To celebrate the 10th annual Jungle Chalet Art, Craft & Watergarden Exhibition, this year the exhibition is being held on 3 weekends in September. It is a regular feature in the Lane Cove Cameraygal festival & also in the Open Studio Weekend in the Willoughby Spring Festival. This event is an opportunity for local artists to showcase their artworks alongside a selection of national & often intenational artists, in a unique rainforest environment. It will be officially opened on Friday, 10th September, by the local State Member of Parliament, who is also Shadow Minister of the Arts, Anthony Roberts. This is fitting, because as Mayor, Anthony Roberts opened the first Jungle Chalet Exhibition 10 years ago!
Artworks will be displayed in the Art Room, plus in and around the Jungle Chalet Watergarden, the tranquil romantic Sculptured Rainforest Walk, the Reservoir Illusion, the Lower Exhibition Display Area & outside Artscapes. The Rainforest Walk, features large stone sculptures commissioned from Chinese artists & flown into position by helicopter for the 2008 Exhibition, augmented with colourful lighting at night. This year it includes sandstone sculpture from Ishi Buki, with sculptors who have been commissioned for works in parks, the zoo and gardens throughout Sydney. 10 - 14 artists will be exhibiting in the exhibition - with paintings - modern to abstract, sculpture, pottery, glass art, headlights, ceramics, wearable art & textiles, mixed media and jewellery. With an outstanding variety of artistic works, this is a marvellous opportunity for you to purchase unique artworks, birthday and Christmas presents directly from the artists. It is also a rare opportunity to meet the artists and commission artistic works for your homes.
* The Art Room provides a focal point for people to see and buy paintings, pottery, glass-art, wearable textile art & jewellery. It is open day time, from 9.30 am - 5.30 pm. Entry to the art room is free.
A major attraction is the fascinating Watergarden and hygromorphomatics, the term Don Murchison uses to describe the artistic harvesting of rainwater, to create artificial streams, ponds and waterfalls, with real sound dynamics of moving water. Sensors operate the main waterfalls, so do not be surprised if a waterfall flourishes right before your very eyes!
* There is an admission charge to the Watergarden, Sculptured Rainforest Walk, Reservoir Illusion & Lower Exhibition Display Areas: Adults: $8, Secondary Pupils: $5, Children under 12: $3.50, Toddlers free. Family Pass: $17.
* A night time display of colourful lights, water features & effects will enchant adults and children alike. Admission to the Special Saturday night Watergarden Display is: Adults: $12, 2ndry Pupils: $6, Children under 12: $4, Toddlers free. Family Pass: $23. All outdoor areas of the exhibition will be open at night. The Art Room is closed at this time, but Don will open the Art Room from 9 pm - 9.30 pm, for Saturday night visitors who have been enjoying the visual night time displays. [It is closed from 7 pm - 9 pm, due to the subdued atmospheric lighting & special lighting displays & effects.
* This year there is a repeat discounted Family Daytime Entry Pass of $12. There is also repeat discounted Family Night time Entry Pass of $18. This will help families who like to visit on more than one occasion. [Third & subsequent family visits are half price, but you must keep your ticket & sign for each visit.]
* There is also a combined Day and Night Family Pass of $30 [which is a further saving of $10.] This must be purchased at the first visit. A repeat second night & day family pass is only $20 [half price!] & a third night & day family pass is by donation [of your discretion!] Visiting family members must visit together & not separately for family passes. To get the repeat discounted prices the original ticket must be kept & signed by the same person on each visit.
Tea, Coffee & light snacks will be available this year on the lower deck for a nominal amount.
This is a beautiful location for meeting friends, with a spectacular view of the 'Reservoir Illusion", sculpture & rainforest.
Please wear suitable footwear for a rustic rainforest environment. - High heels are definitely not recommended! A small torch is suggested for Saturday nights, for those without good eyesight, as lighting is subdued and atmospheric. Care must be taken, especially at night. Please ask if assistance is needed when negotiating the sandstone steps. There is no provision for wheelchairs.
JUNGLE CHALET
Valleyview Glen,
Corner Innes Rd & Valley View Crescent,
GREENWICH,
Sydney.
Ph. 9906 2350.
Rhondda has a background is in ceramics, pottery and clay sculpture. 12yrs ago she tried her hand at glass slumping and has been exploring and working with glass ever since. She finds it a most interesting and challenging medium to work with. Even kiln accidents can be spectacular! Rhondda also makes glass beads and dichroic jewellery. Her exhibits will include an interesting selection of glass-art clocks.
Botond Bandy's paintings are highly energised, vibrant & colourful. They explore the raw beauty & amazing power of the ocean in a vast variety of contexts. Lyrical & rhythmic, his playful, curvaceous depictions of abstract sea-inspired shapes & forms have been enhanced by successful exhibitons at the Bondi Pavilion, where he was able to incorporate his natural free-flowing style with the iconic imagery of Bondi Beach to create a new series of Bondi themed works.
Barbara Bertinetti is a local artist and qualified Textile Designer. She has worked with textiles in Japan ,Switzerland and Italy. Now has an interest in abstract art using a combination of acrylics and collage. She has successfully exhibited with the Lane Cove Art Society on numerous occasions. Her new love is making custom jewellery which she generously donates to Charity for fund raising events.
Robert Leighton-Jones has been in every exhibition, always sells well & specialises in domestic stoneware with a variety of glazes. This year he has several new styles he is displaying.
Our overseas guest artist is Anne Riethmaier, from Auckland. Her works are abstract, with particular emphasis on surface quality, drawing upon landscapes, colour & texture for inspiration. She has won many awards & her collections hang worldwide.
For over 20 years, sculptor Chris Bennetts with colleague, Newton Bishop have created an extensive body of work, from the timeless beauty of nature: local Australian sandstone. While many of the creations from ISHI BUKI are accented with realistic detail, others are sensual, fluid asymmetric forms.
Born and raised on northern beaches in Sydney, Chris had an early passion for nature, guiding him towards studying horticulture before establishing ISHI BUKI, a business specialising in landscape, art and design. These formative experiences honed his natural artistic talents, helping to develop his keen sense of proportion and balance.
Chris and Newton work from an open air studio and gallery set in a beautiful, heritage-listed garden and plant nursery at Ingleside, on the northern beaches. A variety of distinctive, individual stone pieces including sculptures, water bowls and water features can be viewed, purchased or commissioned.
The sculpture of ISHI BUKI is highly sought after and represented in several corporate and private collections. Large scale commercial commissons include installations at Taronga Zoo, The NSW Premiers Department in Macquarie Towers, Sydney and for numerous local government organisations. Diverse projects completed include playground and water features, signage and memorials.
The charm of ISHI BUKI sculpture lies in the honest character of the work, the attention to detail and the versatility, warmth and vitality of the medium.
Emily Nolan enjoys painting & jewellery. She is inspired by earthy colours & designs ~ vibrant, delicate & stylised.
Tony's life is like a metaphor. It can be read many ways & his art is inspired by his ability to turn his hand to many things & surprise others around him by his versatility.
Lynn Burns is a local resident & artist who specialises in pastels & watercolours.
The majority of Lyn Burns works are landscapes, with many of the larger ones somewhat sketchy. She likes the drawing, the gesture & movement in landscapes, with colour being vital.
Lyn is a plain air painter, with some particular aspect of the landscape attracting her - the cold, strength of the wind, mystery in hidden parts, intensity of the blue sky, or a combination of things. She often likes to paint the same tree several times, with the impact constantly changing. There is one snow gum she has painted many times over the years. In one version it commands the hill on which it stands, in another it is braced against the assaults of time & weather, in another [very colourful version] it is doing its last dance, becoming one with the elements around it. The sea also fascinates Lyn, its changing moods never able to disguise the power & strength inherent in it. She keeps trying to capture this.
Often Lyn abstracts a landscape, trying to put into the drawing what it is in the landscape that she wants to see more clearly, or imagines may be there somewhere. Sometimes a landscape of the mind finds its way onto paper, evolving as she draws.
When she uses Greg Hansell's handmade earth pastels the whole process is quite different, like using a completely different medium. Because of the limited range of colours & the lack of great tonal variation between them, it has to be a quieter, gentler process, with tonal drawing in charcoal pencil a starting point for gradually & repeatedly adding colour & tonal depth to complete the image. She loves doing these drawings & regards them as very special.
Still life & portraits are for Lyn a sort of extension of landscapes. It is often in the still lifes that she concentrates on stretching the way she uses them & form. She has experimented with drawing on different coloured papers - black, white, orange, yellow, pink - colours that she does not regularly use. Some of the results have been surprising, the coloured paper exerting a real under-glow. Her usual papers are grey or blue, which blend in well with landscapes.
Several people, over the years, have strongly influenced her approach to her art. John Ogburn many years ago taught her how to not just look at a landscape but how to see into it. Greg Hansell - mentor & friend - has taught her much about how to make pastels sing, & George Gittoes has encouraged her to keep striving, to keep learning & to keep looking in new directs.
Phil Clarke is a local artist who exhibits extensively in Australia & overseas. Besides the Jungle Chalet Exhibition, he has just sent a vast volume of works to Italy, for an exhibition which opens soon. [More information to be posted.]
Val James specialises in wearable art & hand crafted textiles. She has a background is of wig-dressing for theatre, film and television in London during the 1960s. In the 1970s, Val took an interest in textiles and sewing led her to experiment with patchwork, applique, and hand and machine embroidery. This has developed into the trial of more adventurous and exciting techniques such as fabric manipulation, free machine embroidery, beading and three-dimensional projects. Her current interest is in recycling and incorporating various forms of paper and plastic into her work.
Kim Maree is a Sydney based artist, formerly from Wollongong, on the South Coast. Kim's earlier work was in the medium of ceramics and referenced fragments of aerial seascapes and landscapes and also moved around the ideas of 'ourselves as these and within these'. This led to hand-building of torso's and then a series of sculptural works constructed by using the parts of a torso.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Layering and using pieces to make a whole is a dominant theme that continues in my creative process.
It is the seemingly broken bits that I am really drawn to and creating something from this is what feels important to me.
My way of making is to explore the creative places that experimentation and chance take me to and this way of working gives me access to what was previously unknown to me and allows a space for expansion in both the work and me.
My choice of mediums and ways of working with these is ecclectic and adaptive.
Silvia Stickel specialises is clay sculpture. She migrated from Germany 12 years ago. Her love of pottery precedes this time. Most of her sculptures are created with the intention of making people smile. She love animals and happy creatures , & has a special interest in chickens. Her vision is to make chickens customaries . She also loves to make Angels, happy Angels or cheeky ones, along with lots of other creatures.
The Jungle Chalet is Don's creation. From colourful leadlight windows, to a labyrinth & glass-art letterbox in the driveway, all are on display. These & the various stages of the Watergarden Installation form an intricate & integral component of the unique Jungle Chalet. If you have a glass-art idea for your home, are interested in a water feature, or interested in the sculpture, fountains or root furniture, talk to Don about it this weekend.
Don is best known as a Comedian who writes customised comedy for all occasions, from birthdays to Corporate occasions, like conferences and Christmas parties. His trademark 'Chookmobile' art-car is probably the most photographed vehicle in Australasia, and has toured extensively with Don throughout Australia [surviving the Nulabour Plains & skifields to the sea], as well as appearing in photo albums and newspapers throughout the World. If only Don could claim 1¢ per photo, his next 'Chookmobile' would surely be a 'Paltry Porche'. Don is transforming his home into a natural artscape, with prolific installations to replicate the movement of water. The past 6 exhibitions have featured stages of his Watergarden Installation. You will enjoy the Reservoir Illusion and the Sculptured Rainforest Walk. When the pumps are operating, the Jungle Chalet is now 80% circumnavigated by water. Leadlight panels created by Don adorn many of the windows. On Saturday nights these will be lit up & combined with colourful flower lights, streams & waterfalls...in a fascinating wonderland...So come & enjoy the ambience of art with nature.
Don Murchison has visited China on 9 occasions during the past 6 years. On his visits Don has been surprised & often fascinated by the variety of artforms that until recently have not been visible to the outside world. He has visited studios that are often in remote countryside locations. One of his discoveries is the Timbron Sculptures. In China, sculptors tend to work for private companies. Often a team of artists will work on a given piece. This is quite different to the way we operate, where each sculptor receives due recognition for his work & tends to work in isolation.
Don commissioned & imported 12 Timbron sculptures, which now form the major part of the Sculptured Rainforest Walk, at the Jungle Chalet Exhibition. Don't ask Don how they got here...he could write a book about it! Some of the sculpture was carried down the 76 steps, many of them narrow sandstone steps...but the last straw was to call in the services of a helicopter! Each sculpture is made of marble & weighs up to 600 kilos!!! The sculpture is now a permanent fixture, & Don will takes orders for those people who are interested in similar sculptures for their own homes.
One of the largest studios Don visited specialises in exquisite functional sculpture & stoneware. The craftpersonship of HaoXiang is outstanding. The visit Haoxiang was worth it...After being dumped by a taxi in the sticks hours from Xiamen, Don was determined to discover some sculptured gems. He & his female Chinese friend hoped on a motorbike taxi & in rain & near zero temperature...eventually finding Haoxiang! Luckily the motor bike then took them to a remote bus stop to catch the last bus back to Xiamen! The weight of the beautiful marble frog and owl stool are very deceiving. It took 4 strong men to manoeuvre the smallest into position!
Ask Don if you are interested in seeing the range of marble sculpture available.
Another exciting find are exquisitely crafted jewelry boxes. The are several designs to choose from.
The Jungle Chalet is set in a unique rainforest setting, bordering the Lane Cove Bushland Park. Don Murchison, has been renovating his house in an original & fascinating design, that blends in & complements the rainforest environment.
We welcome you to pop in over the weekends & encourage you to bring your friends who may be interested in browsing, buying or commissioning. This opportunity only arises once a year.
N.B. Eftpos & credit cards are NOT accepted. Cash and cheques are welcome.
COMEDY SPECIALISTS
The Jungle Chalet,
Valleyview Glen,
Cnr Valleyview Cres. & Innes Rd,
Greenwich,
SYDNEY, NSW, 2065.
AUSTRALIA.
| jungle.chalet.art@comedyspecialists.com.au | |
| Phone: | 61 - 2 - 9906 2350. (9am - 6pm, Monday - Friday. Answer phone after hours.) |
| Mobile: | 0414 390 324. [Best to call the landline as reception is not good in the jungle!] |
This page was last amended 29.08.2010.