This is the 9th annual Jungle Chalet Art, Craft & Watergarden Exhibition, which is held annually on two consecutive weekends in September & officially opened by the Mayor of Lane Cove, Ian Longbottom. It has now become a regular feature in the Lane Cove Cameraygal festival & also as part of 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.
* The Day time Admission Charge to the Watergarden, Sculptured Rainforest Walk, Reservoir Illusion & Lower Exhibition Display Area will this year be a set amount of $5 for adults, $2 for children, with free entry for toddlers. A family day time pass is $12.
* Daytime entry to just the Art Room exhibition is free.
* The Special Saturday night Watergarden Display, with colourful lights & night time effects is $10 for adults, $5 for students & teens, $2 for children under 12, or $20 for a family pass. Please note that the Art Room will be closed during this time, so that the subdued atmospheric lighting & special lighting displays & effects will not be affected. However we will open the Art Room briefly at 9 pm, for visitors who would like to view this part of the exhibition. All other areas of the exhibition will be open at night.
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.
With the inclusion of Don Murchisons water installations, which have been incrementally incorporated as new artworks as part of an ongoing Watergarden project, this years exhibition title has broadened to fully reflect the full spectrum of attractions & artworks. To conserve water over the 2 weekends, several sensors can now operate the main waterfalls, so do not be surprised if a waterfall flourishes right before your very eyes! The night time display of colourful lights has been enlarged, & is sure to fascinate adults and children alike. Night time viewing is only for the two Saturdays: 12th and 19th September. If you are not a serious art lover you can still ponder the meaning of the Reservoir Illusion and kids will be fascinated by the Gorilla in the Mist sculpture. Discover hygromorphomatics, but you will not find it in the dictionary, yet ~ its the term Don uses to describe the artistic harvesting of rainwater, to create artificial streams, ponds and waterfalls, with real sound dynamics of moving water!
Please wear suitable footwear for a rustic rainforest environment. - High heels are definitely not recommended! A small torch is suggested for Saturday nights, when lighting is subdued and atmospheric. Care must be taken, especially at night. Please ask if assistance is needed when negotiating the sandstone steps.
JUNGLE CHALET
Valleyview Glen,
Corner Innes Rd & Valley View Crescent,
Greenwich, Sydney.
Ph. 9906 2350.
Artworks will be displayed in the art room, plus in and around the Jungle Chalet Watergarden and the tranquil romantic Sculpture in the Rainforest Walk, which features large stone sculptures, augmented with colourful lighting at night. This year, 12 - 14 artists will be exhibiting in the exhibition - with paintings - modern to abstract, sculpture, pottery, leadlights, hand painted ceramics, mixed media and jewelry. 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.
Headlining the list of guest artists 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.
Ceramic Sculptor, Amanda Harrison worked as a writer and graphic designer, travelling, writing and photographing through Africa, Europe and Asia. Amanda turned to clay as her creative medium in 1998, and has been successfully exhibiting in Sydney and regional NSW ever since.
Initially she created hand-built ceramic pots but these evolved into more fluid forms and her first sculptural piece was a female torso resembling the trunk of a twisted gum tree. Her contemporary sculptures now begin with a marquette from which she creates the larger version using the same slab and coil method she used for hand-built pots.
Inspiration for her figures come from many sources - sometimes a briefly glimpsed shape in the landscape, sometimes a slice of an abstract painting, sometimes a natural form, such as weathered coral. Henry Moores abstract treatment of the human figure strongly influenced her early works and the simplicity of line reflects her time spent in Africa. The textures of her pieces reflect the Australian bush and coastline, from the smoothness of polished shells and stones, often achieved by firing in a pit or a raku kiln, to a sandstone roughness, the result of firing to a very high temperature in a gas kiln with oxides to highlight the texture.
She never ceases to be thrilled by the whole process of making forms from the oldest of art materials and then using fire to turn them into stone. Opening the kiln is always a very exciting moment. It feels like opening a treasure box.
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 recently been enhanced by his succesful exhibiton 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.
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.
Barbara Bertinetti is a 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.
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.
KARA PRYOR is a local resident and a ceramic artist with 14 years experience. Her work explores the curves and mellow softness of the female form. As in real life, her women vary in shape and size. She also has a flair for the quirky and magical. Kara draws on her sense of fun and her love of animals to create small pieces that people enjoy.
Rebekah's paintings are titled: 'All Things Wildly Feminine and Glorious.'
Rebekah is a Childbirth Educator, Birthing Companion (Doula), Birth Therapist, Artist and Mother. She has been painting for 7 years mainly using acrylics on canvas. This series of four paintings reflect a woman literally meeting the man of her dreams.
In past exhibitions, Lily Owen has focused on naturescape paintings. Do not be fooled though, with the recent surge in overseas demand [especially New Zealand & England], Lily is now focusing on a unique contemporary blend. This year she will have many smaller paintings for sale.
Pat Anderson has been involved with porcelain ceramic sculpture since 1990. She has exhibited and sold at various locations including the National Australia Bank in the City and Ewart Gallery where her Female Form sculpture received the 2009 3D Commended Award.
Rosemarie Temple-Smith studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. She emigrated to Australia in 1968, and has painted sporadically over the years doing commissions for clients in oils, tromp l'oeil and folk art. She is also an interior designer with a business spanning 29 years. [See: www.sitekreator.com/paragon]. She now lives with husband Harry Howard, a furniture maker, in Kurrajong, NSW. [Check Harry's website: www.harryhoward.com]
This body of artworks titled Tempo Azzurro respond to the Joselyns architectural background. They speak of our concept of spatial experiences. Light and dark are employed to highlight notions of time and its passage and speak of traces left behind. The bold lineal forms within the paintings create a dynamic relationship between illumination and darkness.
Joselyn also creates unique glass and stone jewellery. Her jewellery collection is titled Colours of the Earth.
Kim Maree is aesthetically interested in broken objects & the pieces that come together to make the whole. Through this lense she investigates the themes in human experience that this invokes for her: fracturing, violence, chaos, disconnection, re-connection, order, healing, harmony & completion.
Her current work references fragments of aerial seascapes and landscapes & also moves around ideas of ourselves as these & within these. These works are hand-built in a way that reflects & compliments these passages of thought.
In the building process, she has taken small pieces of clay & pressed them together using her thumb over a slump mould. This results in the pieces merging together & creating the completed forms. The technique creates the uneven external surface & a trace of each individual piece remains on the inner surface. The pieces are reduction fired to stoneware temperature.
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 4 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. DonŐs leadlight panels 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. |
This page was last amended 1.09.2009.