Community
30 August, 2024
Old friends set to reconnect through art
A CAMPERDOWN artist will be among a group of six past residents of Warrnambool who will be exhibiting their works from next Friday.
From September 6 to September 30, artworks from six women will be displayed at Warrnambool’s Lighthouse Theatre as part of the ‘Lighthouse Women Present: Random Wilde Spring’ exhibition.
One of the exhibiting artists is Camperdown’s Annie Keil-Taggart, who runs PassionFish Arthouse.
Ms Keil-Taggart said the exhibition was about the group who had originally set up studios in Warrnambool.
“We were mainly a group of women, and we set Splash Studios up and had a lot of exhibitions there,” she said.
“We did a touring exhibition (The Cutting Edge), and a women from the Women’s Gallery in Melbourne put us into a book that she created about the women’s gallery and the importance of it.
“It was in the late 80s – that was how long ago we worked together. Recently, I’ve reached out to that group of women.
“It’s called Lighthouse Women Presents because I used to live opposite the lighthouse near the maritime museum and, originally, we all got together as a group of women artists that had lunches and talked about having an exhibition space.”
Ms Keil-Taggart said the exhibition was about creativity and opening up in a seasonal, cyclic way.
“We’ve got the six of us together – Noela Stratford is coming to the exhibition, but she’s not exhibiting because she’s 84 now,” she said.
“The rest of us aren’t quite that old.
“There’s Marie Cook, who’s been the head of the TAFE weaving department for a long time; Kathryn McKinnon, who’s still nursing down in Warrnambool and painting – she’s just had an exhibition recently; Jenny Powell, who was an original painter from Warrnambool – she’s coming down and bringing work down from Creswick; Sally Barua is a new person in the group – she lives out at Creswick and Barb Fulton is someone who’s exhibited quite a lot on Warrnambool – she’s away up north at the minute and coming back for the exhibition.”
The opening night of the exhibition will be held from 6.30pm on Friday, September 6 and 185 Timor Street, Warrnambool.