David Jensz, Hold, 25 x 25 x 20 cm, stone, mild steel, Photo: Grainger Gallery.
Once upon a time, the land was viewed as something to be exploited purely for economic gain, until it became increasingly barren and uninhabitable.
Today, many farmers on the land have turned to regenerative farming practices that involve a more holistic land management approach, and that seek to restore soil health, improve biodiversity and boost ecosystem resilience. Done properly, it can also boost farm profitability.
A number of these regenerative farmers have banded together to form the ‘Earth Canvas’ group, where the farmers invite artists onto their properties for a short-term residency, where the artists can witness the benefits of regenerative farming practices.
Gill Sanbrook is one of these farmers. Her 950-hectare property, ‘Bibbaringa’, north of Albury, runs between 300 and 600 cattle on native and improved grasslands.
Kim Mahood, Patchwork 4, 76 x 56 cm, pastel and oil pastel on paper, Photo: Grainger Gallery.
Four artists, Linda Dening, Kim Mahood, Sally Simpson and Wendy Teakel, accepted Sanbrook’s invitation and, in October 2024, spent a week at Bibbaringa. The exhibition at Grainger Gallery represents some of the work inspired by this experience.
For me, the biggest surprise was with the work of Kim Mahood, an artist and writer based in Wamboin, on the outskirts of Canberra, with a national reputation.
I normally associate Mahood with the desert landscapes of Central Australia and her ‘cross-cultural mapping’ projects in which she bridges the gap between Indigenous and settler Australian histories.
In this exhibition, her large pastel and oil pastel drawings, including the Patchwork aerial drawings and those of fence lines and dams, radiate lush greens and burst with fecundity. They are rich, sonorous works of dazzling beauty.
Linda Dening, Guardian, 180 x 114.5 cm, charcoal and pastel, Photo: Grainger Gallery
Linda Dening has a series of charcoal and pastel drawings of trees, clumps of vegetation and a characterful portrait of a dog, titled Guardian.
Sally Simpson continues to work with charcoal on drafting film to create delicate drawings, including Cast Shadows, that speak of grace and majesty and capture that rare moment when forms emerge and then seem to melt into space. It is a celebration of the ephemerality of being.
Sally Simpson, Cast Shadows, 115 x 53 cm, charcoal on drafting film, Photo: Grainger Gallery
Wendy Teakel’s large body of work in this exhibition builds on her decades-long practice of rural imagery, which is somewhat abstracted and in a subdued palette, employing charcoal and pokerwork to create subtle designs.
Some of her most adventurous pieces in this show, including Soil Matrix, employ charcoal and pastel on the fine, quite thick Japanese kozo paper. There is a wonderful sense of floating depth as the artist plays with different perspectives and different perceptions of space.
Wendy Teakel, Soil Matrix, 140 x 97 cm, charcoal and pastel on kozo paper. Photo: Grainger Gallery.
A highlight at the Grainger Gallery, in an exhibition away from the main event, is David Jensz’s Art Rocks.
Jensz, who lives in Murrumbateman, near Canberra, is one of Australia’s most respected veteran sculptors who, with an exceptionally fine sense of craftsmanship and transparency of means, transforms known materials into completely new and startling manifestations.
Pieces at this exhibition, including Perimeter, Curl and Hold, take a river stone, add steel or lead to it, to create a completely new entity that possesses a new sense of order – a natural sense of order that suggests it could have existed forever.
The works are immaculate, startling and possess the quality of refined beauty frequently laced with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour.
David Jensz, Perimeter, 28 x 37 x 40 cm, stone, mild steel, Photo: Grainger Gallery
The newly created objects play with the warm sensuousness of the smooth stones and the slightly aggressive spikiness of the steel protrusions, creating new, somewhat enigmatic objects. The viewer greets these objects with surprise, humour and delight as if some sort of mysterious dreamscape has come to life.
Both the Staying with trouble and Art Rocks exhibitions speak of a veneration of nature and promote the idea that if you are kind to country, then it will reward you with endless bounties.
David Jensz, Curl, 28 x 29 x 12 cm, stone, corrugated iron, Photo: Grainger Gallery.
Staying with the trouble – Regeneration and David Jensz – Art Rocks are now on display at the Grainger Gallery, 1/34 Geelong St, Fyshwick, until 3 May, Wednesday to Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm.
