Poets and Painters: Celebrating the big Punchbowl

Two decades ago, Carol and Dick Bett invited painters and writers to collaborate with each other, exploring their different disciplinary responses to the same subject. Seven chapters later, it is the Big Punchbowl, that is the inspiration for this latest project, featuring a collection of stunning visual works and provocative words, connecting us to this county on Tasmania’s East Coast

During spring and summer of 2016/17, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy’s Big Punchbowl Reserve has been visited by nine poets and nine painters. Working in pairs, they have captured the landscape and its stories in poetry and paintings.

The Big Punchbowl Reserve on Tasmania’s Freycinet Peninsula features a complex mosaic of wetlands, heath and woodlands. Co-curated by Carol Bett and Pete Hay, Poets and Painters – Celebrating The Big Punchbowl is a new and insightful collaboration of art and nature.

The exhibition brings together the work of both acclaimed and emerging artists and authors including Raymond Arnold, Sarah Day, Richard Wastell, Ben Walter, David Keeling, Edith Speers, Sue Lovegrove, Adrienne Eberhard, Lucienne Rickard, Jan Colville, Joan Ross, James Charlton, Imants Tillers, Greg Lehman, Megan Walch, and Lyn Reeves.

Poets and Painters – Celebrating The Big Punchbowl is presented by Bett Gallery and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy. The initiative has been made possible through the vision of Bett Gallery and Pete Hay, with the generous support of the Purves Environmental Fund, the Purryburry Trust, Freycinet Experience, Devil’s Corner, Lynda Warner, Avant Card, Delia Nicholls, Sophie Underwood and Matt Dell.

The collection of work will be accompanied by a limited edition publication, available for sale at the exhibition launch, at select bookstores and through the Tasmanian Land Conservancy.