People's Choice Voting: Queensland Regional Art Awards 2019

Spring flower garden

Artist: Michelle Mann
Artist Location: WOOMBYE
Medium: Mixed media, pencil, acrylic,, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 40 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
I live in South East Queensland a diverse and very beautiful part of the world. From its Glass house mountains to the islands, beaches and marine life, it is a most important eco system and I feel privileged to live in. I am inspired by so many different things but nature is the thing that most inspires me. Where i live in Woombye I am surrounded by beauty, native animals and birds. And in particular native plants, flowers, seeds, pods which are reflected in my art.

Photographer: Michelle Mann

Old Hope Vale

Artist: Wanda Gibson
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen print on linen, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
As an artist, I am particularly interested in creating work which documents my personal history, in particular, images of the places that I have lived, and the communities that have shaped the person I am today. My textile is called “Old Hope Vale” and it is a map of the Hope Vale mission as I remember it in the early 1970’s. Community life has changed a lot in the last 50 years, but places for community to come together and catch up remain as important as ever. My map shows all the places that were important to me and the community, including the house I moved into with my husband, the school, the shop and the Church, which my father helped to build, and which still stands at the centre of community life in Hope Vale today.

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

ars longa, vita brevis

Artist: Meaghan Shelton
Artist Location: IMBIL
Medium: Embroidery on victorian guest towel., 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 60 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Ars longa, vita brevis ( the life short, the craft long to learn ) references the diversity of materials that can be counted as valuable means for art making and also the diversity of experiences required to make a person whole. The vintage, hand crocheted guest towel was gifted to me when a friend’s parents had passed because ‘I would know what to do with it’. I utilise domestic crafting techniques as a form of activism. The work evidences innumerable hours of labour devoted to creating both the original matrix that forms the foundation for this work as well as the more recent embroidered additions. By representing the moulting snake, this iteration more explicitly expresses the existential restlessness that can occur during life’s transitions, a time that can be eased by laborious and meditative making processes that bring calm and resolution. This work unfolds as a trans-generational collaboration between women.

Photographer: Leeroy Todd

‘Presence to absence: from flood to fire’

Artist: Sue Gedda
Artist Location: LOTUS CREEK
Medium: Watercolour & mixed media, 2019
Dimensions: 77 x 101 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Unprecedented damaging floods, prolonged droughts and bushfire are punctuating Queensland life with increasing frequency. This abstract work seeks to suggest our climatic diversity – from watery to incinerated. Through the mix of pigment with locally sourced creek water, silt, plant matter and charcoal it explores the complexity and fragility of our local ecosystems in an environment impacted by anthropogenic influences.
Process-led techniques manipulate the found materials and embrace chance effects allowing nature to almost paint itself. Fluid and granulating characteristics of watercolour help to suggest solubility, dehydration and charred destruction, depicting the presence & absence of water. The triptych presentation indicates the passage of time; the narrowed windows a possibility of limited societal awareness. In contemplating these extreme weather events I reflect deeply on my place and influence in the world.

Photographer: Sue Gedda

Lean Out and Dance

Artist: Adrienne Williams
Artist Location: ELLIOTT HEADS
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 91.5 x 91.5 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
The northern headland of the Elliott River is my new home. This work is a conversation through markmaking about the diverse natural, cultural and elemental forces that continue to change and shape where I’m living. A perfect line of planted casuarinas perches atop red volcanic soil, underpinned by a coastline of basalt rock flung in messy patterns from an ancient volcano. Walking out to see these views each morning produces a surge of joy and disbelief within me… do I really live here? And this daily routine has bought a utopian dreamlike quality to this piece with it’s perfect line of leaning casuarinas, juxtaposed against tumbledown undergrowth and the jumble of rocky tidelines. Elliott Heads is both caressed and scarred by water and wind – literally the winds of change that will continue to extend it’s diversity well beyond my time here.

Photographer: Adrienne Williams

A Loganholme Queenlander

Artist: The Ly
Artist Location: LOGANHOLME
Medium: Watercolour on 300 gsm paper, 2019
Dimensions: 55 x 75 x 0.1 cm
Artist Statement:
A Queenslander is a unique architecture in Queensland which is designed to be adaptive and responsive to the regional climate and environment. The characteristics are that the house is made of timber, elevated, and built with tin roof. It has large surrounding verandahs which help occupants to connect to outdoor spaces, create circular ventilations, and open to a diversity of fauna and flora.
The painting picked up a Loganholme Queenslander, including its Queenslander features and the connecting landscape. The house and the surrounding habitat join together as a whole. The painting showed a tranquillity life in Queensland country, but indicated lively activities of people, animals, pastureland and trees. The colour was selected in warmth, revealing a sunset moment in Queensland. By exploring space and time of the characteristic Loganholme Queenslander, the painting discovered a sense of place which can only be found in the diversity of Queensland.

Photographer: The Ly

Red Natal no.2

Artist: Jenny Neubecker
Artist Location: Waterloo
Medium: Graphite, pastel and collage on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 40 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland’s varied landscapes lay the foundation for a wide range of grass species. One species, common in coastal areas, is Red Natal. As graziers we value it for the contribution it makes to biodiversity on our property. As an artist I am inspired by the structure of the delicately, fine, feathery seeds that form in clusters on the heads of grass. En masse, paddocks of Red Natal swathe the landscape with rich burgundy reds that provide a striking contrast with neighbouring green pastures. Early stages of seeding produce rich, dark glossy red seed heads that fade to a soft pink as the seed heads mature, then are carried away in the wind.

Photographer: Jenny Neubecker

Catastrophe

Artist: Trudy Brooks
Artist Location: Dayboro
Medium: Watercolour,graphite and ink on yupo paper, 2019
Dimensions: 58 x 88 x 0.3 cm
Artist Statement:
Sometimes the diversity of our weather is too much to bear. After a devastating drought, our North Queensland graziers were hit by catastrophic floods earlier this year. The usually welcome rains have become another obstacle to survival.
This work depicts the despair of one grazier during the catastrophic Queensland floods. It symbolizes that the vast flood and its devastation have become a part of who he is. There may be light on the horizon but all that occupies the man’s thoughts now are horrific, reoccurring visions of his dead and dying cattle across the vista of the land. At this moment he is overwhelmed but in time and with support, he will endure what is ahead and survive.

Photographer: Trudy Brooks

Embracing Azariah

Artist: Catherine Boreham
Artist Location: YEPPOON
Medium: Oil painting on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 61 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
I believe that painting portraits gives me a great opportunity to encourage the viewer to move beyond simple tolerance and really see each individual as unique and valuable. I aim to inspire the viewer to celebrate the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each person they behold on the canvas.

One of Azariah’s favorite verses says, “Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.”
With an attitude such as Azariah’s our differences wether they be gender, ethnicity, socio economic circumstances or religious beliefs would certainly be explored in a safe, positive and nurturing environment.

Azariah was very encouraged that I took the time to paint his portrait. Our states of diversity should be celebrated and this portrait is just one example of how I love to use artwork in a positive way to uplift others.

Photographer: Catherine Boreham

Lunch Mates

Artist: Mieke den Otter
Artist Location: BELLBIRD PARK, IPSWICH
Medium: Pastel on card and text, 2019
Dimensions: 29 x 41 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
As a painter and textile artist I am interested in developing ideas in response to new spaces.
In June 2019 as an Artist in Residence in an Ipswich Kindergarden, I spent some time drawing in the outdoor landscape. This sketch is one of my in situ pastel on card works. It is drawn from the playful and interactive spaces offered in kindergardens around the State of Queensland.

The act of drawing informs my art practice but is not always the destination.
Text accompanies the image and opens the ideas of nurturing diversity within an early childhood learning space with respect, freedom and play.

Hungry
hoods
Lunch
in boxes
on the
mat

Hungry
minds
Play
with buds
in the
garden

Growing
shapes
Forming
community
not far
from home

Photographer: Mieke den Otter

Elements Of Time

Artist: Peter Lawson
Artist Location: ARCADIA
Medium: Knifed oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 68 x 103 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
I have captured the splendour and historical importance of Townsville and other communities around Australia and abroad all my career. I work from life with painting on location and Elements Of Time demonstrates the diverse qualities that make up the landscape I have represented.

I believe art should be definitive and communicative and the work of an artist is not to satisfy their own indulgences but to give a very clear and very effective message to the viewer. I often take students out into the environment and with them experience the diversity of that scene on that day. By combining unique styles and methods, we take time to get to know the subject and faithfully interpret each with authenticity.
I use light to add energy and life to paintings and bring the vision, imagination and message of the environment to canvas.

Photographer: Peter Lawson

Parrot #1

Artist: Liz Celegato
Artist Location: EATONS HILL
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 38 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
The application of texture onto the canvas has created layers within the surface to evolve naturally producing an organic and interesting background that was then able to be incorporated into the foreground of the work. This technique has allowed me to generate a colourful and textured representation of one of the bird species that frequents our backyards within the Moreton Bay area. The late winter has encouraged them to hang around a little longer this year and although it’s a pleasure to have them around, I have to ask, is the warmer weather of late an indication of global warming so close to home?
My artwork is intended to be a visual reminder of nature’s beauty that exists within our ‘state of diversity’ reminding us of our responsibility to care for it now and into the future.

Photographer: Liz Celegato

A Home for Birds

Artist: Rose Rigley and Barbara Dover
Artist Location: WHITFIELD
Medium: Book-based sculptural assemblage, 2019
Dimensions: 25 x 20 x 11 cm
Artist Statement:
The artist considered the theme ‘State of Diversity’ both geographically and psychologically. The resulting artwork was an exchange between two different individuals, with empathy, trust and an understanding of another’s location, the key to the collaborative outcome. Destruction or preservation became an integral part of creation, as each artist contributed to the beginning or end of the structure. Strategies of how to respond to ‘the object’, to letting go of concrete connections to place, and to the production of a ‘cohesive’ visual language were explored in the undertaking. Collaboration has, at its foundation, the idea of bringing diversity together through compassion.

‘A Home for Birds’ focuses on the impact that human inhabitation has on local wildlife.

Photographer: Rose Rigley

Cactus Garden

Artist: Wendy Bache
Artist Location: MOUNT LOUISA
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 90 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Painted in a park in Townsville, I was captivated by the funky shapes and colours of the cactus garden and how at home they are in the park, just a stones throw away from some rain forest within the same park.
I really think Townsville has the best of both worlds. It’s dry at times and lush, abundant and green other times.

I painted this en plein air, using acrylic paint in lots of layers. I feel that when you paint like this the energy of the area enters the art.

Photographer: Wendy Bache

Rayan Isme

Artist: Paul (Zoob) de Zubicaray
Artist Location: Albany Creek
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 51 x 40 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Adding to Queensland’s diversity are the five Queensland local government area refugee welcome zones including Ipswich, Logan, Mackay, Toowoomba and Townsville. It was in Toowoomba that my family first met Rayan and her beautiful family. Rayan is grateful for the part time work in the family small business and university options available to her in her much loved adopted Country of Australia. I wanted to portray her optimism shining through for her future, where anything is possible.

Photographer: Paul de Zubicaray

my father grew roses(Download Artivive to activate augmented reality in artwork)

Artist: Rebecca Lewis
Artist Location: EAST IPSWICH
Medium: Mixed Media, 2019
Dimensions: 29 x 21 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
“My Dad cleared most of the trees on our block, he disliked gums, they were not English. He grew one hundred and thirty five rose bushes, the postman reckoned he could smell them all the way from the corner.”

Every family keeps stories. These tales are diverse and distinct to each family, they filter down through the generations, tales from every day life, tales of childhood discoveries, of loss, of small joys, of love and friendships that have all helped to shape a family but often go untold outside the family home. This piece aims to share some of these little stories from my own family history.

In the creation of the work itself I have employed diverse techniques to build layers into the story, giving the piece context within my family history and more broadly in the history of South East Queensland.

DOWNLOAD ARTIVIVE TO ACTIVATE THE AR ELEMENT

Photographer: Rebecca Lewis

Journey Through The Playground (view detail)

Artist: Debbie Chilton and Mieke Den Otter
Artist Location: IPSWICH
Medium: Textile, 2019
Dimensions: 8 x 40 x 50 cm
Artist Statement:
Debbie is an artist living with disabilities. She uses the Image of a’scarecrow’ to explore themes of difference, varying abilities and diversity. The theme of diversity was prominent in the work both artists explored during the term. The collaborative textile book is reflective of the themes explored by both artists during their residency.Mieke is a textile artist who drew on the playground environment to develop her work and threading the images into felting. The felt characters which were created at kindy representing the diverse cultural backgrounds of the children. The themes of diversity were drawn from the children at play, their dress, gardens, trees and leaves and ‘rooms’ are depicted in the book. The characters can be moved from page to page to paper, which is reprehensive of the movement in the kindy environment during the artists session times.

Photographer: Debbie Chilton

Terra

Artist: Hayley Groves George
Artist Location: MARYBOROUGH
Medium: Mixed media on stretched canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 75 x 3.8 cm
Artist Statement:
“Terra” is the Roman Goddess of Earth. She lays upon the drought stricken land to release fertility and fruitfulness to end the suffering that once was. Unfortunately I have seen this harsh country become dust too often over the years and with no food or water for native animals and live stock await death. However, once the storm clouds start building and roll in from the distance with the rain, the nutrients in the ground activates with the moisture and then there is life again. That sweet smell of the first few droplets that hit the dirt, is the smell of Terra.

Photographer: Hayley Groves George

Magic at the Beach

Artist: Jill McLean
Artist Location: PELICAN WAERS
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 50 x 40 x 35 cm
Artist Statement:
Gender identity has become more openly diverse in Queensland and we can see this in the evolving male parental role and behaviour. Emotional distance, once a common feature of fatherhood, is being broken down as values and attitudes toward being a male parent change. The Queensland seaside provides a wonderful place for fathers to connect, play and build emotional bonds with their children, and of course great memories.

Photographer: Jillian McLean

Mob on the Move

Artist: Margaret Worthington
Artist Location: CALLIOPE
Medium: Watercolour and gouache on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 57 x 105 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
I chose this painting to enter in the State of Diversity competition because it shows an interesting, diverse and rarely painted area of Queensland. Landscapes like the one depicted in watercolours are common and may be seen along much of the Queensland coast where there are mangroves and mudflats. A solitary rocky island is viewed over the salt pans at low tide. Wetlands both fresh and salty are found in these areas. A mob of very young pigs are shown cavorting on the salt pan moving over to the wetlands to feed. A Pied Cormorant is resting after a fishing expedition.

Photographer: M Worthington

Little fishy mandala

Artist: Susan Lhamo
Artist Location: TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN
Medium: Digital photograph on matte enhanced photographic paper, 2018
Dimensions: 30 x 30 x 0.1 cm
Artist Statement:
The digital image “Little fishy mandala” reveals a contrast between the transparent waters of Currumbin Creek and a delicate mandala of vegetation and fish created from various photographs I’ve taken. The expression of diversity is seen in this contrast, through viewing these aspects of the same place seen in dissimilar ways. The image of the fish mandala encapsulates the mood and intricacy of small water habitats found in these tidal creek locations and is like a mirror on this tiny world while the Currumbin Creek background image shows the bigger picture…one that we’re most familiar with, in everyday form.

Photographer: Susan Lhamo

Whispering Sands, Elim Beach.

Artist: Tracey Mutze-Butler
Artist Location: TEWANTIN
Medium: Acrylic paint and artists dry ground pigments., 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 50 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
‘Whispering Sands, Elim Beach’, is an artwork conceived after a road trip to Far North Queensland in 2017. The journey allowed for an experience of diverse wilderness areas including, rainforest, grasslands, wetlands and aboriginal homelands .
Firstly I photograph close up perspectives of the subject then reimagine the images in the studio as a painting
Elim Beach is an hour and a half from Cooktown. The coloured sand dunes are accessed by 4WD at high tide.
The dunes tower over the beach with dazzling luminosity of red, orange, pink, yellow and cream coloured sands .
It was as if the sun had fallen from the sky and all its beautiful hue was absorbed into the dunes.

Whispering Sands, is a celebration of the memory of wild places.

Photographer: Tracey Mutze-Butler

Bucket & Spade

Artist: Shannus O’sullivan
Artist Location: Hivesville
Medium: Acrylic, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 87 x 0.5 cm
Artist Statement:
This is my experience of beach culture and is based of years of observation. The painting Bucket and Spade is my interpretation of the diverse nature of people who frequent our beaches

Photographer: Shannus O’sullivan

Fairy Tree

Artist: Helen Dennis
Artist Location: CHINCHILLA
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 76 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
On our property runs Branch Creek, which flows to the Condamine River, part of the Balonne catchment for the Murray Darling Basin. Our small creek has been a guide for Indigenous travellers visiting the Bunya Mountains, an area of vegetation and animal diversity in its wetlands, a place of lagoons where tall timbers grow, a source of irrigation for crops and domestic animals, and playground for all.
For our community the creeks are the mainstay of life. Without the creeks Indigenous travellers would not have moved through and camped, farms would not have been established, the railway would not have come, and modern townships would not be sustainable. Their waters are an essential element of life.
The roots of a majestic gumtree became the ‘Fairy Tree’ for our children, after a massive flood wore away its foundations, sending it tumbling across the creek and exposing its roots to the elements.

Photographer: Helen Dennis

Pareidolia Landscape

Artist: Carly Sheil
Artist Location: SAUNDERS BEACH
Medium: Ink on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 21.4 x 15.5 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Pareidolia is the name of the phenomenon in which we see patterns or human characteristics in inanimate objects. Maps are usually an arrangement of recognisable inanimate objects that can be used to navigate the world. In this piece I’ve merged a traditional pen and ink cartographic style with that of contemporary design and illustration to show this merging of land and people. Surrounding us in Queensland now, in what was once a landscape of natural objects in which we only imagined to see faces, is now a physical-cultural landscape of human characteristics entwined with nature. We all shape and are shaped by it regardless of our wishes by simply being here. We can choose to erode each other and the land, or prop each other up to grow into greater landmarks together – a greater biodiversity of humans to cultivate existing cultures to sprout new and more amazing futures.

Photographer: Carly Sheil

Hanging out the clothes

Artist: Sharon Hamill
Artist Location: BUDERIM
Medium: Acrylics, 2019
Dimensions: 101 x 76 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Winter sun on the Sunshine Coast casts heavily patterns of light and dark. This afternoon sun painting tried to capture the diversity of sun and light with smooth of lawn and texture of the bush. The image tried to impart a snapshot in time in a rural setting in the coast

Photographer: Sharon Hamill

Nasturtium

Artist: Tamlyn Geiger
Artist Location: Canungra
Medium: Watercolour, mixed media, digitisation printed onto lycra, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 100 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
“My artwork ‘Nasturtium’ started as a watercolour, incorporated mixed media and comprises digitisation processes. An old-time style handwriting blends to give a worldly charm and continuity.
Canungra’s shared garden and our community of human personalities and interests is as diverse as the natural ecosystem. Withstanding drought and frost our State is like the community garden. To portray the “State of Diversity” in Queensland, did I choose Nasturtium or did Nasturtium choose me? I found the elements, massaged my processes and looked for what brings joy and fulfills purpose.”
Tamlyn Geiger creates artwork that evokes the beauty and organic rawness of Queensland. Artmaking is Tamlyn’s life: From a graphics background, Tamlyn’s full-time devotion to her craft has developed a freedom of expression that is evident in her surface designs.

Photographer: Tamlyn Geiger

Hello Sunshine

Artist: In Sun Park
Artist Location: WEST MACKA
Medium: Oil on panel, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 24 x 0.7 cm
Artist Statement:
As a resident of North Queensland for the last seven years, I can proudly say the state has re-kindled my passion in me to create a colour pallete that reflects the environment in which we live. The feelings the emotions the sheer joy of experiencing life and living it to the fullest in this ever changing landscape which draws a diverse variety of people from all over the world.

Photographer: In Sun Park

Sun Harness (view detail)

Artist: Joanne Taylor
Artist Location: BARCALDINE
Medium: Paper pulp, iron oxide, cotton thread, gold leaf, paper, cotton rag paper, ink, pencil, pencil, perspex, wood, dye, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 36.5 x 14 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland is the state of diversity with its vast coastlines, open flat interior and abundant resources. But one thing that unites us all in the ‘Sunshine State’ is indeed, the sun. It’s the binding factor that makes Queensland what it is. Sunlight energises the productive heart of our state and imprints our landscape such that we all benefit.

The repetition of “suns” in this sculpture represents the numerous but similar solar farms popping up in recent years in Central West Queensland, all doing their bit to power our lives and our future prosperity.

Increasingly, the iconic and quintessential Queenslander home many of us have spent at least part of our lives in, is now being powered by energy harvested from the sun.

Photographer: Donna Jedras

Whitehorses and casuarinas on the estuary

Artist: Adrienne Williams
Artist Location: ELLIOTT HEADS
Medium: Ink, watercolour, gouache, gelli print on Washi and Arches papers, 2019
Dimensions: 99 x 70 x 0.5 cm
Artist Statement:
This work originated from printed acrylic impressions made from the leaves of the casuarinas near my home at Elliott Heads. It led on to contemplating this place, taking the consideration of colour away, and instead using a diversity of marks to describe the wild winds and storms that both support and shape these trees and the landforms around them. Bold and abstracted markmaking sits alongside tiny grain-like, representational dots, supporting a conversation between varying hues of mixed blacks. This year the winds blew in off the sea for months and months. Hardy locals wondered when the regular winter calm would arrive. It’s here now and the casuarinas rest. But it won’t be long before the whitehorses stand up on the sea again, and windswept nuts catch us underfoot like discarded lego pieces.

Photographer: Adrienne Williams

The Alice Hart Portrait

Artist: Joshua Lamb
Artist Location: KARRAGARRA ISLAND
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 91 x 72 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
As a regional artist living on an island without a bridge, I risk being stranded by missing ferries.
At a mainland portrait workshop last year, a Mother and daughter rushed in just as I was exiting for my homeward bound ferry. My sessions include live portrait drawing. Mum explained that her daughter Alice had sacrificed hockey, and especially dressed for almost four hours making her portrait outfit just right. The sophisticated and complex colour choices of the ‘wardrobe crisis’ further enhanced a compelling subject. Meanwhile, juggling my island life required me to leave almost immediately. I felt terrible!
Quickly taking reference photos, and apologizing profusely as I left, I only just caught my ferry home. Back home in my island studio, the extra reference material presented a special opportunity for developing a detailed, finished portrait that aims to capture the spirit of a lively and creative young person.

Photographer: Joshua Lamb

Sunset over Canaipa Passage

Artist: Abramo Papp
Artist Location: RUSSELL ISLAND
Medium: Oil on linen, 2018
Dimensions: 106.5 x 76 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Canaipa Passage is a strait of water separating North Stradbroke island to the top of the painting and Russell Island to the left and in the foreground (where I live). Stradbroke Island is a sand Island while the islands of Southern Moreton Bay are rich red volcanic soils and rock. In the past, many of the islands had sandy beaches, but due to the 1974 Brisbane floods, many of the islands have muddy shorelines washed down from the Brisbane valley and mangroves have taken hold.

Photographer: Abramo Papp

LETS FACE IT TOGETHER

Artist: Benjamin Van Eldik
Artist Location: MT MEE
Medium: Ink on card, 2019
Dimensions: 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm
Artist Statement:
My work “lets face it together” depicts the obvious diversity of skin, cultural, and gender. But it carries a more emotive message which I hope the viewer can connect with, and that is that love is blind to all the negative aspects that can challenge the “state of diversity” in all our lives. Love is the only true power that can fuse any perceived divide when we are faced with a new “state of diversity”. My choice to use ink stippling as my method is to highlight that the perceived “State of Diversity” is just that, and can be altered by the simple addition of a single dot from a pen.

Photographer: Benjamin Van Eldik

Crying Art

Artist: Hediyeh Soleiman
Artist Location: HERVEY BAY
Medium: Gouache & watercolour, 2019
Dimensions: 38 x 38 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland, the state of diversity

A blend of the rich ancient Persian art mixed with the beauty and assortment of colours in majestic Australia’s landscape inspired me to introduce Persian illumination art. This form of ancient painting born in the early 15th century is now fading away from young modern memories. The diversity of our beautiful red soil, the deep blue ocean and the turquoise sky are united around the golden values at the core of our nation. This Crying Art is hoping to be seen by the younger generation and find its place once more in the eyes of art lovers.

Photographer: Hediyeh Soleiman

Garden Party

Artist: Kristen Flynn
Artist Location: Chinchilla
Medium: Oil on fabriano paper, 2019
Dimensions: 27 x 43 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Garden Party celebrates the women of Chinchilla. Our community hosts an array of highly educated women and mothers that help our community run at all levels. Although a regional town, women here redefine their roles just like their city-living counterparts. The three women in Garden Party are all at different stages in their life and they have all individually defined what it means to be a woman in this time and location. They flip the male gaze on its head as their female stares pierce through their floral masks- symbolising their power, presence and importance to community. The three prints were created using digital photography, solar plate and traditional intaglio printing methods. My work pays tribute to all of the wonderful women in my small community and their contributions to make this a true state of diversity.

Photographer: Kristen Flynn

Shed of all Trades

Artist: Julie Purcell
Artist Location: KIPPA-RING
Medium: Oil on board, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 70 x 0.3cm
Artist Statement:
I painted this scene because it reflects the diversity of problem solving skills Grandad used while living in a back to basics way in Beebo, Queensland. His shed, once a piggery built by hand, is a still life arrangement revealing a suite of skills and techniques required to solve issues, mechanical and otherwise, that arose on the isolated property. It is a time capsule of agricultural and industrial objects and methodologies – there’s a forge, a lathe, old tractors and earth moving equipment and the incidentally sculptural form of a large wooden gantry. This site is like a personal museum of ingenuity and determination. Recording some of its details over multiple plein air sessions enabled me to feel close to Grandad again because his activities are evident everywhere. The rugged board I painted on is a found-object, its imperfect surface suggests an intergenerational spirit of making and making-do.

Photographer: Julie Purcell

Golden Hues

Artist: Jaine Jackson
Artist Location: GYMPIE
Medium: Acrylic mixed media, 2019
Dimensions: 58 x 58 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
‘Golden Hues’ Encapsulates the rich colours of our diverse far stretching landscape. Where the ocean meets the coloured sands and estuaries bordered by mangrove flats. From ocean blues through our National Parks and forest darks to hinterland distant blues and misty hues through the Mary Valley and beyond. From fractured earth during droughts to flooded land when the Mary swells. Our city Gympie/gimpi sits on the banks with a golden history and some still to be found hidden under our streets.

Photographer: Jaine Jackson

In the Check Out Lane

Artist: Anneke Silver
Artist Location: TOWNSVILLE
Medium: Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 84 x 101 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
I was searching for ways in which I could include many aspects of Diversity. I always enjoy watching the large racial and facial variety in the supermarket down the road; this became the idea to tackle the theme. It occurred to me that we are all in some way in the checkout lane towards shaping this state. There is a wide range of facial expressions and characters, which seem only loosely united, predominantly younger, as we are as a state. Most have their own agenda. They are only united by the predominant colour of the earth in our state –red ochre. I used the most natural and least manufactured drawing material, charcoal, to indicate the early stages of statehood that we are still in. I wanted the overall impression to be optimistic and energetic, regardless of the differences. I hope I managed to achieve that at least a little.

Photographer: anneke silver

Opalton to the Ocean – It’s a bloody long drive

Artist: Nick Hoops
Artist Location: TOWNSVILLE
Medium: Acrylic and ink on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 110 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
I love Boulder Opal. I love Opalton. I live approximately 830km away in Townsville. I also love the ocean. The blues of the Coral Sea. I make the journey as often as I can to fossick the Opalton opal fields. I don’t find a lot. I am a novice; this does not curb my enthusiasm; I am a future opal miner. The landscape changes from blue to green, undulating at first. Then the landscape flattens, the trees seem to disperse and the ground morphs from green to brown and then into a fine white dust. The air is hot. The flies are thick. The digging is tough. The pickings are slim. Is it worth it? The bloody long drive home from Opalton to the Ocean.
You bet it is!!

Photographer: Nick Hoops

Mulgaland

Artist: Richard Ranson
Artist Location: Charleville
Medium: Acrylic with watercolour pen, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 76 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Blue sky. Red dirt. Green mulga. Yellow sun. The mulgalands of the Warrego; created with colours of the rainbow serpent. Flood or drought, the vast colour array is matched only by the diversity of the animals that have evolved to survive in this land of extremes. Some are beautiful; some are deadly; some are both. Some, like the emus and kangaroos in the painting are easy to see. Others, like the honey ants in this painting are hard to see. They are all different yet depend on each other to survive. In this sense they are the same.

Photographer: Richard Ranson

Garden Feast

Artist: Colleen Helmore
Artist Location: BURNETT HEADS
Medium: Watercolour on arches paper, 2019
Dimensions: 35 x 55 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
At any time of day a different bird can be heard in and around my garden. The diversity of their songs is amazing, however it is the magpie that most captures my attention. I wanted to create a watercolour painting, capturing these birds in a diversity of poses to capture their unique character.
I paint mainly with 3 primary colours and don’t use black or white watercolour paint so I have made a great variety of colourful darks to create the illusion of black and white .

Photographer: Colleen Helmore

Honeymoon Bay (Moreton Island, Queensland)

Artist: Elena Suto
Artist Location: Regents Park
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 76 x 91.5 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Between the rocky Cape Moreton and North Point lies Moreton Island’s picture perfect Honeymoon Bay. Looking like something from a movie, the hidden picturesque half-moon shape beach is about 50 meters wide, making it the perfect spot for a refreshing swim. Honeymoon Bay is the most famous of the four small pocket beaches near Cape Moreton. Honeymoon Bay is hard to miss whilst exploring the island. When my family and I first visited this location in December 2007, we were absolutely taken by this beautiful secluded location.

Photographer: Elena Suto

Traversed

Artist: Leisl Mott
Artist Location: TOOWOOMBA
Medium: Oil on board, 2018
Dimensions: 81 x 81 x 0.5 cm
Artist Statement:
I was inspired to paint this work to capture a familiar landscape in the grips of drought. How different it seemed; the blanket of soft fodder had given way to reveal deeply etched tracks in the dirt and hurts of the past expressed as erosion and fallen limbs. All the while, the sky just watched on, painting its bright-blue self with the whitest smears of winter clouds, oblivious to the parching below. This year it is looking different again; that is the diversity, within the diversity, of our landscape.

Photographer: Cloe Veryard

Rubric

Artist: Ann Fitzgerald
Artist Location: CROWS NEST
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 61 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
My artistic goal is to create intellectually, fascinating and visually, stimulating art that challenges the viewer perception. Rubric is a conceptual, geometric abstraction and has a historical context of Australian, post-colonialism. The title is derived from the square constructs that cover most of the painting. The individual squares with their own colour identity connect to create a regenerating oneness. These central open-ended forms have less chroma intensity as they overlap in the mid-ground, metaphoric of a mellowing, maturing culture and the hard edge, its resilience. The land of the first nation is the brown monochrome ground and imposed colonisation the coloured squares invading the balance of the ground. The blue denim glaze for universality and unity, the unglazed triangles, remnants of the past and the brown ground a constant. The foreground’s layered, blue denim, glazed triangles are metaphoric for leafing through pages of time creating a State of Diversity.

Photographer: Ann-Maree Fitzgerald

A Thousand Flowers

Artist: Lee Berryman
Artist Location: YANDINA CREEK
Medium: Coloured porcelain, 2019
Dimensions: 10 x 12 x 12 cm
Artist Statement:
My work is made from small coloured and patterned pieces of porcelain clay which are joined together. The colour and patterns are not surface decoration, rather, they are an integral part of the form.
In this way my pieces are very much like the diversity to be found in regional Queensland – an integral part of the people, lifestyles, plants and environments; and a blending and joining of all these elements to create complex, colourful and exciting communities and surrounds.
My work also reflects the diversity of my personal background. I have Australian Chinese heritage, grew up in multi-cultural Darwin, lived in several Aust States/Territories and travelled extensively; providing a diverse range of experiences, understandings and different perspectives from which to draw inspiration – and leading me to the integration of colour and patterns in my current work.

Photographer: Lee Berryman

Food Frenzy

Artist: Heather Delaney
Artist Location: SCARBOROUGH
Medium: Watercolour, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 56 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Heather grew up at Jimbour on the treeless pains west of Toowoomba, where she has been involved in art since her teenage years. She participated in four McGregor Art Schools, worked as a professional photographer and is a current tutor and member of the Redcliffe Art Society where she currently lives. Heather teaches her signature painting style of pouring transparent washes with water based mediums and how to retain white paper without using a lot of brushwork.

Her latest achievement was winner of Best Watercolour at the Brisbane Macgregor Lions Art Extravaganza 2019. More of Heather’s work can be viewed on her facebook page Heather Delaney Art.

Our coastline is visited by a diverse community, whereby, food brings us together and is shared by beach goers, including local wildlife. Heather’s artwork “Food Frenzy” depicts this diversity in the interplay of our wildlife, beach ecosystems and people.

Photographer: Heather Delaney

Crazy weather we’ve been having

Artist: Nora Hanasy
Artist Location: ZIZLIE
Medium: Digital collage, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 100 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
Central Queensland is a land of constant change. One thing that really makes this place I call home extra unique is the weather.’Crazy weather we’ve been having’ is a phrase we use often here as a greeting. It binds all of us together. The heat of summer comes with cyclones and floods and when we are not under water the land is arid and dry with blackened trees as far as the eye can see. The winter fog turns everything eerie and white and the short but severe storms that come out of nowhere definitely get the blood pumping. These extreme and often devastating weather patterns are the cause of our ever-changing colors and textures of the CQ landscape. But it is this diversity that makes every moment here, exciting and beautiful.

Photographer: Nora Hanasy

SCRIBBLY GUM WILD LIFE

Artist: Brian Hatch
Artist Location: CLEVELAND
Medium: Oil, 2019
Dimensions: 101 x 76 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
The diversity of Queensland’s flora and fauna is something unique to this state and country. There are many species of variegated eucalypt trees and one variety is called the scribbly
gum identified by the familiar iconic tracks left in the tree trunk by the moth larvae as it zigzags around.
In this painting I have used these scribbles made by the larvae to surreptitiously suggest and enhance images of our unique wild life hidden within the lines. When viewing these gum trees in the native bush it is possible to imagine all kinds of animals and bird images appearing in the diverse scribbles.
The blue background suggests the native blue gum found in many areas of Queensland. The zigzag tunnels on the trunk of a tree inspired this painting using ones imagination to perceive
various animal images hidden within the lines. There is a great diversity in the animal kingdom as suggested in this painting and the scribbly gum is but one species of diverse eucalypts found in the Queensland bush.

Photographer:

Wetlands Dry

Artist: Abramo Papp
Artist Location: RUSSELL ISLAND
Medium: Digital photograph, 2018
Dimensions: 22 x 36 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
It took me a few years of living on Russell Island to realise that wetlands are not always wet, sometimes they can actually dry out. These pictures of the wetlands at Burrows Street on Russell island were taken in September 2018 (wet – on left) and June 2017 (dry – right – mirror reverse). The two images were taken at about the same time of day an roughly from the same position (without stepping into the water 🙂 ).

Photographer: Abramo Papp

Twist (view detail)

Artist: Netty Ferpozzi
Artist Location: BELLBIRD PARK
Medium: Found object sculpture, 2018
Dimensions: 32 x 82 x 12 cm
Artist Statement:
I walk pass the thirty-three brand new homes boxed in behind my house to get to my Ipswich suburban bushland.
The dog needs a walk and I am on the scrounge for dumped stuff.
I admire a rich green prickly pear nestled amongst forest debris, vast verticals of the eucalyptus trees and land galore the developers have yet to gobble up.
I spy a rusty mangled nugget; nature has become entwined with it. What event lead it to become so twisted? A twist in the road? Why did you have to discard it here?
I pluck it from obscurity. A twist of fate.

Photographer: Netty Ferpozzi

This Too Shall Pass

Artist: Katrin Terton
Artist Location: BLACK MOUNTAIN
Medium: Mixed Media, series of sculptural pieces on wall mounted perspex shelves, 2018
Dimensions: 60 x 70 x 18 cm
Artist Statement:
The various organic materials and found objects used for this series of 11 crown-shaped objects were all collected on the Sunshine Coast. The crown symbolises the individual sovereignty we have and the ability to take charge of the changing pathways in our lives. These materials represent the diversity of the local environment, relating to flora, fauna and human-made aspects as well as different endeavours, skills and interests of members of the community. For example: beeswax, shed snakeskin and ashes refer to the quest to protect and manage wildlife and the ecosystem; hair, fibres and book pages to creative pursuits, chillies and kombucha culture to local food artisans. The title alludes to the ephemeral nature of the materials and the evolving environmental and cultural changes and challenges. This work acknowledges the diversity of the local communities and the transience of all elements of the environment we inhabit.

Photographer: Andrew Mortimer

No. 10 (Noosa River)

Artist: M.N. Cox
Artist Location: COOROY
Medium: Oil on linen, 2018
Dimensions: 61 x 91 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
My grandparents bought at Noosaville in the 1950s so I’ve been visiting the Noosa River all my life. Now I live nearby. While the area has changed a lot (and the river is under pressure) it still holds a place in my heart.

This picture was painted in oils and is a composite of aspects of river life and things I’ve seen there over the years. I like how everyone comes together and there are so many distinct activities occurring on the river banks and water.

Photographer: M.N.Cox

Afternoon Sonata

Artist: Leanne Cole
Artist Location: TANNUM SANDS
Medium: Watercolour, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 32.5 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
I live in Central Qld and recently cruised the Queensland coast from Brisbane to Cairns and back. While I witnessed the diverse range of landscape, the coast line, the ocean and the islands I also witnessed the diversity of the people aboard the ship. Different ages, different nationalities, all there to enjoy the Queensland weather and hospitality. Some happy to take part in all activities, others happy to enjoy quiet interludes, hidden in small nooks and crannies. I found this young girl playing the piano tucked away in a cocktail bar during the day with no-one there but me.

Photographer: Leanne Cole

Inclusive Diversity

Artist: Leigh-Ann Hargreaves
Artist Location: IPSWICH
Medium: Mixed medium- mostly acrylic, 2019
Dimensions: 80 x 100 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
In creating Inclusive Diversity I used a diverse range of colours representative of Queensland soils and plants. Deep red fertile soil of Redland Bay and rich black soil of the Scenic Rim. North Queensland is represented in the lush greens and blues of the forests. Ochre reminded me of dry Western Qld and golden yellows for the sandy Coast. Queensland is a state of diversity of climate and conditions.
I have represented people of diverse cultures, ages and abilities. In painting the figures, I have used colour to represent diversity, not skin colour. We are richer for our differences. . Inclusivity makes our communities stronger, smarter, safer and richer.
I am promoting a state of tolerance and understanding where marginalisation no longer exists.

Photographer: Leigh-Ann Hargreaves

Wild Panorama 1

Artist: Andrea Baumert Howard
Artist Location: IPSWICH
Medium: Junk mail, newspaper, egg carton, office paper and recycled children’s craft paper pulp, 2019
Dimensions: 20 x 40 x 0.3 cm
Artist Statement:
When I think of Queensland’s diversity, I am immediately reminded of the huge variety of landscapes we have to explore. It is something intangible, it’s sort of a feeling, a memory, it is extremely difficult to depict in a 2-dimensional piece.
The gorgeous coastlines, rainforests, dry sclerophyll forests, deserts, mountain ranges, grasslands, and big skies. And of course, the farm lands, cattle property, cities, small country towns and tiny communities dotting these landscapes.
I have used a variety of recycled papers to create my landscape in paper pulp. Junk mail, newspaper, egg carton, office paper and recycled children’s craft paper make up the body of the scene. The fragility of the paper helps to convey the beauty and fragility of our environments and express the vastness of our state of diversity.

Photographer: Andrea Baumert Howard

Looking for a drink

Artist: Debbie Dieckmann
Artist Location: MILLMERRAN
Medium: Watercolour, 2019
Dimensions: 35 x 45 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
I have been a creator all my life being raised in the bush by my mother who was an artist. I began my artist endeavours by painting and then created using different mediums for several years .In the last 6 years I have returned to painting and mixed media but in the last10 months I have found a passion for watercolour and the wildlife in my bush community. For me watercolor best illustrates the fragility and subtly diversity of the bush, be it’s colours, delicacy of birds or fauna. Bush diversity is everywhere and is often overlooked as its subtle and changes with the seasons.
I am intrigued with my co inhabitants and try to record glimpses of their lives in my paintings. There’s over 238 birds, numerous marsupials and reptiles here so it’s going to be a long interesting journey without leaving home.

Photographer: Debbie Dieckmann

Guuti

Artist: Grace Rosendale
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen print on linen, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Guuti is a series of large silica sand dunes. Behind it there is lagoon which holds sacred healing waters. It is an important place for the Binthi Warra people.

One time my father was working on a cattle station, when he became seriously ill. He couldn’t walk and everyone thought that he was going to die. The men had to go off fencing on the station. They had no choice but to leave my father behind. Before they headed off and said their goodbyes, my father asked them to take him to the creek behind Guuthi. The men then bathed him in the waters and then took him back to camp.

The men then headed off to work, they were not expecting to find my father alive on their return.

When the men returned to camp that evening, they were all happy and astonished to find my dad walking around.

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

Alice in the Antipathies: Shifting Sands (view detail)

Artist: Sasi Victoire
Artist Location: Clifton Beach
Medium: Mixed media on kawaad (artist book), 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 60 x 10 cm
Artist Statement:
Alice in the Antipathies has been created for projections for a cross cultural performance work of the same title to uncover the narrative of the Asian diaspora encountering various challenges to belong in Australia. This work promotes diverse narratives through theatre in regional Queensland for harmony and awareness raising.
The kawaad box is used as a story telling device based on the narrative of Alice in Wonderland to tell a migrant story.

Photographer: Sasi Victoire

CRESSBROOK DAM REFLECTIONS

Artist: Bruce Griffiths
Artist Location: KLEINTON
Medium: Watercolour on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 70 x 25 cm
Artist Statement:
A State of Diversity.
Toowoomba, a short drive to the sea, state capital & often parched farm land. Am I city, country, urban or coastal? Due to modern transport, I can identify with each. Toowoomba, the Garden City, but is that what we are?
Knowledge can only be volunteered; it cannot be conscripted. Knowledge passes from father to son, mother to daughter & in towns & villages. A region is rich that shares knowledge & diversity. Few people withhold knowledge if there is a real need. We tap live into a resource & the knowledge is accessed and revealed. Live knowledge becomes learned knowledge & practiced knowledge. Linking & connecting people is the key. A region is successful as we mix, merge & share our knowledge & skills.
We all unknowingly strive for this in commerce, sport & lifestyle that brings prosperity & self-worth for you, me & the region.

Photographer: BRUCE GRIFFITHS

Time for a Chat

Artist: Cindy Grimes
Artist Location: HANNAFORD
Medium: Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 46 x 61 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
Recent controversies like the vegan activism in feedlots sparked heated debates in regional Queensland. As an artist and observer, the line between extreme views and healthy diversity is not always clear. How do you know when you yourself cross that line? The farmers in Time for a Chat were once able to solve the world’s problems with a beer around the fire, but enough time given to listening? We all think and act differently. Does current debate over vegan activism, religious freedom, hate speech contribute to healthy diversity? How do we maintain our own values while still recognising respecting and encouraging those of others? Is there yes and no, right and wrong, or just a state of diversity?

Photographer: Cindy Grimes

Somerset Dam Wall, Birds Eye View

Artist: Shirley Henderson
Artist Location: CROSSDALE
Medium: Acrylic, graphite, ochre on board, 2019
Dimensions: 40 x 50.5 x 0.3 cm
Artist Statement:
I live in a place of natural beauty. I’m surrounded by trees, rivers and mountain ranges. Most local artists use this natural beauty as their muse. I wanted to show our landscape is more diverse than that.
The Somerset region has massive, intrusive, manmade structures that interrupt the natural beauty. Somerset Dam wall is one of those structures. A prominent reminder that man is powerful and can control the delicate nature of The Earth.
I used Somerset Dam water and soil from the banks of Somerset Dam, which I live on, to create the ochre.

Photographer: Shirley Henderson

Snap Shots

Artist: Kym Tabulo
Artist Location: MOOLOOLAH VALLEY
Medium: gicle print on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 40 x 80 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
The Sunshine Coast’s scenic diversity is a microcosmic likeness of the wider state of Queensland. It is abundant with a variety of unique natural and built curiosities that draw people to live or visit here. This work, Snap Shots, transforms several iconic landmarks of the region into hypnotic images, as a way to entice others to look into the work and appreciate the array of attractions in the area. The forty-five panels capture local emblems in a moment of time, from the bunya pines and Glasshouse Mountains, to the beachside pandanus palms and the Caloundra lighthouse. And last but not least, the Big Pineapple, presented in the final panel as if it is the punch-line joke of a comic book story, because it always makes me smile. Viewers are invited to create their own stories about the region or perhaps relive memories of a Sunshine Coast holiday.

Photographer: Kym Tabulo

The Glimmer of Moonlight

Artist: Lesley Shelley
Artist Location: BRIBIE ISLAND
Medium: Oil on aluminum, 2018
Dimensions: 73 x 58 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
I am fortunate to live at White Patch on Bribie Island, where coastal bush runs alongside
pumicestone passage. This painting depicts an area of bush at night, using an experimental process with a variety of ingredients. Oil paints because they lend themselves to being scraped and scratched with brush and knife; Wax because it gives fluency, Marble dust because it creates texture, plus silver and gold pigments to give luminosity. The challenge for me lies in the elimination and reduction of detail, so I can convey reality strongly, and without distraction. I add my experience as a dedicated artist and observer of nature to take the viewer into the essence of place, and see with fresh eyes, the bush in moonlight.

Photographer: Lesley Shelley

From Where

Artist: Jacqueline Sanderson
Artist Location: Coolum Beach
Medium: Acrylic and watercolours on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 62 x 60 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Jacqueline Sanderson is a visual artist who has lived on the Sunshine Coast since 2007. Nature, people, and domesticity inspire Jacqueline and she describes herself as an eclectic artist and maker whose artwork is meaningful and good-natured. Jacqueline paints, and creates artworks by reusing and transforming discarded and found objects from nature. The interaction of others in forming memories and identity are common themes she considers in her artworks.
As a painter, I am exploring my family’s migration on the Oriana from Sri Lanka to Australia in 1966, and I use the Coolum sky and sea as visual inspiration. “From where” is the voyage from one place to another via sea passage, where the elements not only dictate the nature of the journey, but also represent that which is shared between diverse people and lands.

Photographer: Jacqueline Sanderson

WE ARE ONE BUT WE ARE MANY

Artist: Sarah Larsen
Artist Location: Thangool,
Medium: Mixed media on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 94 x 120 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
On contemplation of the theme diversity, I was drawn to speak about the diversity of race and culture so prevalent in Australian society now.
I have chosen to depict the ‘hats we wear’ to portray this statement. They are balanced on a piece of dried timber and supported by the wide red land and our beautiful open blue skies.

Photographer: Sarah Larsen

Splash

Artist: Grace McClymont
Artist Location: DICKY BEACH
Medium: Mixed media on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 80 x 118 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
Places of natural beauty provide a setting for diverse groups of people to gather and embrace life side-by-side. In our area Currimundi Lake is one such location. Throughout the year the lake fills with people from all walks of life enjoying the many activities that it has to offer in the water, on the water, under the water, and around the water. New Australians who are daunted by the surf beaches, families with toddlers exploring sand and salt water for the first time are able to relax while confident swimmers drift on currents near the lake’s inlet. People in twos and threes planted serenely in the landscape talking, playing, building, resting. A beautiful oasis bursting with life and still peaceful. A place to be ourselves. Together.

Photographer: Grace McClymont

Shute Harbour: A Stunning View

Artist: Claudia Gray
Artist Location: AIRLIE BEACH
Medium: Acrylic on canvas board, 2019
Dimensions: 25.4 x 20.3 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
My “State Of Diversity” art piece, I painted three things:

*Seaview of Shute Harbour, Queensland
*Long-Fruited Bloodwood Tree
*Pretty Watty

Shute Harbour is one of most icon views in the Whitsunday, being a dead end street: I see a place of pure beauty.

Long-fruited bloodwood tree has a straight trunk. The outside of the bark is grey and the inside is red-brown. Interestingly, the grey bark is crumbly!

I choose to paint the wattle sticking out of the tree overlooking Shute Harbour. This is an ‘imaginary view of three items’ which I tried to capture (to me), it is the most beautiful view in the world.

The star of this painting is the wattle flower. It is very tiny around 3 cm in diameter. The flower is the most stunning bright golden-yellow round heads. Being so tiny, I think many people who visit Shute Harbour will not even notice it.

Photographer: Claudia Gray

“TOWARDS THE SUN”

Artist: Anne Pike
Artist Location: MERMAID WATERS
Medium: Textiles, 2019
Dimensions: 90 x 60 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
Expressing their way towards the sun, the pandanus, with their stout scarred trunks, present rough and warty exteriors. The stilt roots, anchored in loose sand, claw and struggle as they are smashed by strong winds and salt spray. They cling precariously off the point, whilst below, the barnacle and shell encrusted rocks, gather flotsam and weather the conditions. My textile work highlights these tactile organic forms and is inspired by the beauty of this southernmost Queensland beachpoint, frequently viewed from a walking trail wrapped around Greenmount Hill. The walkers, the surfers, the observers, the grinners, we are all celebrating the diverse aspect of the greatest bay in Queensland!

Photographer:

Islands In The Sun

Artist: Wendy K Ford
Artist Location: MACLEAY ISLAND
Medium: Paints, dyes and resist on silk, 2019
Dimensions: 45 x 61 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
Wendy paints on silks and textiles as The Silk Maid. After an exhaustive search she found her Utopia on an enchanting island. Dolphins, turtles, dugongs, stingrays and maybe even mermaids frolic in the emerald waters. Rainforests, sandy beaches, swaying palms, rocky foreshores and mangroves create a haven for wildlife and a diverse array of birdlife. Flowers and vegetables grow abundantly in the fertile soil. The ever changing colours of the waters, the glorious sunsets and the moonlight across the bay are an endless artists inspiration. At night the lights glow from boats in the cove as the beacons on the harbour blink red and green. In the far distance the lights of the mainland twinkle like a fairyland. The muse is never far away on this peaceful tranquil island. Nestled amongst a group of islands not far off the coast in this great and diverse State of Queensland.

Photographer: Wendy K Ford

Earth Soldier

Artist: Sian Medill
Artist Location: BIRKDALE
Medium: Textile, 2018
Dimensions: 90 x 90 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
My position held on Tamborine Mountain, feet grounded on mossy damp earth, ears attuned to the slightest rustle of leaves from a passing insect.
The moment of splendour broken only for a second, by the sharp clear sound of the Australian Whip Bird.
Easily regaining my concentration, accepting these sounds as a part of this serine moment.

Regarding the majesty of this living, structure before me. Beholding it’s entirety from ground to sky. Appreciating the intermittent shelter the leaves bring, from the scorching Queensland sun.

A moment to keep and to share, in my own way.
A brief moment treasured, for in a short while I will be back, back to the hustle and bustle, the diversity of the bright lights and chaos of the GoldCoast. Comforted only by the constant, deep, enthralling sound of the ocean, my next sanctuary to behold.

30,000 hand-cut and placed tiles, 30 fabrics used.

Photographer: Sian Medill

Floodplain

Artist: Louise Lawrence
Artist Location: longreach
Medium: Mixed media – acyrlic, oil and paper on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 75 x 75 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
‘Floodplain’ is a vivid depiction of inland Queensland after the floods. Flora and fauna lay hidden and dormant until the skies unleash their torrents into the Lake Eyre Basin. the dry red and brown earth is transformed with overflowing streams and creeks bring new life and vibrant colour, wildflowers and migratory birds. The materials used also reflect the flow of water through the landscape; oil and medium was poured onto the textured background. The biodiversity of the region is most evident during the time of flood when the land reveals its glory.

Photographer: Louise Jones

Baby Lady Apple

Artist: Esmae Bowen
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen printed ink onlinen, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
My artwork is inspired by the forms and colours I see in the environment and my love of plants. When you see plants and you’re so down and out the beauty of that plant can lighten your day. A flower can put a smile on my face for the whole day. My favourite flower to paint is the baby lady apples (also called bush apples) at the time just before the flower grows into fruit. Lady apples only fruit in the early part of the wet season, and I love to paint them so much because they remind me of my childhood Christmases spent down at the beach with my family, where we used to like to eat them with salt.

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

Wild Fire Legacy

Artist: Lesley Kane
Artist Location: MACKAY
Medium: Charcoal, 2019
Dimensions: 48 x 68 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Few blackened tree trunks were evidence of a shocking wild bush fire which devastated parts of the Pioneer Valley west of Mackay late last year. Previously a lush green sugarcane farming and rainforest landscape, the loss was felt throughout the community. Two weeks later, after rain, the scene changed again into a translucent lime green regrowth with only the remaining charred tree trunks as a reminder of the diversity of the elements.

Photographer: Artspace Mackay

The Ladder

Artist: Tarja Ahokas
Artist Location: NINDERRY
Medium: Acrylic on 2 canvases, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 80 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
State of diversity of our climate unites us in my community as it does across the country.
From extreme heat of our summers that can cause bushfires and drought to the rain events resulting in flooding and chaos.
The ladder in the painting symbolises the physical and emotional support which is offered to those who need it at any given time.

Photographer: Tarja Ahokas

“Mountain Aspects” (view detail)

Artist: Johanna DeMaine
Artist Location: LANDSBOROUGH
Medium: Porcelain, 2018
Dimensions: 15 x 11 x 11 cm
Artist Statement:
Mountain Aspects’ celebrates the sublime beauty of the Sunshine Coast Region where I live. The iconic Glasshouse Mountains are a constant source of inspiration as I am challenged and fascinated by constructing their narratives that transcend space and time. The mountains float in space just as do the sails which represent our beautiful beaches. Butterflies symbolize beauty, the soul and freedom in this context.

Many layers of collaged bespoke and self-printed decals, together with the use of layers of gold and raised enamels on wheel-thrown porcelain investigate this marriage of surface decoration and form to achieve an object raised to a higher level.

Photographer: Johanna DeMaine

Toyah loved sunflowers (view detail)

Artist: Moo (sam) Matthews
Artist Location: MOSSMAN
Medium: Ceramics, 2019
Dimensions: 17.5 x 26 x 26 cm
Artist Statement:
Toyah loved sunflowers.
And the colour orange.
And so, you just KNOW, that Toyah Cordingly must have been a sunny, joyful soul.
Not that I actually knew Toyah. Not many of us did.
But now we all know “of Toyah”.
Or we know someone that did know her.
And that is because Toyah went for a walk, with her dog, at her favourite beach, and a person or persons “unknown” , attacked her.
And killed her.
FNQ is not such a big place really. Lots of space, lots of diversity, but not that many people. So, if you didn’t know Toyah – it still feels like you could of.
And when something very bad happens where, when or to something very good, the contrast in extremes is unimaginably shocking.
The far north QLD community will never forget Toyah – it is the very least we owe her.
Sunflowers.
For Toyah.
Forever.

Photographer: Sam Matthews

SWEET LOVE AND THE BULLOAK JEWEL 2019

Artist: Lee FullARTon
Artist Location: BLACKSTONE IPSWICH
Medium: Acrylic and collage on wood panel, 2019
Dimensions: 25 x 25 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
Near the Darling Downs town of Leyburn is Ellengowan Nature Reserve a fragile habitat for the ancient Bulloak and the endangered Bulloak Jewel Butterfly Hypochrysops piceata.

It is a nature story of complex relationships of diverse and endangered species only found in Queensland. My favourite part of this ecological story is the exchange of sugary delights for protection and guidance between the Bulloak Jewel Caterpillar and an undescribed ant, Anonychomyrma sp.

Reviewing the work of Entomologist, Dr Don Sands in conservation of this rare and tiny butterfly, led me to an artists expedition to discover the last place of the Bulloak Jewel in paint and paper.

Photographer: Lee FullARTon

Belonging Through Diversity

Artist: Tharusha Dias Mendis
Artist Location: BEECHMONT
Medium: Silk stich and ink on silk, 2019
Dimensions: 38 x 107.5 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
The mystery of this mountain is too beautiful, too powerful and too inexplicable for words. This is an unassuming mountain that holds all her living beings in her dreaming. She accepts every living thing in it’s entirety, whether it’s a native, weed, farm produce, wild animal, farm animal, local, visitor or immigrant.

She is the mother who holds us rooted in what is beautiful, what is true and connected to our own essence. Therefore diversity in this mountain is intentional, never insisted but a natural part of belonging. In this mountain nobody is superior, nobody is inferior and most importantly nobody is equal either. In this mountain everything is unique and incomparable hence everything contributes to their potential to life. She helps us remember our way and liberates us to be naturally wild. Her magic, mystery, whispers and secrets keeps us mountain folk forever in wonder.

Photographer: Tharusha Dias-Mendis

Timepiece (view video)

Artist: Bianca Tainsh
Artist Location: WEYBA DOWNS
Medium: Video, 2019
Dimensions: variable
Artist Statement:
Bianca Tainsh is a socially-engaged artist based on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Through a process of research and reflection Bianca’s projects explore the existential and biospherical dilemmas of contemporary life, creating works in a variety of media that often invite interaction, and audience or community participation.

In her video Timepiece Bianca merges the diversity of natural and human histories that weave together to create the unique and captivating cultural landscape of Lake Weyba on the Sunshine Coast. By recounting these histories, and her own experiences, Bianca hopes to inspire people to consider how their lives effect the lives of other current and future Queenslanders, and the incredible diversity of creatures who also inhabit this sacred landscape.

Bianca holds a 1st Class Honours Degree from RMIT University, and studied Arts & Community Engagement at the VCA. She has exhibited in solo and group shows, and participated in international residency programs.

Photographer: Bianca Tainsh

Moolin Rouge

Artist: Sammy Meurant
Artist Location: Cunnamulla
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 80 x 1.8 cm
Artist Statement:
This painting represents the State of Diversity by using the colourful cow to symbolise the unique and diverse, people and personalities that are within our regional areas. I grew up in a regional city and moved to a small, rural, agricultural town in SW QLD. This very colourful cow represents the fun and colourful personalities I have come across which make Queensland great.

Photographer: Samantha Meurant

The rich and the poor

Artist: Jenny Foxton
Artist Location: HIGHFIELDS
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 92 x 25 cm
Artist Statement:
My semi-abstract work reflects very diverse Queensland landscapes. ‘The rich and the poor’ symbolises the layers of complexity within any environment – conflict between nature and humans, between conserving and consuming.

I have used colour and horizontal layers to symbolise the verdant rich farming lands and rainforests close to the Queensland coastline, juxtaposed with the ochre and red soils found inland in the South Burnett and Darling Downs.

My works reflect not only the rich colours of our diverse environment but the deep layers of human’s relationship with our landscape, both in harmony and in conflict with nature.

Photographer: Jenny Foxton

Yarrun

Artist: Gertie Deeral
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen printed ink on dupion silx, 2018
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
This is my fabric of “Yarun” which means “wattle” in my Guugu Ymithirr language. When you see that the wattle seeds are in bloom in this area, it is a special time of year. You know that the sea foods are ready to go – the crabs and the prawns are fully grown and ready to catch. The fish, sea urchin, oysters, even the turtle are fat and really yummy. We don’t know what time of year it is but we just look at the wattle in bloom, then we know!

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

Swimming Upsteam

Artist: Jacqueline Sanderson
Artist Location: Coolum Beach
Medium: Pastel on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 69 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Jacqueline Sanderson is a visual artist who has lived on the Sunshine Coast since 2007. Nature, people, and domesticity inspire Jacqueline and she describes herself as an eclectic artist and maker whose artwork is meaningful and good-natured. The interaction of others in forming memories and identity are common themes she considers in her artworks.

For the theme ‘State of Diversity’ I studied two women from different cultural backgrounds, one Sri Lankan, one Vietnamese who developed a unique friendship after meeting each other in their workplace on the Sunshine Coast. Together their friendship supports them both through joyous and difficult occasions, times when they liken their lives as two salmon swimming upstream-thus becoming their mantra. ‘Swimming Upstream’ is a celebration of female friendships and cultural diversity on the Sunshine Coast.

Photographer: Jacqueline Sanderson

Remnants

Artist: Kate Douglas
Artist Location: MOORES POCKET
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 76 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
This land adjoins a new housing estate in Ipswich. I live nearby and love this view, but eventually it will be cleared as well. Ipswich is a rapidly growing area, with huge tracts of farmland and bush being bulldozed and transformed into suburbia. Like many parts of South East Queensland, remnants of nature are replaced by concrete, tiles and colorbond fences.

The UN-backed IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, released in May, directly shows the impact of biodiversity loss on the future of humanity. It concludes environmental decline is “unprecedented” with around one million plant and animal species already facing extinction unless immediate action is taken.

In response, this landscape is layered with motifs of nature – patterns found on feathers, fur, scales and wings – patterns of the creatures who live here. In the name of progress, the future of their habitat is uncertain.

Photographer: Kate Douglas

Anthe (view detail)

Artist: Jo Male
Artist Location: Mt Mellum
Medium: Mixed medium, 2019
Dimensions: 22 x 17 x 2.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Anthe gets her name from the scientific name for corals, Anthozoa.
Though a piece of wearable art, she also represents the diversity of the Sunshine Coast.
Recycled fishing line, netting and a single tarpon scale represent commercial and recreational fishing industries.
A small piece of pumice stone collected off Shelly Beach stands in for the Glasshouse Mountains and the long history of the area.
Banana fibre twine symbolizes our local farming industries.
Twisted and coloured recycled fishing twine represents the foam and surf along the coastline as well as our tourist industry.
A small shell and driftwood represent our sea life and reefs.
Pale blue plastic and seed beads represent all the people who live, work and play here.
Tendrils of fine, twisted fishing line are reminiscent of the hidden dangers in our seas. In this case, the small and difficult to see Irukandji jellyfish.

Photographer: Jo Male

FESTIVAL FOOTHILLS WOODFORDIA

Artist: Deann Cumner
Artist Location: VIA MALENY
Medium: Tar shellac and oils, 2018
Dimensions: 50 x 100 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
This Dyptch represents a wonderful festival Woodfordia , held twice a year , literally just down the mountain from my farm at Booroobin.
The music festival is a vibrant , colourful and fantastic event where everyone just has fun !
This work is my interpretation of this amazing time in our local area……. the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.1750

Photographer: Deann Cumner

Ghosts of Forest Fallen

Artist: Shannon Macdonald
Artist Location: BLACK MOUNTAIN
Medium: Acrylic on board, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 90 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland certainly is the State of Diversity and whether I am close to home or exploring places near and far I find myself touched by the limitless beauty to be found in our many and diverse environments. From the “picture perfect” beaches and lush rainforests of the coastal fringes to the vast expanses of the outback – red dirt and blue sky. The greatest shame is to find those spaces where diversity is being lost to development and to witness the degradation and feel the sense of loss in the shadows of what once was.
“Ghosts of Forest Fallen” is a reflection of an area in which I walk daily where huge trees have been cut or fallen leaving ghostly spaces amongst the re-growth – where light filters through the remaining tall Blue Gums to forest floor, creating a mosaic of texture, colour and light.

Photographer: not applicable

Determination

Artist: Grant Quinn
Artist Location: Bundamba
Medium: Photography, 2019
Dimensions: 55 x 55 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Nothing shows more diversity than man-made and natural environments. The diverse elements of the two sometimes collide to make up the environment and communities that we live in. As cities and towns slowly spread out its urbanisation we are losing our beautiful and diverse flora and fauna. However, in some cases, our flora and fauna adjusts and evolves to survive in man-made environments. In this image I have capture a Fig Tree with its roots desperately clinging to the side of a brick wall. It is determined to survive in this cold hard eco system. The sprawling roots, twisted branches and minimalist leaves combined with the painted brick wall and cement edging create a stunning picture telling a story of determination and a will to survive against all odds.

Photographer: Grant Quinn

Castle in the Sky

Artist: Sandra Ross
Artist Location: GYMPIE
Medium: Mixed media on hal, 2019
Dimensions: 107 x 78 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Mothar Mountain rockpools, Amama waterfall and the birthing pools of Mary’s Creek are some very special places around me. Drawing and walking through these places has provided me with a repertoire from which to imagine world within worlds.
Human existence is threatened due to global heating.
My work shows a seedy heart shaped landscape geminating, carrying DNA into a hopeful future, yet fortified to protect its inhabitants. Rocks bleed watery tears, roots tangle and entwine, searching for new life.
The earth may lie dormant, chrysalises will metamorphosise, new life will prevail, however, for now, we cannot foresee the future and are floating like a castle in the sky.

Photographer: Sandra Ross

Top of Town – Ipswich

Artist: Glen Smith
Artist Location: BUNDAMBA
Medium: Mixed Media – collage, 2019
Dimensions: 90 x 60 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Brisbane Street Ipswich, “Top of Town” precinct has been home to my business for 11 years. With the theme of diversity for this exhibition I couldn’t go past what this street offers. Within 200 metres of my shopfront you can find such a diverse range of businesses, from op shops to high fashion, food banks to fine dining, Tattooist to Art Galleries, barbers to Day Spas and other retailers. Due to this wide range of shops it attracts a diverse clientele. We get every one from those who talk about themselves to those who talk to themselves, the window shoppers, mums dads, fashion icons, people trying to make a quick buck, the unfortunates and the wealthy. All which makes my day interesting and the not knowing of who will enter my door. In this artwork I have tried to capture the diversity of the people that I deal with daily.

Photographer: Glen Smith

Self Portrait (view detail)

Artist: Amanda Bennetts
Artist Location: POMONA
Medium: Glass, MRI, LED and metal, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 50 x 50 cm
Artist Statement:
As an Artist with Multiple Sclerosis, I have explored the diverse elements of my identity now that I live with a disabiltiy. My self-portrait is not a literal representation of myself, I am letting the viewer into my psyche, my ecosystem and allowing them to see the unseen, in a very vulnerable and personal manner. I have been stripped bare. I am unable to disconnect identity from disease and it is the slight information on the MRI’s that will show the viewer that this artwork refers to the past and present with boiling flasks bridging the two together symbolising that I have not resolved my identity crisis, I have cut it up, thought it through, rearranged it and although as the colours in the flasks are becoming clearer it is still unresolved. The sci-fi aesthetics of the artwork minismises the subject to a scientic specimen rather than a human being.

Photographer: Amanda Bennetts

Victoire_Origins (view detail)

Artist: Sasi Victoire
Artist Location: Clifton Beach
Medium: Mixed media, 2018
Dimensions: 30 x 60 x 10 cm
Artist Statement:
This work outlines the cultural beginnings and origins of a family as diaspora in their movement and settlement in Australia.This work is used as projections for a collaborative cross cultural performance work Alice in the Antipathies.

Photographer: Sasi Victoire

The Teachers

Artist: Dale Leach
Artist Location: Doonan
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 91 x 91 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
This painting was inspired by two art groups I was tutoring.They were a wonderfully diverse lot of characters who had lived extraordinary lives both overseas and here in Australia, and they brought that richness of experience into their artwork. They had a range of skills from advertising, farm business and life experiences and also a great desire and curiosity to learn more. They were generous with their encouragement of one another and were willing to share their expertise. I came to learn a lot from them. I also ate some wonderful home made cakes and slices and drank the odd cup of tea. I loved their good humour and the room was always full of laughter.

Photographer: Dale Leach

Resource Removal (view detail)

Artist: Rose Rigley and Pamela Kusabs
Artist Location: WHITFIELD
Medium: Sculptural assemblage (paper, mixed media, copper wire), 2019
Dimensions: 14 x 68 x 12 cm
Artist Statement:
The artist considered the theme ‘State of Diversity’ both geographically and psychologically. The resulting artwork was an exchange between two different individuals, with empathy, trust and an understanding of another’s location, the key to the collaborative outcome. Destruction or preservation became an integral part of creation, as each artist contributed to the beginning or end of the structure. Strategies of how to respond to ‘the object’, to letting go of concrete connections to place, and to the production of a’cohesive’ visual language were explored in the undertaking. Collaboration – a quite wonderful and intriguing process – has, at its foundation, the ideas of diversity and compassion.

Resource Removal focuses on the environment and the impact of human inhabitation.

Photographer: Michael Marzik

Wet Tropics Bio-diversity – The Gift

Artist: Buck Richardson
Artist Location: Kuranda
Medium: Photography/Digital Art on aluminium composite, 2019
Dimensions: 95 x 80 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
Tropical North Queensland has two hot spots of bio-diversity, both World Heritage listed: the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. In Wet Tropics Bio-diversity – The Gift I have used many of my original images of moths, beetles and shield bugs that were captured on countless field trips over the last decade with my friend and colleague, internationally renowned entomologist, Dr David Rentz AM. Our trips have traversed Tropical North Queensland from Cooktown in the north, to Chillagoe in the west, and south to Chartres Towers. My passion is both art and science. I first identify the insects scientifically by family, genus and species and then use them as elements in digital designs. Their astounding colours, shapes and patterns give me endless hours of creative enjoyment. The bio-diversity of the Wet Tropics is truly a gift.

Photographer: Buck Richardson

Maramaka

Artist: Madge Bowen
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen print on linen, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
I always like to paint my traditional homeland of Bulgan (Kings Plain). I feel a deep spiritual connection to my land, and the sacred sites on it, including the plants and the animals. Maramaka is a kind of fig tree that grows in Far North Queensland, and there are lots of them on my homeland. I love to paint them, because even though my family no longer live my land, when I see one, I feel that deep connection to Bulgan.

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

One Square Mile: District of Diversity

Artist: Christine Brassington
Artist Location: Via Helidon
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 30 x 7.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Carpendale is a little more than “One Square Mile” – blink and you’ll miss it – but if you take the time to look, you will see diversity in the bush and the cultivation: a landscape of many colours that change through the day, the seasons, and the crops; red bottlebrush mark the course of Flagstone Creek, yellow wattle mark the season. Among the wildlife that reside here are wallabies, possums, echidnas, snakes; a big green frog lives in the post of my carport; pelicans visit regularly, but a black swan is an extra special treat. I moved a turtle off the road the other day; when we were kids we said turtles meant rain – I hope so! – but it takes a big flood to bring the platypus down the creek. I marvel at the multitude of birds – they’re my go to procrastination and favourite soundtrack.

Photographer: Christine Brassington

Overflow IV

Artist: Michelle Black
Artist Location: ZILZIE
Medium: Unique state intaglio print. Oil-based ink on cotton rag paper, pigment pen., 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 113 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland is a state of diverse weather patterns. From droughts that cover the majority of this vast state to desert and frosts, drenching rains, tropical cyclones, and expansive floods.

Rockhampton has been subjected to many major floods. After a flood, a sticky, oozing, acrid black mud remains in the low-lying areas of Rockhampton.

Huge quantities of sediment are lost downstream, flowing to the ocean during times of flood. A series of unique state prints has been created using this river sediment in the printing matrix, textures and flows of mud recording environmental processes in ink. A length of the Fitzroy River is over-printed, just a small portion of the vast catchment area of the Fitzroy Basin.

Photographer: Michelle Black

Country girls

Artist: Mary Mackenzie
Artist Location: YUNGABURRA
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 62 x 77 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Two little country girls dressed in beautiful party dresses appear to grow like flowers out of an unlikely landscape.
Despite the incongruity of their clothing in such a setting, the girls seem happy and relaxed among the spinifex and rocks . . . and does this setting perhaps increase our pleasure in viewing the girls? It does for me, and I recognise how diversity enhances, brings a freshness to an image and to our way of seeing.

“All art is at once surface and symbol . . . It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital”.
Oscar Wilde

Photographer: Murray Anderson Clemence

Naked Gardening 3

Artist: Emma Thorp
Artist Location: DUNDOWRAN BEACH
Medium: Acrylic and coloured pencil on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 67 x 49 x 0.2 cm
Artist Statement:
Growing up in the barren and dry western suburbs of Melbourne and uncomfortable with my own body, I never would have imagined a day when I was wondering naked in a jungle like garden.
For the last 6 years I have lived just outside Hervey Bay, surrounded by old growth, thick greenery and air that just makes you want to breath deeply.
My lush garden, complete with bandicoots, monitors, pythons and possums, enables me to celebrate and accept myself in this beautiful little part of Queensland.
Naked gardening is an international day to celebrate gardening and the joy it brings. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it is mine.

Photographer: Emma Thorp

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Artist: Vivienne Bryant
Artist Location: NAMBOUR
Medium: Acrylic, 2019
Dimensions: 31 x 91 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
I first arrived in Queensland from England in 1994.
Everything was so different and I loved it.
One thing that really struck me was the different styles of houses.
In England, large housing estates are filled with houses of only three or four different styles, but in Queensland, the system is totally different.
People buy a block of land and then choose a house to build on it, resulting in a great diversity of house styles made from a range of different materials.
Early settlers built Timber cottages, but in the 1960s, Brick became the building material of choice.
Now, Cement sheet has replaced Weatherboard, and Steel replaced Timber in house frames.
New homes are being built at a great rate, but sadly there still are many people who have no home, and sleep rough each night.

Photographer: Tony Bryant

Community Contrast

Artist: Linda Forrester
Artist Location: STRATHDICKIE
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 45 x 60 x 1.8 cm
Artist Statement:
Our suburbs and houses can take on a familiarity that can become monotonous, yet each home is subtly different and each house contains unique individuals. Unique in race, ethnicity, skill base, socio-economic status, physical abilities, age, religious and political beliefs, or ideologies. Each person surrounds themselves with others who compliment them and share their culture, creating their own unique jewel within their community.

Each culture is deserving of understanding, acceptance and respect and can be shared, encouraged and celebrated. We are the diverse communities of Queensland.

Photographer: Linda Forrester

Mangrove Mafia

Artist: Fiona Groom
Artist Location: Ninderry
Medium: Acrylic, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 120 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
Life on the Noosa River is always changing, so taking a rest, soaking up the warm sun and just hanging out with your friends is not only traditional with us humans, but very much enjoyed by the local bird inhabitants. This painting conveys a sense of River life, a sense of comradery, peacefulness and a feeling of the river flowing, rising and falling weaving its way out to sea… River life is in constant flux as these birds go about their daily lives we the viewers get to witness the beauty and diversity that life on the Noosa River gives us every day…
Mangrove Mafia… Noosa River Locals

Photographer: Fiona Groom

Tree of Knowledge

Artist: Jennifer Redmond
Artist Location: Highvale
Medium: Acrylic/Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 30 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
The ancient pine tree in my garden is “The tree of knowledge”
having witnessed the development of the area from settlement to to-day.
The land where the tree stands is at the headwaters of the South Pine River and at the base of Mt. Nebo and Mount Glorious. Returned Soldiers from the First World War were given holdings here and began tilling and working the land. The diversity which began with the soldiers has over time changed to the now settled area of Rural Suburbia. This is still an area held dear by the community and where there is a huge involvement with local issues within a caring environment.
The old pine tree has witnessed it all and stands tall and proud with the knowledge of the diversity of change from the past to the present.

Photographer: Jon Linkins

BFF

Artist: Craig James
Artist Location: GLADSTONE
Medium: Digital pigment photograph on Chromajet Centurion Metallic Pearl Photo Paper, 2019
Dimensions: 89 x 61 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
My Gladstone based arts practice explores a close human-animal and technological relationship between a service/assistance dog named Ruby and myself. Diversity has reached into every facet of our lives as we learn how to care for each other in unusual circumstances. Examples of this human-animal and technological relationship include Ruby adopting digital strategies to stream her own YouTube clips or partake in video calls, support networks that are contactable 24/7, an online university degree, robotic surgery, medical appointments using Skype, the list is endless.

Instead of isolating us from the Central Queensland Region, a diverse digital realm has allowed us to slowly but surely begin to connect with others, not only locally but throughout the entire state. “Best Friends Forever” (BFF) offers not a dysfunctional life but one that is enriched by thinking outside the box – we both have embraced diversity and found a contemporary way of wellbeing. WOOF!

Photographer: Craig James

Blending in Trees

Artist: Jane Milliken
Artist Location: UPPER FREESTONE
Medium: Textile, 2019
Dimensions: 34.5 x 26 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Blending in Trees shows the stalwart traditional merged with artistic personality. I have hand-stitched antique & vintage textiles blended with my own botanical dyed prints. It is a euphemism for blending of differences between artists and farmers in our small city of Warwick. There has long been a struggle for acknowledgement from the artistic community for recognition of quality in their diverse art practice, yet by and large are ignored in the community as not important. Our community relies on the thriving farming way of life, many of us living on the land, or are deeply influenced by the land. Rural cultural differences is something we understand, if it cannot be harvested or milked what is its use? Our Chamber of Commerce are building bridges across the differences, creating an alliance for all to shine, so we appreciate all, erasing discrimination built up over the years.

Photographer: Jane Milliken

Red Natal no.1

Artist: Jenny Neubecker
Artist Location: Waterloo
Medium: Graphite, pastel and collage on archers paper, 2019
Dimensions: 80 x 30 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland’s varied landscapes lay the foundation for a wide range of grass species. One species, common in coastal areas, is Red Natal. As graziers we value it for the contribution it makes to biodiversity on our property. As an artist I am inspired by the structure of the delicately, fine, feathery seeds that form in clusters on the heads of grass. En masse, paddocks of Red Natal swathe the landscape with rich burgundy reds that provide a striking contrast with neighbouring green pastures. Early stages of seeding produce rich, dark glossy red seed heads that fade to a soft pink as the seed heads mature, then are carried away in the wind.

Photographer: Jenny Neubecker

Head in the Sky

Artist: Beatrice Prost
Artist Location: TINBEERWAH
Medium: Hand carved unique original print on aluminium ed 1/1, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 50 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
I am fascinated by the residual pockets of subtropical rainforest that still exist on the hinterland of the Sunshine coast. Those are so fragile survivors of a distant past now surrounded by Eucalypt forest and grazing lands. Using a monochromatic “Willow Pattern” blue design I hope to infuse a sense of attention to protect those remaining green islands of diversity. But above all, “Head in the Sky” glows and enchants us with its complex patterns of extraordinary generous abundant life.
Bridging the gap between the digital and material world, I design images based on my own photographic material. I carve the physical print by hand creating original bold contemporary artworks. Those irreversible marks vary from deep grooves to shallow etches on the surface. I work on paper or in this case on aluminium exploring a surreal often monochromatic world to transport the onlooker into a dreamlike reality.

Photographer: Beatrice Prost

Milky Way

Artist: John Williams
Artist Location: Gununa, Mornington Island
Medium: Acrylic on belgian linen, 2019
Dimensions: 101.5 x 101.5 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
This is the Milky Way with Emu, Kangaroo and Crocodile – doesn’t matter where we are in Australia, or who we are in Australia, we are all seeing the same Milky Way.
Up here on Mornington Island we get good night sky and can easily see the Emu, Kangaroo and Crocodile and we know that when we are looking up then a whole mob of other people are looking up too and each of them is seeing the same things in their own way.

Photographer: John Armstrong

Lake Mackenzie (Fraser Island, Queensland)

Artist: Elena Suto
Artist Location: Regents Park
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 91 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Lake McKenzie is located on the beautiful Fraser Island and has been referred to as ‘Eden’ like by many of the visitors that have visited this stunning part of the Island. With clear blue waters ringed by pure white sand and fringing Blackbutt forest, Lake McKenzie is Fraser Island’s premier visitor site. This perched dune lake is one of the island’s most picturesque freshwater lakes which piques interest for many travelers. Lake McKenzie is a must visit the location which is absolutely amazing. Fraser Island is listed as one of the 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Australia.

Photographer: Elena Suto

Cairns central

Artist: Michael Daly
Artist Location: SOUTH MISSION BEACH
Medium: Poster Ink on synthetic paper., 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 84 x 0.1 cm
Artist Statement:
If you want a snapshot of cultural diversity visit your local food court. You might be eating sushi next to a family member dining on hamburger, curry or kabab. Chances are they will be having a vegan salad and you might opt for your coffee on almond milk…or not. If you are in Cairns during winter you will hear accents from Europe, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, New Zealand, and Victoria. The people are all ages talking loud on their phones, not talking at all on their phones. Eating food, playing with food, complaining about food. Over-dressed, under-dressed, working, not working, crying, laughing or default frowning. You will even see yourself walk past…oh wait that was a reflection in the cake display.

Photographer: Michael Daly

The Tale Ends (view detail)

Artist: Rose Rigley and Lorraine Lamothe
Artist Location: WHITFIELD
Medium: Concertina book, 2019
Dimensions: 12 x 40 x 16 cm
Artist Statement:
The artist considered the theme ‘State of Diversity’ both geographically and psychologically. The resulting artwork was an exchange between two different individuals, with empathy, trust and an understanding of another’s location, the key to the collaborative outcome. Destruction or preservation became an integral part of creation, as each artist contributed to the beginning or end of the structure. Strategies of how to respond to ‘the object’, to letting go of concrete connections to place, and to the production of a’cohesive’ visual language were explored in the undertaking. Collaboration has, at its foundation, the idea of bringing diversity together through compassion.

‘The Tale Ends’ is a reminder that our diversity is reversed through our mortality.

Photographer: Rose Rigley

Solastalgia

Artist: Bodhi Del Mar
Artist Location: MUDGEERABA
Medium: Archival 300gsm cotton rag photograph, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 48 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Nowhere is Earth’s current 7th mass extinction more apparent than The Great Barrier Reef. The science predicts a catastrophic 95 percent loss in biodiversity on the reef by the end of the century due to rising sea temperatures, increasing ocean acidity, pollution and over fishing. It is an environmental crisis caused solely by the pervasive anthropocentric notion of our human supremacy.

Painting the natural world directly on the human body allows me to explore the concept that we are indeed neither superior nor separate from nature. And if there is to be any hope, we need to heal this dire disconnection.

Photographer: Bodhi Del Mar

Please look after me

Artist: Gen Anderson
Artist Location: Cairns
Medium: Digital painting printed on archival paper with pigment ink, 2019
Dimensions: 42 x 59 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Our Barrier Reef is a most valued natural environment, which is interrelated with all other eco systems. We SO need to look after all our diverse life forms.

Photographer: Gen Anderson

Windy day at the beach

Artist: Charlene Attard-Slack
Artist Location: Mackay North
Medium: Mixed media on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
An important part of my community is beach culture. ‘Windy day at the beach’ depicts my two young children immersed in the sun, and oblivious to the wind as they engaged in play. I recall as a child, special days at the many beaches in the Mackay Region and the immense fun to be had chasing waves, building sandcastles, finding soldier crabs, exploring rock pools and discovering all living creatures I could find. Protecting the ecology of our beaches is more important now than ever and whilst this artwork captures only a brief moment in time for its subjects, I hope that the darkening clouds in the sky and blurring of the dunes serves to remind us all of the preciousness and need for preservation of our beach locations for future generations of children to explore, discover and enjoy.

Photographer: Charlene Slack

Hedlow Creek, west – grazed wetlands

Artist: Veronika Zeil
Artist Location: ROCKYVIEW
Medium: Acrylic onboard, 2019
Dimensions: 47 x 91 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
This painting depicts the aerial view from Mt Hedlow north of Rockhampton, documenting the highly fractured and extensively grazed nature of that landscape in minimal, expressive style emphasizing diversity of this ecosystem as well as extensive land-use. This marine plane consists of Hedlow Creek, tiny remnants of original melaleuca and blue gum woodlands, areas of ponded pasture and isolated islands of volcanic plug-mountains.

The Hedlow Creek wetlands are essential for bird breeding, provide a nursery area for fish species and freshwater and marine life, are recharging the water table, and are a cattle-grazing area.
Wetlands are vital for capturing freshwater flows and recycling sediments and nutrients before they enter estuarine systems, inshore waters and the Reef. The future prospects for the Fitzroy basin depend on the ability of people to ensure finding a balance between land and water use, and ecosystem health.

Photographer: Veronika Zeil

Host i

Artist: Donna Davis
Artist Location: DEEBING HEIGHTS
Medium: Pigment print onto fine art rag, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 40 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
This work plays with the idea of the biological host; exploring the complex relationship between human and nature with respect to maintaining our ecological diversity.

Here the floral emblem of my home-town Ipswich, the ‘Plunkett mallee’ simultaneously presents an image of hope and despair; inviting the viewer to question their own ecological truth.

Plants are intrinsic to the health of our planet, yet one-in-five plant species are vulnerable to extinction. By losing plants from their natural environment we are adversely affecting the state of diversity, upsetting the natural balance for all dependent organisms.

Not only are plants key players in helping mitigate the climate crisis but they are also working, under stressful conditions, to provide habitat, food and oxygen; supporting multi-species diversity, including the human.

Which leads me to ask, what is our role? What type of Host are we to our local diversity?

Photographer: donna davis

Landscape

Artist: Hannah Parker
Artist Location: HOLLOWAYS BEACH
Medium: Etching, 2019
Dimensions: 53 x 39 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
This work is a print of a series of etching plates. I am exploring how line, colour and shape tell the story of our environment. Thinking about land, sky, water and sea; our interaction and interference with our environment; and the history it created by us and by natural forces.

Photographer: Hannah Parker

Mystical Night in Paronella Park (North Queensland)

Artist: Elena Suto
Artist Location: Regents Park
Medium: Oil on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 51 x 76 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Paronella Park comes alive in the evening with floodlit lights and waterfalls, and beautiful mysterious music.
Paronella Park was built by Jose Paronella in 1930 and was open to the public in 1935. A visit to this lovely place located in Germantown (the Cairns region), will earn you an insight into the story behind the castle-like buildings, the family history of the past owners, an adventure around the park at night, a chance to feed and view all of the fish in the lake and a piece of the building as a keepsake of your visit. Paronella Park is a one of a kind magical location with a rich past which deserves to be seen and heard. Regular cyclones and floods may one day totally destroy this piece of history to ensure that you visit it before it disappears forever.

Photographer: Elena Suto

Burleigh headland

Artist: Terrence Martin
Artist Location: BURLEIGH HEADS
Medium: Digital, 2018
Dimensions: 60 x 83 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
The surf culture is part of Qld Gold Coast and what better than the burleigh headland . The rock formation immortalised in the Dreamtime storey of jabreen the spirit who legend has it swam to the horizon from the headland and on returning raised his hands and created the headland we see today .

The headland in turn helps create the swell sets that surfers enjoy to this day .

Photographer: Terrence Martin

Fallen Stick #1

Artist: Julie McEnerny
Artist Location: EDGE HILL, CAIRNS
Medium: Watercolour pencil on Arches 300gsm, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 35 x 0.2 cm
Artist Statement:
Microcosms of industry, that’s what I see on finding one of my ‘sticks’. I can go weeks without yearning for another but when I do it’s always there somewhere, overloaded and fallen from high in the paperbarks. This one supports a mixed bag of companions. Along with tiny mosses, lichens and fungi there’s Dischidia, the button orchid, and holding centre stage Queensland’s own ant plant (Myrmecodia beccarii). Here’s where the diversity of life forms supported by this host gets really, symbiotically interesting! There’s a beautiful relationship going on between that spiky bulbous epiphyte, the industrious ants that live inside and a small butterfly called Apollo Jewel who allows them to take care of her eggs.

Predominantly a drawer, I enjoy the direct contact between medium and ground. I choose watercolour pencil for its immediacy and all-round versatility when rendering small scale natural forms.

Photographer: Lee Middleton, Highscan

“One Size Fits”

Artist: Kerry Williams
Artist Location: WEST MACKAY
Medium: Textile and acrylic paint on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 57 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
In Mackay we celebrate our diversity and proudly wear it like a crown. A simple crown made from the rich gifts our residents contribute. People from every corner of the world have chosen this beautiful city as home. They share their culture and intertwine our ways of life with theirs. We have a connectivity to each other and our local landscape that runs deep.

The blue adornments honour our blue river, the ocean, reef and clear skies of tropical Queensland. The deconstructed fabric and crown shape illustrates the cyclical nature of assimilation and acceptance; new people coming, being accepted, more people coming and being accepted. Through acceptance we’re building this whole amazing, wonderful culture, that’s based on our diversity. We are truly fortunate to have the beauty, strength and simplicity of truly connected communities in Queensland. Ultimately our’State’ of diversity unites us.

Photographer: Kerry Williams

Gloria Arrow

Artist: Janet Ambrose
Artist Location: SARINA
Medium: Charcoal on linen, 2019
Dimensions: 80 x 80 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
This is a portrait of Gloria Arrow who is a descendant of Natafilinga (Katie Marlla). Natafilinga was blackbirded from her island home of Oba, Vanuatu to Queensland in 1875. Katie, as she was later known, was put to work in the cane fields at age 15.
I explore the human face of the South Sea Islander community, identifying and understanding the unique differences of their culture and of adaptation in the removal from their homelands and life in their new land.
South Sea Islanders are part of the Australian cultural landscape.
Rendered in charcoal on linen, Gloria’s portrait shows her strength and resilience which I believe has been handed down from her great grandmother’s philosophy of, “Never look back, always forward.”

Photographer: Janet Ambrose

Heart Reef Love Birds

Artist: Maureen Riggs
Artist Location: BURNSIDE
Medium: Oil, oil pastels, oil wax glazes on 100% cotton canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 120 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
Theme ‘State of Diversity’

Heart Reef is a heart shaped coral bommie located in Hardy Reef 60 kms from the mainland, Whitsunday Islands QLD. The funny thing is Heart Reef was only officially discovered 1975. Since then this diverse formation of living coral colonies has become world famous and is an iconic tourism marketing phenomena. Many people have taken wedding vows standing in the sand in the centre of this fascinating reef structure.
For me personally Heart Reef resonates as the very heart of the Great Barrier Reef the largest living organism on our planet.
The Red Tailed Tropic Birds spend most of their lives at sea. The male and female mate high in the sky just as I have depicted these two courting above Heart Reef. They can be found nesting on remote coral caye islands scattered all over the Great Barrier Reef system.

Photographer: Maureen Riggs

Meganoton rufescens

Artist: Therese Flynn-Clarke
Artist Location: BANNOCKBURN
Medium: Mixed media, hand stitching, eco dyeing, 2018
Dimensions: 75 x 55 x 0.02 cm
Artist Statement:
I have long had a moth obsession creating named species in 2D and 3D form for many years. Meganoton rufescens is a moth from the north Queensland region and references the story of the first 6 years of married life living in the Cairns region and the birth of our first child. I loved the diversity of the plants and insects so different from anything I’d known growing up in NSW. I had also taught on Thursday Island and the children introduced me to the native almond and its’ edible seeds. Today I have a native almond growing in my backyard in Logan. The leaves have been eco-dyed and hand stitched onto the mixed media background. 30 years of marriage this year and a long connection to the diversity of plants and insects in Queensland symbolised in many layers within this artwork.

Photographer: Therese Flynn-Clarke

Brigalow Creek

Artist: Marvene Ash
Artist Location: MALENY
Medium: Oil on belgium linen, 2018
Dimensions: 100 x 80 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
My present home in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland is situated within a landscape of bold greens and rolling hills whilst my original home on the Southern Darling Downs is characterised by nuanced colours and vast horizons.

As a painter of both these environments I am drawn, not only to the climatic and topographical differences of these diverse landscapes, but also to the differing psychological and emotional reactions that they effect.

Between the dark, powerful trees of the coastal rainforest and the ragged, enduring gums along Brigalow Creek an opportunity arises to explore the ways in which the painting of landscape can also be an exploration of one’s self in relation to the natural world.

Photographer: Jonathan Davies

Broken Gully

Artist: Pamela Walpole
Artist Location: Sunshine Beach
Medium: Mixed media on stretched canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 110 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
After the storm the farmer (bottom right hand corner) inspects his property – the red soil is soaked and will replenish the land, but farm implements lie scattered, signs dislodged – fences damaged – livestock to be found and an uprooted crossing now lies along a once dry creek bed.
A country life is hard work!

Photographer: Pamela Walpole

Fractured Landscape

Artist: Andrea Baumert Howard
Artist Location: EASTERN HEIGHTS
Medium: Junk mail, newspaper, egg carton, office paper, recycled craft paper pulp, 2019
Dimensions: 34 x 50 x 0.3 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland is a state of enormous potential. We have natural resources we don’t value enough, and getting to the resources that hold value to mega corporations means destroying large tracts of the natural environment.
What has been done to the state in the name of progress and chasing the almighty dollar is shameful.
We are in danger of loosing the very diversity that makes up our home. The coastlines, rainforests, deserts, grasslands, big skies will be swallowed up by pollution, the creatures that live there pushed to extinction.
I have used a variety of recycled papers to create my landscape in paper pulp. Junk mail, newspaper, egg carton, office paper, recycled craft paper make up the body of the scenes.

I want to highlight the fragility of our environments with the fragility of the handmade paper and express my sorrow over what humans have done to our state of diversity.

Photographer: Andrea Baumert Howard

Out of the Blue

Artist: Karen Stephens
Artist Location: WINTON
Medium: Acrylic on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 20 x 29 x 3 cm
Artist Statement:
Boulder Opal with its dominant flashes of brilliant blue, is found deep underground at Opalton near Winton Queensland. Once an inland sea, the gem has been luring diverse nationalities since the late 1800s. Boulder Opal is unique to Winton making this remote region a state of diversity.

My painting is from a larger collection of recent works made in Winton about the coloured gem. I liken my practice of a landscape painter to the work of an opal miner – long hours in solitude and a belief in finding richness. There is this daily repetitive search, a type of chipping or scraping away and often I come home frustrated and empty handed. The prospect of finding wealth in this way is reflected in the eyes and words of the wider public which contain a tinge of madness.

But then sometimes I strike it lucky – I am fishing for landscape.

Photographer: Karen Stephens

Red Thread

Artist: Janine Delgos
Artist Location: GYMPIE
Medium: Mixed media on board, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 23 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
Biodiversity is the thread that encompasses a large variety of all living things; the different plants, animals and micro organisms, the genetic information they contain and the ecosystems they form. We are all connected to this thread no matter how minute or diverse. How important is that thread? Extremely important!!! Australia’s biodiversity is under increased threat and has, overall, continued to decline. A small step towards maintaining a thread for me is the ability to express my passion for our precious environment and collect, document and record places I visit and create, in-situ, small artworks that reflect the diverse fragments in those spaces. Whether it be sketching, painting, rubbing, smudging, collecting, photographing or just sitting in these places, I maintain the thread.

Photographer: Janine Delgos

‘Them Cheeky Cockatoos are Back Again’

Artist: Jassy Watson
Artist Location: INNES PARK
Medium: Ink drawing, acrylic, oil and hand torn collage on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 60 x 90 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
From the ever changing landscape of red dirt and cane, to the remaining pockets of ancient swamplands, onto sand and sea the Bundaberg region is rich in diversity. There are many characters, people and places that iconically represent this area, but when I thought about my connection to this place it was the landscape and bustling birdlife that stood out. My favourite time of year is when the red breasted black cockatoo comes from out West to the coast during the dry season seeking food. Watching them frolick and carry on in their large flocks is a wonder to behold, they really are cheeky characters. This painting is inspired by an area close to Moore Park Beach where they gather in their hundreds in Autumn, it is a rare sight to see. The painting was created with ink, acrylic & oil with each bird a hand torn piece of collage.

Photographer: Jassy Watson

Coastal sea life

Artist: Susan Lhamo
Artist Location: TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN
Medium: Acrylic paint on stretched linen, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 100 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
In this artwork “Coastal sea life” I am reflecting on a range of memories and experiences of coastal rock pools in South Queensland. These amazing diverse habitats, quite like microcosms of a larger ocean ecology, have long been places to explore and enjoy. The environment of such pools where ocean meets shore, has a complexity due to the meeting of these two extremes. I’ve employed abstracted motifs and forms to convey the diversity of sea creatures found in such pools. Shape, colour, textural brushwork and paint application serve to enhance the richness of these forms. A spacious quality allows the eye to move around the work, hopefully allowing the viewer to enjoy the flow of colour, movement of water, and to have recollections of their own experiences.

Photographer: Susan Lhamo

In the Shallows

Artist: Christine Grubb
Artist Location: Monto
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 41 x 51 x 1.5 cm
Artist Statement:
This piece started out as a simple abstract background that I was experimenting with. I was going to paint over it, but someone insisted I leave it. I left this painting sit for about 4 to 5 months looking at it occasionally wondering if I could use it for something else. The more I looked at the marks in the background, the more I started to cultivate a story and scene in my artwork. I could see calm water in the foreground and rolling mountains in the background. I sometime sit in the mornings watching out into the paddocks of our farm, where I often see egrets at the dam.

This is why I developed my artwork into an egret, adding that extra layer to an otherwise bland painting. The abstract and realistic collide in this piece to represent the diversity of nature and life on our farm.

Photographer: Christine Grubb

Memories of Sadako

Artist: Scarlet Burke
Artist Location: BRASSALL
Medium: Digital photograph of acrylic sheet, baking paper, plaster wall, 2018
Dimensions: 30 x 30 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
I recently went on a research trip to the Old Woollen Mills in North Ipswich as part of an exploration of local architecture, a place of rich history, cultural diversity, What was once a bustling mill, producing wool for Australian and allied troops for blankets and uniforms, providing income for local working-class people, is now reduced to crumbling decay. The decay is reflective of the war in which the wool was utilised most effectively. Interestingly, there is a lot of high-quality graffiti and street art covering walls, some of which include origami paper cranes. These paper cranes reminded me of Sadako, the little girl who developed Leukemia after the bombing of Hiroshima in WWII and whose mission was to make 1000 paper cranes as a symbol of peace. This artwork is a reflection on the diversity of people utilising the Mills over time and the impact of war.

Photographer: Scarlet Burke

In a flurry

Artist: David Graham
Artist Location: BUNDABERG
Medium: Digital print, 2018
Dimensions: 70 x 45 x 0.1cm
Artist Statement:
I photographed this local ballet dancer using a long exposure while dragging the zoom to emphasise movement as she seemingly defied gravity in her movements.

Photographer: David Graham

Their Story, My Story (view video)

Artist: Belinda McGrath
Artist Location: ROCKHAMPTON
Medium: Carbon paper monoprint animation, 2019
Dimensions: 0 x 0 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Their story, My Story is the account of how my grandparents met.
My grandmother was the daughter of a Scottish illegal immigrant who served in the British Army in WW1, and for Australia in WW2. In her early years she lived with her parents in a tent in a small Queensland town called The Willows. When times were more financially stable, they moved to a house in North Rockhampton- next to a train line.
In 1942 my grandfather, the son of an English immigrant mother whose bank book listed her occupation as ‘married’ and listed no financial transactions, just recipes, travelled by train to his training after his enlistment in the Australian Army.
As the troops were transported by rail, the nearby residents would throw them books to occupy them on their journey. My grandmother threw in a book with her name and address inside, my grandfather caught it.

Photographer: Belinda McGrath

Street Theatre

Artist: Erin Dunne
Artist Location: THE RANGE
Medium: Hand-stamped lettering and ink on paper, mounted on foamcore, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 95 x 2.5 cm
Artist Statement:
This work encapsulates a broad selection of the diverse qualities and elements that represent life in Rockhampton from my perspective. Over the past few years since moving back to the area, I have adopted the position of participant-observer of the rituals, routines and rhythms of life here, allowing me to notice and record moments that resonate with a poetic or lyrical quality, as well as encounters with the humorous, surreal, strange, and emblematic. The written imagery and figurative language within this text-based work are a poetic distillation and synthesis of the written, drawn and photographic documentation that I have been collecting, adopting an ongoing and informal phenomenological research methodology. The text was produced by hand using a stamp set purchased from a local op-shop in Rockhampton, creating a free-form poem that can be read horizontally, vertically, in fragments or in its entirety to create an open-ended narrative of place.

Photographer: Erin Dunne

Representing Fieldwork (no. 1) (view video)

Artist: Alinta Krauth
Artist Location: WITHEREN
Medium: Digital animation, 2018
Dimensions: Variable
Artist Statement:
This digital video artwork represents a culmination of research performed by the artist into how climate change is impacting the diversity of animal life on our planet. Taking a wide series of examples, from wild horses in New Zealand, to bats in Germany, to Alpine Lizards, the artist explored how scientists are recording and analysing the reduction of diversity of nonhuman life due to climate change.

In order to create this video, the artist has made over 1000 hand-drawn images that represent this diversity of life and the struggles they are having. These images were then fed into a digital generative system. What results is a collaborative cacophony between artist and computer that hints at the confusion and struggle that our nonhuman kin face in an era of human monodominance.

Photographer: Alinta Krauth

Grevillea – New Blossoms

Artist: Julie Hollis
Artist Location: Highland Park
Medium: Acrylics on double thick gallery wrapped canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 61 x 61 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Julie has totally fallen in love with the Australian native flora in her area of the Gold Coast. She frequents the Botanical Gardens in Benowa and loves to take lots of photos of the amazing and diverse collection of flowers.
This particular Grevillea is from her own back yard and Julie loves the fact that this plant attracts Bees, Lorikeets,Parrots, Honeyeaters and various other bird life as well as Butterflies.
Julie considers herself so lucky to live in an area where such a diverse range of flora and fauna exists happily together and she has easy access to them to record their beauty on canvas.

Photographer: Julie Hollis

and will the blue skies go on forever? (view detail)

Artist: Barbara Stephenson
Artist Location: TOOWOOMBA
Medium: Textiles – quillie standing wool rug, 2019
Dimensions: 47 x 66 x 10 cm
Artist Statement:
In a world drowning in waste, I use rejected woollen blankets to create art. Woollen fabric is often discarded for modern materials made of micro-fibres which harm many creatures. And as our country heats up the need for cosy wool decreases. Layers of colour strips are coiled and twisted. I love the way different combinations create new colours but remain harmonious.
My piece celebrates the diversity of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs with its endless blue skies and clouds so close it seems you could touch them. We have rainforest in the Bunya Mountains and Eucalypt scrub on the Range, with farming on the rolling plains in between.
The looming world climate crisis challenges the diversity of human and natural resources. Hopefully between us, we will find a sustainable balance.
But will the blue skies go on forever? Now is the time to put Blue Sky thinking into action.

Photographer: Brian Kenny

Colours of my soul

Artist: Yvonne Moloney-Law
Artist Location: BONDOOLA
Medium: Intaglio print on Hahnemuhle paper, 2018
Dimensions: 59 x 83 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
‘From my view placed upon the ledge of Capricorn, a place diverse with cyclones, floods & endless days of searing humidity, rich with miles of skies and ancient mountains, framed by afternoon sunsets and rolling thunderstorms fetched by scorching summer glares. My memories gaze toward the lands of my youth, echoing sun-drenched fishing holidays on tropical islands. These are the colours etched to my soul’.

Photographer: Yvonne Moloney-Law

” GLADFIELD COUNTRY “

Artist: Colleen Gardener
Artist Location: HARRISVILLE
Medium: Oil, 2019
Dimensions: 30 x 66 x 2 cm
Artist Statement:
This particular valley along the Cunningham Highway at Gladfield ,draws me back time and time again to stop and paint. Its diversity of terrain and colours, sorrounded by drought stricken holdings with their burnt earth tones, to the lush green terraced crops of the Millers Valley, irrigated by the Glengallon Creek and backing on to the Taylor Range, sets this oasis apart, not only with the diversity of crops and colours but the in your face, emotional aspect of how life is dependant on the creek waters. The valley supports, a dairy industry, horse studs, broad acre farming and a thriving tourism industry.

Photographer: Colleen Gardener

Paradise Revisited

Artist: Jennifer Ryan
Artist Location: CAPTAIN CREEK
Medium: Digital collage, from my own acrylic paintings, 2019
Dimensions: 29.7 x 18.1 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Jennifer M Ryan creates art for herself, that reflects on, and reveals aspects of life. When creating this digital collage her motivation was the personal cost of living in the pristine and private community of the Discovery Coast, Queensland .
An untrained artist, Jennifer was moved to create art when auto-immune diseases affected her movement. Her preferred style, for digital art, is to combine her acrylic/oil pastel/water colour/pen and ink works to create digital collages.
Paradise, tyranny, conflict and perfection:
1. Isolation in Paradise. Blue: surrounded by clean oceans and bright skies.
2. Tyranny of Distance. Yellow: mine site uniforms, Vs sunsets and coastline.
3. Tyranny of Caring. Grey: the opposite side of the paradise coin – obligations and responsibilities for protecting turtles and maintaining the pristine environment.
4. Conflicts in Paradise. Purple: the constant reevaluation of the practicality of living in paradise.

Photographer:

My Grandmother’s Country

Artist: Agnes Kohler
Artist Location: Gununa, Mornington Island
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 120 x 101.5 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
My Grandmother’s Country is on the back of Main Base at Bentinck Island – this is where the sun rises and the sun shines on all of us no matter where we come from and who we are.

Photographer: John Armstrong

Summer Wind (view video)

Artist: Kirsty Lee
Artist Location: TOOWOOMBA
Medium: Digital video loop, 2019
Dimensions: variable
Artist Statement:
Both captivated and confused by the landscape of a small town on the outskirts of Toowoomba, Goombungee, Lee resolves her understanding through the camera. Imbued with colour, speed, repetition and form, signature to that of her video work, ‘Summer Wind’, is an undeniable mirror of Regional Queensland. The deep crevasse within the land, the human form draped in plastic, an unharnessed wind flickers like a mirage through the blades of a windmill. The gusto of the wind like that of its community; unrelenting. Although dry and mute in its tone, ‘Summer Wind’ is softly hypnotic in its repetition. the images read of drought and harsh landscape, but our mind has time to wander to the possibility of change and sustainability. Accompanying this visual work is an aural exploration of the landscape. Found sounds of the windmill, water, birds and wind have been fragmented and looped.

Photographer: Kirsty Lee

Wuguulmba

Artist: Dora Deemal
Artist Location: HOPE VALE
Medium: Screen print on linen, 2019
Dimensions: 120 x 100 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
This is my fabric of Wuguulmba – which are sometimes called ‘Saddle Palms’. They grow on the banks of the McIvor River in far north Queensland, which is where my ancestral home of Binthi Warra is. I paint the trees and plants that grow around my homeland, as I find them beautiful and I believe that through drawing and painting the unique plants and flowers that grow on my homeland, I can pass on the cultural knowledge of the land and maintain the cultural connections that my family have to Binthi Warra.

Photographer: Melanie Gibson

website in my garden

Artist: Tony Alston
Artist Location: RAILWAY ESTATE
Medium: Acrylic on paper, 2019
Dimensions: 54 x 42 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
as well as queensland being a state of diversity; my raggle taggle garden is in a state of diversity – some might say uproar

however I thanks the spider web for its beauty & functionately

Photographer: ANTHONY ALSTON

Squatters and Broken Songlines

Artist: Barbara Scott
Artist Location: CABARLAH
Medium: Wet felt and needle felting using wool and other fibres, 2019
Dimensions: 112 x 64 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Queensland State of Diversity
This new ‘unchartered’ inland beckoned them,so up and over the mountains they came.
At One Tree Hill (Tabletop Mountain), Multuggerah and his tribes fought hard to drive them back. He fought for 15 years but still the squatters came with their guns, tools, sheep and cattle.
Their tools drained ‘The Swamp’ and Toowoomba was built. Bit by bit they moved further afield across the fertile Darling Downs.
The land that Multuggerah once knew now changed; paths previously trodden were fenced, waterholes now drained, fire once used now uncontrollable and land once harvested now cultivated.
My archeological dig of the Darling Downs today exposes a diverse mix of country and city dwellers, farmers and graziers, industry and land care and slowly Multuggerah’s song-lines once broken, now resurface.

Photographer: Barbara Scott

Microcosm

Artist: Amanda Dickson
Artist Location: MAROOCHY RIVER
Medium: Oil paints on canvas, 2019
Dimensions: 76 x 76 x 3.5 cm
Artist Statement:
I fell in love with the Great Barrier Reef years ago when I lived on Heron Island. My family and I continue to visit the reef almost every year, soaking up its vibrant beauty, above and below water. Snorkelling leaves me marvelling at the abundance of life around me, knowing I am only viewing a tiny part of the colossal 344 400 square km (70million football fields!). My painting highlights the extraordinary magnificence of the vast sprawl of the reef formations, although it depicts just a microcosm within the vast macrocosm. The viewer is invited to contemplate the beauty and immensity of this living entity which supports the highest diversity of life in any existing ecosystem. I hope people appreciate what a privilege it is to have this natural wonder of biodiversity at our doorstep, and understand it is our duty to protect it.

Photographer: Amanda Dickson

Serpentine

Artist: Alana Read
Artist Location: CAWARRAL
Medium: Watercolour on Arches cold pressed cotton rag 300gsm paper, 2019
Dimensions: 36 x 51 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Near threatened, the “Pimelea Leptospermoides” shrub can survive only in the Serpentine Rock endemic to the Cawarral and Marlborough areas of Central Queensland, Australia. The opportunity to showcase this rare and uniquely Queensland plant located in my home town inspired me deeply. Through my chosen medium of watercolour, the fluid lines of the plant and accompanying rocks were conveyed in a sympathetic way. The colourful green and orange Serpentinite has distinctly dark textural lines, which I painted using my fingers and nails, by scratching and smoothing the wet paint across the paper. This cohabitants’ scene reflects the marriage of the lines and colour shared by the two in the artwork and also in the real life relationship between plant and its host in its natural environment. Endangered; Endearing; Enduring.

Photographer: Alana Read

The Jazz Singer and The Magician

Artist: Daniele Lamarche-Sarvia
Artist Location: CLONTARF
Medium: Watercolour and mix media such as oil and graphite on cotton rag paper, 2018
Dimensions: 74 x 100 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
Diversity for me is primarily human because I am not only a visual artist but also an anthropologist inspired by the people surrounding me.
“The Jazz Singer and the Magician” illustrates our present pluralism, our youth and their aspirations. The faces divided in two and toned differently represent humankind.

What I like about my work is the interplay of watercolour’s fluidity and the gestural mark on paper making it quick, vibrant and challenging.

I also create individual paper grounds for each subjects emphasising the improvisation effect creating works that are original and free.

My unique style allows viewers own interpretation because the viewer’s interpretation of my art is as valid as mine since it is about them and me being part of them as a human being.

Photographer: Daniele Lamarche-Sarvia

Diffraction (view detail)

Artist: Alinta Krauth
Artist Location: WITHEREN
Medium: Digital mixed-media, 2019
Dimensions: variable
Artist Statement:
Drawing on the artist’s experiences as a digital-practitioner and nocturnal mammal surveyor in rural Queensland, ‘Diffraction’ is an interactive experience for mobile touchscreens that fosters playful aesthetic engagements between the user and nocturnal wilderness environments. In order to interact with the artwork, it requires the user to perform often surrealist, creative, or humorous tasks while outside in the dark, in order to allow for new understandings of nocturnal nonhuman others that they may come into contact with (animal, plant, and dark place).

Through this interactive artwork that includes animation, text, interaction, time, place, light, and sound, the artist hopes to question how we interact with diverse nonhumans in Queensland. Animals/plants in Queensland are currently experiencing an escalating extinction rate, and as such, it seems increasingly important to change our way of thinking about ‘diversity’ from human-centric, towards multi-species sociality, where the diversity of our animal/plant kin is celebrated and protected.

Photographer: Alinta Krauth

Bluefaced honey eaters

Artist: Debbie Dieckmann
Artist Location: MILLMERRAN
Medium: Watercolour, 2019
Dimensions: 55 x 45 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
I have been a creator all my life being raised in the bush by my mother who was an artist. I began my artist endeavours by painting and then created using different mediums for several years .In the last 6 years I have returned to painting and mixed media but in the last 10 months I have found a passion for watercolour and the wildlife in my bush community. For me watercolor best illustrates the fragility and subtly diversity of the bush, be it’s colours, delicacy of birds or fauna. Bush diversity is everywhere and is often overlooked as its subtle and changes with the seasons.
I am intrigued with my co inhabitants and try to record glimpses of their lives in my paintings. There’s over 238 birds, numerous marsupials and reptiles here so it’s going to be a long interesting journey without leaving home.

Photographer: Debbie Dieckmann

In Flight (view video)

Artist: Gavin Lewis
Artist Location: EAST IPSWICH
Medium: Digital video, 2019
Dimensions: variable
Artist Statement:
In a recent flight to central Queensland I found myself transfixed by the diversity and complexity of the landscape.
Layering images one on top of the other reflects the different textures of the earth, the airplane itself becoming almost animal-like as it plunges towards its destination.

Photographer: Gavin Lewis

Breath from the Eastern Views

Artist: Rosie Lloyd-Giblett
Artist Location: NOOSAVILLE
Medium: Ink, watercolour , graphite in paper, 2019
Dimensions: 78 x 100 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
I live on the Sunshine Coast and regularly work plein air. I created this image from Lowes Lookout at Coolum. I was looking at the view towards The Noosa National Park. I am a regular visitor to the National Park and I enjoy exploring the tracks on foot and often lug my long board surfboard to Granite and Tea Tree Bay to surf with my teenage daughters.

The views from the water give one the sense of isolation, wilderness and the glorious feeling of freedom. The ecosystems within the park are so varied you can experience the shaded rain forest, peeling paperbarks and then walk towards Sunshine Beach and discover abundant Banksia shrubs. Natural spaces ares worth protecting for future generations to enjoy.

Photographer: Tonia Cecil

Community Flight (view detail)

Artist: Genine Cullen
Artist Location: DOONAN
Medium: Animal skins, feathers, glue, 2019
Dimensions: 50 x 110 x 5 cm
Artist Statement:
Tawny Frogmouth wings gathering animal spirits both native and from foreign shores… symbolic of the diversity of wildlife within Australia now. The wings are a unique patchwork blend… the death of the night bird by car has its spirit reborn with the help of python, wolf and bear…

Photographer: Genine Cullen

The Great Barrier Reef Bio-diversity – Pisces (view detail)

Artist: Buck Richardson
Artist Location: Kuranda
Medium: Photography/Digital Art on aluminium composite, 2019
Dimensions: 100 x 120 x 25 cm
Artist Statement:
Tropical North Queensland has two hot spots of bio-diversity, both World Heritage listed: the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. In The Great Barrier Reef Bio-diversity – Pisces I have used many of my original images of fish, including sharks, taken at the wonderful Cairns Aquarium to create a 3D wall hanging. The foreground has line and swivels to make the suspended individual fish move with every zephyr of air caused by the viewer moving in front of the work creating the illusion of fish swimming and darting. While the Cairns Aquarium gives a preview of the myriad diversity of the wonders of Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef for able swimmers, for those who must stay out of the water, it provides an exciting and immersive experience. Persistence is the key to achieving presentable images of the fish as they are usually in constant motion. But what an exhilarating challenge!

Photographer: Buck Richardson

Same, Same but Different (view detail)

Artist: Kate Roberts
Artist Location: IPSWICH
Medium: Perspex,copper, timber, resin, clay, plaster, concrete, 2019
Dimensions: 10 x 15 x 15 cm
Artist Statement:
Diversity – a range of different elements, materials, ideas and interpretations.
We, as people, are all the same on the inside yet so different on the outside, the same can be said for each of our own communities – same basic structure yet so diverse in what can be found in each town, city and community. Without the different people, groups and activities, which meet our unique needs and interests – there is no complete and harmonious state.
This work has a simple message, we are the same yet different: represented here by the same shape each made from different materials sitting harmoniously together.
The ideal state to be – same but different – the simplicity is in acceptance!

Photographer: Berlin Photography

At Play (view detail)

Artist: Debbie Chilton
Artist Location: IPSWICH
Medium: 3D mixed medium, 2019
Dimensions: 29 x 26 x 21 cm
Artist Statement:
Assisting the community to be inclusive of diversity. When working with children I use the image of the scarecrow, a character traditionally used in storytelling to represent low intelligence or lack of wisdom. You would want a scarecrow to play with fire would you?Recently I completed an artist in residency at a local kindgarten. As a person living with disabilities I am often misunderstood, but I also help form the fabric which makes our communities in Queensland function. I made a scarecrow with the children to assist me to break down the barriers between myself and the kids, The children choose to place the scarecrow by their raised garden beds.My sculpture contains an image of kids and their teacher, the hats represent the different cultural backgrounds of the children in attendance and the leaves the diversity found in the kindy environment.

Photographer: Deborah Shaw

Too much, too little, we are all at the mercy of water.

Artist: Emma Ward
Artist Location: GRACEMERE
Medium: Graphite, chalk, watercolour and ink on watercolour paper, 2018
Dimensions: 38.5 x 57 x 0 cm
Artist Statement:
Inspired by a recent walk through the Rockhampton Botanical Gardens I discovered a path that winds closer to the road, there is a fence covered in ‘flood weeds’ a regional term for plants that have been uprooted and deposited as the flood waters carry debris which gets caught in the barbed wire fences. A poignant discovery, as the last flash flood was in 2017 and these remarkable waterlily remains were still clinging happily to the fence! In my mind, they were an example of the diverse and difficult nature of our landscape. As we constantly rotate through extreme changes in our weather conditions, experiencing years of drought, then bushfires, to extreme flash flooding, the landscape itself has adapted to take on the same personality as it’s people; tough and tenacious, we are all at the mercy of land in which we live, we ebb and flow depending on the weather.

Photographer: Emma Ward

Five Shells (view detail)

Artist: Michelle Gray
Artist Location: EMERALD
Medium: Handblown glass, displayed on beach sand., 2019
Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 8 cm
Artist Statement:
Our beautiful state presents us with a wonderous diversity of natural treasures. I have chosen to represent the delicacy and diversity of nature in our sunshine state by creating these hand blown glass shells. No two are identically duplicated – such is the cleverness of diversity in nature. There are so many different species of shells in our waters, of which we are lucky enough to be offered a few precious samples onto our stunning and various beaches.

Photographer: Michelle Gray

Opalus

Artist: Michelle Kennedy
Artist Location: CABARLAH
Medium: Acyrlic and aerisol on canvas, 2018
Dimensions: 76 x 101.5 x 4 cm
Artist Statement:
Having lived in remote western Queensland, Opalus was inspired by the amazing colour of the the western red hills, white gums, pebbled riverbeds & vastness ~ the diversity of environment & landscape of our state. Named Opalus, as much of the opal deposition is a conglomeration of vastly diverse volcanic product, and formed by water, silica from sandstone, decomposing fossil and other earthen sediment, formed over a longtime and deeply affected by wet and dry periods. It strikes me that the opal is a visual metaphor for Queensland, representing the diversity of colourful environments, climates, landscapes & peoples particular to each area of our beautiful state. Each opal, recognisable as such yet unique in its colour, personality and origin, yet non the less a Queenslander.

Photographer: Michelle Kennedy

Woven Together as One

Artist: Gail Meyer
Artist Location: NORTH ROCKHAMPTON
Medium: Watercolour on paper on board, 2019
Dimensions: 42 x 29 x 1 cm
Artist Statement:
‘Woven Together as One’
It is a big State of excitement and assorted adventures.
The remoteness of the outback could be calling with lyrical images of dry red sandy plains, bush pubs and country hats instead of city briefcases. As well, bushland will beckon, with its differing associated range of wildlife.
A variance could be the distinctive ecosystem of wetlands and unique array of creatures including the crocodile.
The warp and weft of environmental and regional differences has to include the verdant, moist rainforests beaches that hold back the coral studded ocean.
My approach to such contrasts has been to paint the many differing visual narratives including the Queensland Emblems; Brolga, Blue Sapphire, Cooktown Orchids, Koala Anemone Fish. These were fixed onto a backing and topped with a rough weaving together of strips of watercolour images that loosely form the cross on the State badge

Photographer: Gail Meyer

Dusty Cattle Yards

Artist: Lynelle Urquhart
Artist Location: Southwood
Medium: Digital photography, machine stitching & pastels, 2019
Dimensions: 21 x 28.5 x 0.3 cm
Artist Statement:
The old – cattle in the yards stirring up the dust, with the new – me on my mobile phone taking photos, checking for messages & looking at emails. Running a farm business office whilst doing cattle work on our mixed grain & cattle farm at Moonie on the Western Darling Downs. Queensland and Queenslanders are a diverse lot, comfortably mixing traditions with new ideas and just getting on with it!

This image mixes digital photography, edited & printed at home on fabric, sewn on my machine to highlight the steel yards, then drawn on with pastels. Trying to capture the incredible light of the afternoon.

Photographer: Lynelle Urquhart

People's Choice Voting: Queensland Regional Art Awards 2019

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Adult Category

Spring flower garden

Old Hope Vale

ars longa, vita brevis

‘Presence to absence: from flood to fire’

Lean Out and Dance

A Loganholme Queenlander

Red Natal no.2

Catastrophe

Embracing Azariah

Lunch Mates

Elements Of Time

Parrot #1

A Home for Birds

Cactus Garden

Rayan Isme

my father grew roses(Download Artivive to activate augmented reality in artwork)

Journey Through The Playground (view detail)

Terra

Magic at the Beach

Mob on the Move

Little fishy mandala

Whispering Sands, Elim Beach.

Bucket & Spade

Fairy Tree

Pareidolia Landscape

Hanging out the clothes

Nasturtium

Hello Sunshine

Sun Harness (view detail)

Whitehorses and casuarinas on the estuary

The Alice Hart Portrait

Sunset over Canaipa Passage

LETS FACE IT TOGETHER

Crying Art

Garden Party

Shed of all Trades

Golden Hues

In the Check Out Lane

Opalton to the Ocean – It’s a bloody long drive

Mulgaland

Garden Feast

Honeymoon Bay (Moreton Island, Queensland)

Traversed

Rubric

A Thousand Flowers

Food Frenzy

Crazy weather we’ve been having

SCRIBBLY GUM WILD LIFE

Wetlands Dry

Twist (view detail)

This Too Shall Pass

No. 10 (Noosa River)

Afternoon Sonata

Inclusive Diversity

Wild Panorama 1

Looking for a drink

Guuti

Alice in the Antipathies: Shifting Sands (view detail)

CRESSBROOK DAM REFLECTIONS

Time for a Chat

Somerset Dam Wall, Birds Eye View

Snap Shots

The Glimmer of Moonlight

From Where

WE ARE ONE BUT WE ARE MANY

Splash

Shute Harbour: A Stunning View

“TOWARDS THE SUN”

Islands In The Sun

Earth Soldier

Floodplain

Baby Lady Apple

Wild Fire Legacy