Latrobe Regional Gallery Morwell

Upcoming exhibitions at the gallery

 

SCENT

December 18, 2021 to March 20, 2022, Gallery 1 and 2

A beautiful and ethereal exhibition featuring over 100 many and varied perfume bottles in the Latrobe Regional Gallery Ingrid McGaughey Glass Collection. This unique collection is on show in its entirety for the first time. 

The collecting of glass in the Gallery’s collection reflects the teaching of glass making at Churchill in the 1980s and 1990s. Glass became a significant medium with the establishment of Budgeree Glass in 1978 by Nick Mount and Tony Hanning. 

Fragrance is literally invisible so to celebrate the scents, artists have designed and embellished perfume bottles since the 15th century BC. Glass blowing was invented in Syria before being taken up, centuries later in Venice where glass blowers produced vials and ampoules to hold perfume. 

LEAN

David Cross, January 15 to April 3, 2022, Gallery 3

The art of David Cross evokes the fairground jumping castle.  

The artwork ‘Lean’ looks gallery white in a gallery white space, yet the noise of the air pump informs you this is not a place of contemplation. This is sculpture to be jumped on. This is sculpture that activates you. 

‘Lean’ is a series of four seemingly identical, inflatable sculptures that audience members can stand on, sit on, enter, or literally lean against. Play, falling and failing are all part of the audience participant’s individual art performance. David Cross makes art that allows for risk and pleasure. 

What happens when the audience enter each structure is not uniform for the experience of entering each artwork is not the same. Adventure, risk and sharing your experiences with others is central to the conception of the artwork. Come with a friend – and you need to take your shoes off. 

FIBRO FACADE

Catherine O’Donnell, January 15, to April 3, 2022, Gallery 6

Often overlooked, the fibro home is found all over Australia, including in Morwell. This type of housing was used for social housing estates, as they were low-cost housing solutions and for some, holiday homes. Catherine O’Donnell reveals these buildings as an altruistic, beautiful, impractical refuge through her large-scale drawings.  

For the artist, these homes, with their simplicity of form, are not just beautiful but the embodiment of the utopian ideals of European modernism. O’Donnell’s huge drawing offers a fresh way of viewing these oft-derided homes. 

O’Donnell’s draughting skills are very impressive. This drawing goes beyond a static replication of the house but imbues these with a pathos and resonance that remind us these are homes. The screen door is ajar, the curtains pulled back – someone is home.