against the feelings of loss experienced by the artist.

They are all of a high standard and indeed do give the feeling of paintings that could give solace to the viewer once we learn the true story.

​Neville Gibb

Photographs: Margaret Walshe

This month Peter Warples-Crowe and Megan Evans discussed their current exhibition ‘Settlers and Savages’ with our art group.

Peter, an Aboriginal man from near Tumbarumba NSW, uses his art to explore the misconception of Aboriginals as ‘savages’. His series of mission blankets with copies of nineteenth century etchings starkly confronted this idea.  The large study of ‘Progress’ showing an Aboriginal man being crushed in a mining whim, asks the question: Was the finding of gold in Ballarat progress for Aboriginal people? Likewise the video of Megan and him on the high plains, masked and wearing a possum skin cloak as they acted out their roles of settler and Aboriginal, with Megan obliterating the art works that Peter had drawn on the rock faces. Within these serious charges, Peter confronts the events with a certain wry humour and irony as he seeks to explore what these deprivations mean to contemporary Aborigines.

Megan, a descendant of squatters in the same area, uses her textile skills to embellish pieces of colonial furniture with beaded scenes including portraits of her grandparents and herself. Using red beads, Megan mutilates the furniture with slashes suggesting the blood spilt in these frontier confrontations. Chairs with carving forks stuck in them, a settee with rifles for legs and a chandelier dripping with red strands of beads cascading from it, further define this idea. Her excellent beaded work on these pieces gives an unsettling contrast of both beauty and horror.

Both artists wanted to debunk the idea of the ‘golden light of colonisation’ that has pushed Aboriginal history aside to acknowledge the tragedies of settlement. Both artists believe that if both cultures face these facts and listen to these forgotten stories there will be a better chance of settlers and Aborigines moving forward in shared understanding.
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​Meg Dillon

Our group was quite excited to find ourselves in the  Claridge Studio for this month’s art appreciation session. Gallery Director Bryony Nainby had arranged for Dr Julie Gough, an artist, writer and curator to come to Benalla to talk about her own art practice as a Tasmanian Aborigine.

In this session Julie showed many of her photographs that explore amongst other things the notion of ‘Absence’ in the Tasmanian landscape. Where are the missing people that inhabited the island prior to settlement by Europeans? Julie found traces of them in the evocative nineteenth century  placenames that hint at their presence: Black Charlie’s Creek, Blackboy, Blackman’s Bay, Jacky’s Marsh etc. Her photos show fingerboards with the placenames but as well the empty landscape behind denuded of native vegetation. The absence of people, of native scrub and native animals point to the obliteration of their culture. And yet within Tasmanian society many Aboriginal people live and practice their culture.

As well Julie noted the number of Aboriginal words appropriated as placenames: Karoola, Catagunya, Bungana and Camena to name a few. Many of these were imposed on the landscape in the twentieth century with little regard for their language, origins and meaning.

You may recall Julie’s photos in the Gallery several months ago, photos of BBQ shelters in picnic spots that have former Aboriginal cultural associations. Her lecture and photo-show also greatly enhanced our understanding of the current exhibition ‘Settlers and Savages’ which uses everyday  nineteenth century furniture and objects, embellished with gashes and accretions of red beads, symbolising the blood spilt during the clashes between Aborigines and settlers.

These two events led to many thoughtful comments and further understanding of the culture and experiences of the First Australians.
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​Meg Dillon

An enthusiastic and nostalgic group visited the Milkbar exhibition at the Benalla Gallery.  With Director Bryony Nainby behind the counter we enjoyed some old-fashioned lollies and marvelled at the monumental task of the artist in creating hand painted representations of his favourite products at the local milkbar of his teenage years in Melbourne.

But milkbars are still alive and well in Benalla and other regional towns and some interesting exchanges occurred when we tried to identify not only our present milkbars but also those from the past that have closed down.  Being able to walk inside the milkbar and remember products and magazines that have disappeared brought back many memories, especially the telecom public phone booth that always seemed to be nearby.

The popular children’s activity saw a wall of coloured products that stencilled papers enabled them to produce.  Altogether a fun installation for both adults and children and one that attracted up to 800 visitors on one day during the school holidays.
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​Meg Dillon

A short video featuring Callum Preston describing this work...

This month our group was surprised with a rare treat and we thank Bryony for her continued support.

Bryony began by explaining the concept underpinning the Gallery’s Collection Lab, then gave us details of the paintings currently on display. These paintings can be declared historic and refer to the colonial period from both settler and indigenous perspectives. The Collection Lab will be a more or less permanent exhibition and will be part of the gallery’s recording and exhibiting of paintings normally kept in storage.

Bryony then brought out a storage box and showed us its contents.  There are several such storage boxes in the gallery’s collection, each containing paintings removed from their frames for more secure storage. The storage box selected by Bryony contained a series of watercolours and we were able to experience and share increasing enjoyment and surprise as each painting was uncovered.  Included was an unusual Heyson landscape believed not to have been shown in public previously.  Several other unknown watercolours followed.  Each painting offered some interest and our group clearly enjoyed viewing them and listening to Bryony’s explanations as to their importance.

Art Appreciation that was to be held on Easter Monday has been rescheduled to 9th April, when Bryony will speak about the Milk Bar Exhibition currently on at the Benalla Art Gallery.

​Neville Gibb

A full house arrived at the Simpson Gallery to hear artist, Ray Hearn, talk about his exhibition “True Ned” a mixed media display of paintings, wall sculptures and ceramics. Ray spoke about the background to his exploration of the Kelly legend.

Facts, myths, memories and visual interpretations by Sydney Nolan have all informed his views of Kelly. In effect a huge tangled web of all these influences has caused Ray and a new generation of post-Nolan artists to reinterpret the complexity of our responses to Kelly.

Nolan, who created the most iconic image of Kelly – the black slitted mask – has been appropriated by Ray and reworked in new images of Kelly with peripheral events that may be either fact or myth. Ray originally trained as a ceramic artist and his painted and glazed pottery covered with Kelly images is particularly fine and worth a close inspection.
​
People interested in the Kelly legend attended the opening of this exhibition at the Gallery on 25 February at 3 – 5pm. John McQuilton, one of the most respected historians of the Kelly legend spoke at the opening and answered Kelly questions. His book, The Kelly Outbreak 1878 – 1880: The Geographical Dimension of Social Banditry, 1987 is well known amongst Kelly enthusiasts. Earlier in the afternoon McQuilton gave a talk about the early colonial works in the collection – a noteworthy event.

​Meg Dillon

We have been able to see at the gallery this year, a balance of the older examples of Australian art from the 1880s when Australian Expressionism began to develop, and the new as it has evolved through the artists of the mid and later 20th century. Members have felt that the lectures from the gallery staff have enhanced their understanding of the exhibitions, particularly of those exhibitions featuring new media, new artists and new trends in contemporary art.

Art has always been controversial by trying to break new grounds to express its purposes. Each new generation of art students and practitioners create their own ways of expressing their visual ideas. It’s important for us, as viewers, to engage with these new visions and give the younger generation of artists space to exhibit and put forward their ideas.

Currently the Benalla Gallery has three excellent exhibitions from Australian master printmakers, all represented in major galleries in Australia and overseas. These exhibitions are a must for everyone interested in contemporary printmaking and for those curious to see what it is like. Rona Green’s cartoon type images of anthropomorphic animals are both amusing and disturbing in the Bennett Gallery. In the Simpson Gallery Jazmina Cininas’ large etchings exploring the history of European werewolves bring to mind Grimm’s Fairy Tales of dark forests and deadly deeds.

Our December lecture by Meredith Paez took us round the large group of paintings and prints entitled “The Botany of Desire”. Here the gallery uses both historical botanical paintings on canvas and china from the Ledger collection and contrasts these with a diverse group of contemporary prints and photos. These are generally large works which involve the printmaker using a number of printing techniques to produce the final master print. Etching, lino cutting, C-Class prints, photography and painted embellishment are all part of contemporary printmaking. This exhibition is a fine display of many of these techniques, including one moving kaleidoscopic image of silkworms on leaves! The new acquisition of thirty panels of fanciful animals and plants, from which the exhibition gets its name, is a wonderful example of master printmaker, Milan Milojevic, creating both a vision of beauty as well as a tour de force of skills.

Thanks to Bryony Nainby and her staff for a wonderful year of exhibitions.

​Meg Dillon 

​This session was designed and hosted by co-convenor Neville Gibb to explore a question he often asks ‘Where is the Art?’ Benalla Art Gallery staff responded to Neville’s request for works by two well-known Australian painters to be exhibited before our group, setting the scene for a talk about two greats of Australian Art Neville describes as ‘both arguably geniuses’, Albert Namatjira and Hans Heysen.

​Neville began the session with a thoughtfully prepared response to the paintings. His premise was that we can tell where the art is when we look at both men's work. “Both were able to produce works that are close to perfection in their capturing the spirit of the land. Not an easy thing to do”. Neville contended that there would not be an Australian anywhere in the world who would not feel identification with the work of both men. Namatjira and Heysen were contemporaries and it is not known if they ever met but it is known that Heysen admired Namatjira's work. Namatjira came to painting in his 30s. Heysen was recognised from a young age as someone within immense talent. Both had good and bad times. Namatjira suffered mightily the slings and arrows of being an Aborigine and Heysen had to lay low during WW1. Namatjira's intention was to record the land - painting came into it but getting the essence of the land into a painting was his intention. It is an easy argument to make that this was Heyson's intention also. Neville considers both men to have produced work of great worth and feels proud that we have examples of their work in the Gallery. As he sees them standing head and shoulders above most other Australian Artists, Neville hopes we see more of their work on display.

Neville then invited local painter Mervyn Beamish to give his opinion. Merv made several comments where he clearly differed from Neville.  Merv said that in his view, art is determined to be art by the beholder, not by someone telling them it is art, because it hangs on a gallery wall or because someone is willing to pay a large amount of money for it. ‘Your two year old grandchild's sketch stuck on the refrigerator door triggers an emotion; a memory, that, to you, is a work of art. A crack in the footpath can be a wonderful work of art and be quite fascinating because it stimulates senses, emotions even a memory.’…’If the item stimulates you senses; disgust and fascination ... the colours, the pattern, the situation, the swirl, there is something about it that takes you beyond the moment’. Merv was able to explain where he felt the strength of both painters lay and made several valuable explanations, warming to his task as the morning went on. Merv's work is on display at NEA.

Neville and Merv’s follow up discussion, together with contributions from the floor by Val Dunin; Carol Perry; visitors Reuben and Hazel Frankland; Bev Lee and others concluded an absorbing and lively session. ​

Bryony Nainby, gallery director, discussed this exhibition of large photo panels, videos, prints and paintings that comprises the fascinating and challenging Colonial Afterlife exhibition.

These works are by young indigenous artists from countries that experienced European colonisation. Now 200 years on these young people explore the challenges they face living in two cultures. In many ways the dominant colonising culture obscured and suppressed indigenous culture making it difficult for both groups to relate to each other in equal ways. Massacres, economic exploitation, loss of land and violence of all sorts continued to separate indigenous and colonising cultures.

Young urban indigenous artists from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South America are exploring these dark histories and the continuing existing tensions to challenge society’s stereotypes of indigenous people and present their own interpretation of the colonial experience.
​
You need to spend some time looking carefully at these pieces, puzzling out their meanings and allowing yourself to see the world from a different point of view. This will be time well spent and will take you a long way beyond dot paintings and anthropological objects.

Fiona Foley’s large scale posed photos are immediately striking and Julie Gough’s BBQ area photos in former ceremonial sites in Tasmania are worth thinking about. Spend a few minutes watching the videos or admire Maree Clarke’s ceremonial necklace. There are many others to enjoy too.
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​Meg Dillon

On Monday 4th of September the U3A Art Appreciation group was treated to a talk given by Arlene Textaqueen about her paintings that are on display in the Bennett Gallery.  Arlene primarily works on paper with felt-tip marker pens commonly referred to as textas in Australia.  

In this exhibition of works completed over some 15 years most of the subjects are nudes, although this is not immediately obvious. Some of Arlene's works have a cartoonish look to them. Some are of recent political figures and events. Some have very intricate backgrounds.  Some refer to current political trends. There is one killer picture in the form of an Australian Newspaper front page in which Arlene sums up her philosophy and, it can be argued, sums up the intention of all her paintings in this exhibition. It is worth noting what Arlene says in this painting because it does have profound meaning and makes the viewer consider his or her own actions.

During the course of her talk Arlene admitted to being a shy person even though her work does not indicate this. The subjects of her paintings appear to be extroverts and each work has an optimistic outgoing feel to it. Some are confronting, but this is deliberate.
 
There are also some nude self-portraits set in the Australian landscape on display.
 
All in all this was a very interesting talk and we thank Bryony for bringing it to us.
 
The next Art Appreciation Group will be Monday 2nd October, 10am - "Colonial Afterlives" Speaker: Bryony Nainby   Colonial Afterlives considers a range of contemporary responses to British colonisation from indigenous and diasporic artists living in Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, Britain and Canada.  It incorporates a diversity of views ranging from melancholic eulogies to passionate and sometimes scathing commentaries on the complex legacies of British occupation.

Monday 6th November, 10am - "Two works by Heysen & Namatjira - Where is the Art?” Speaker Neville Gibb and artist (to be confirmed)
 
Neville Gibb 

​This month Art Appreciation group members were treated to a behind the scenes inspection of Benalla Art Gallery’s storage space by the Director, Bryony Nainby.  Bryony began by giving us a short history of the Gallery, explaining that financial restraints when the Gallery was built meant that limited storage space was included within the building. She then gave us a detailed explanation of the Gallery’s policy of collecting art and of the various ways in which the Gallery comes to be in possession of so many valuable works of Art.
 
Lack of space has meant the Gallery has had to make do when storing art works, of which there are approximately 4000 pieces. Some paintings are stored in specially made metal racks. Some works are stored on moveable wooden racks which are moved around within the storage area as required.

​Other more important works are stored in conventional ways on storage racks that need a good deal of strength to pull out to extract paintings stored.  Bryony explained that plans are in place for the rollers on these racks to be greased, a major task as all the art works on them will need to be removed then replaced.  
 
Bryony gave us an insight into the problems of keeping all art works in good condition and the group listened with rapt attention. This visit to the storage area behind the scenes was a treat that other visitors to the Gallery do not see.
 
Later on Bryony brought us up to date with the plans for the expansion of the building. There are plans in place for a further two large galleries and several other storage and educational facilities and it is hoped that the finance required can be raised in the near future. When completed the expanded Gallery will be continuing proof of how Benalla competes well above its weight when it comes to Art.

Neville Gibb
August 2017

​​A cold rainy day saw us gathered at the Gallery to hear Bryony discuss the photographic exhibition: The Body’s Terrain. The exhibition enabled us to explore the many and varied ways the human form can be depicted. Female photographers were represented by a number of enigmatic studies reinterpreting women as a contemporary Eve or insignificant figures of men and women bathing at the base of a waterfall (Janina Green).

Julie Rapp’s comic study of herself with a horse’s tail challenged the idea that women always need to be beautiful.

Tim Silver’s four panels of an increasingly crumbling prone sculpture of himself spoke movingly of the body’s inevitable decay through time.

We spent some time viewing Bill Hanson’s photo Cupid and Psyche, a dark reinterpretation of a c19th French painting. Two young lovers engrossed in each other’s arms, surrounded by old car bodies and shadowy figures in the dark. Not everyone’s cup of tea...but quite a few felt it showed young love in a striking but beautiful way.

The three studies of the body as landscape (David Moore) melded the concept of low hills with the sinuous curves of the female form. Like other photos in this exhibition these s tudies showed only parts of the human form, departing radically from the formal depictions of nude figures painted as full-frontal figures.

Altogether a satisfying morning’s viewing with members participating in lively discussions.
​
Meg Dillon

Catherine Bennetts-Cash provided members with some intriguing information about 'Patterns of Connection', indigenous art from the Benalla Gallery collection, celebrating the 1967 Citizenship Referendum, NAIDOC week and the Uluru Declaration. Most of the work on display was produced in the 1990s and consists of photographs or mixed media with photographic elements. This provides viewers with a different perspective about Aboriginal art practitioners than the usual exhibitions of dot paintings and makes many tough and sober comments on the effects of colonisation.

'Sexy and Dangerous' shows Brook Andrew’s appropriation of an early 1900s photo of a young Aboriginal chief from North Queensland. This ambiguous image printed on perspex challenges stereo types by playing with the concept of male beauty bisected by gross white slashes perhaps representing colonial oppression. By contrast Leah King-Smith creates large multi-layered images of nineteenth century mission Aborigines returned to their bushland settings in a mysterious and unsettling ghostly landscape. These two key works are amply supported by the strong photos of Fiona Foley traditionally dressed, mirroring historic portraits of Aboriginal women, thus merging their condition in the past and present.

In contrast Destiny Deacon in “Peach Blossoms Revenge” provides a satirical swipe in a mixed media montage of modern Aboriginal and Anglo culture morphing into lurid commercial theatre. Look out also for the almost hidden photo image of a settler ploughing a field in Gordon Bennett’s work which is embedded in the larger traditional painting of Aboriginal land with “sit down” space around a waterhole ringed by border of skulls, suggesting the colonial killing of traditional owners in order to appropriate their land.
​
These photographic works are anchored by two large traditional paintings whose meanings are clear to the initiated members of the artists’ Northern Territory clans.
​
Meg Dillon

June's session at the Benalla Art Gallery marked the handing over of the convenors' role from Carole and Godfrey Marple to Meg Dillon and Neville Gibb from Semester II.  Thank you so much Carole and Godfrey, for convening the group so thoughtfully and successfully for a number of years.  It will be good to see you returning as members of the group.  Thanks also to Meg and Neville, for agreeing to share the role from Semester II.