The Weather is a driving force in all of our lives. We celebrate it, curse it and talk about it constantly. It’s sometimes beautiful, daunting, uncompromising. Famous works of art throughout history have depicted its power and awe. Such works have inspired the new exhibition at Despard Gallery.
Despard Gallery is known for presenting interesting and somewhat quirky exhibitions that explore a range of topics from social political issues to current themes and styles in contemporary fine art. The latest show aims to digress the wide and varied aspects of weather, from conversations about climate change to underwater imagery to sculptures using weathered timbers. All works presented in this exhibition explore in some way shape or form discuss the weather. The show includes work from respected Tasmanian and Australian artists Tony Barron, Peter Hjort, Andrew McIlroy, Dale Richards, Mike Singe & Catherine Woo.
Catherine Woo
Visual artists
Andrew McIlroy
Visual artists
Dale Richards
Visual artists
Mike Singe
Visual artists
TONY BARRON – artist statement
WEATHER is the driving force for many wild species. Without it, stagnation would have seen many disappear throughout the evolution process, the strongest survive and flourish. They instil wonderment in us, we revere their freedom. Their pure form has developed from –“form follows function” and their form is perfect for their survival.
To an extent, our species insulates us from the natural world around us, we build shelter from basic requirements to elaborate palaces, we have developed technologies for buildings and even cities that can completely control and insulate us from any contact with weather, and we defer from natural selection.
Even with our most sophisticated technologies, weather can interrupt or even halt our intentions to march forward, and after the storm, we eventually look around and see species have survived and flourished – without our gadgetry.
With substantial knowledge of two and three dimensional design and construction processes gained over many years in diverse industries such as, Construction, Automotive, Shipbuilding and Mining, Sculpture works have been interwoven with these, were high technical skills have been captured to produce quality unique works of art.
