Gallery Cafe on Tamborine Mountain
Opening hours from 10 am to 5 pm from Wednesday to Sunday, closed on Monday and Tuesday.
Hilltop on Tamborine presents contemporary Australian art in cooperation with local artists.The exhibitions change every four to six weeks.
“Luminous” from Friday 4th May 2012 to Sunday 10th June 2012
“Works appreciated for their beauty and emotional power“: artwork by Eva Breckon-Thomas (mixed media) and Mia Karlsson (glass).
Exhibition opening: Sunday, May 6 from 2pm to 6pm
Eva Breckon-Thomas
Eva was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and has been a permanent resident of Australia for the largest part of her life. For 20 years she has worked as an artist in various capacities – initially as a musician, a composer and a teacher. During her active musical career Eva performed in Australia, the UK and USA, as well as recording a number of albums of her own compositions.
In recent years her interest has turned to visual arts. Instead of improvising on the keyboard, she started to improvise, or in her words, ‘jam’, on the canvas.
This magnetic force of one form of art over another has been resonant throughout Eva’s life. Eva now paints with acrylics, soft pastels and at times whatever is at hand: always passionate, honest and straight from the heart. Her works are contemporary and probing – with an underlying message.
Mia Karlsson
Mia was born in Finland but was educated in ancient glass blowing (hand made, mouth-blown) craft in Kosta, Sweden. She operates currently on the Gold Coast, Queensland.
“What drives me is the challenge it presents attempting to create an appealing object out of a molten substance which is soft and runny like syrup one moment and hard as a lump of arctic ice the next, yet always hundreds of degrees too hot to allow you to shape it directly with your hands. It is, and I believe always will remain, a fascinating process for me.
To me glass blowing is a true and honest vocation and I feel that there is an importance in preserving such an age-old tradition, especially in a fast-paced society where hard-earned trades that require years of patience and practice to master seem to struggling for their existence.”
“Metamorphosis” from Sunday 25th March 2012 to Sunday 29th April 2012
“Experience the illusion of a complete transformation of form, structure or substance“: artwork by Brigitte Doering (mixed media) and Denise Shellshear (felting).
Exhibition opening: Sunday, March 25 from 2pm to 6pm
Brigitte Doering has more than 20 years been experimenting with a wide range of different material like ash, varnish, wood stain and pigment, and earth. She has also found objects like plant residue or even discarded toys from op shops. These items, eventually combined with oil paint, acrylics or collage are transformed into a new meaning.
Natural resources and how we handle them is the manifestation of her work, sending signals as recommendation to the observer to be aware of the environment as a precious and threatened gift. The lyrical creation of nature in her series “ Banana Boogie Woogie” expresses itself through the choice of material, like metal gold leave applied on drawings of insects on pressed banana leaves, presented in a wooden box.
Brigitte says: “Surrounded by rainforest on Tamborine Mountain makes me to appreciate a creative life in harmony with nature”.
Denise Shellshear’s career as an artist began in Abu Dhabi where she first explored the world of art. She has subsequently experimented with, and enjoyed, using different media, materials and forms of art.
Denise says: “On this journey, I discovered a natural affinity with colour, and found I most enjoyed felting different types of wools with fine silks. I realised that creating felts as an art form required the use of the best materials (silk chiffon, other silks, fine merino, fine Alpaca), and working carefully in a quiet studio where I could connect with my feelings at the time.”
Each shawl, scarf or wall hanging has an individual theme, e.g. sunlight on water; outback scenes, etc. This collection of wall hangings is my protest against clear felling of trees and the destruction of the environment. It is called ‘Tree Ghosts”.
“Stories from the Kalevala” and ”Stone Angels” from Friday 20th January 2012 to Sunday 4th March 2012
“Impressions from the national epic of Finland”: a series of paintings by Marianne Halpin and ”Stone Angels”: sculptures by Shannamay.
Marianne Halpin’s series of paintings have been inspired by the the Finnish epic Kalevala. Marianne likes to paint in a symbolic semi-abstract way rather than realist. She uses colour to denote the feelings, emotions, and the sense of movement in the stories. She has used her love of drawing the human figure and poses from life drawing sessions to place the characters in the story of her paintings.
Marianne has always had a passion for drawing and painting since her childhood in Finland where her grandmother taught her the rudiments of watercolour painting. After emigrating to Australia with her family when she was nine years old, she continued drawing whenever she could. At university in Brisbane she studied pharmacy and worked in that profession until family commitments allowed her to semi-retire. She was then able to pursue her passion more fully and took up her paintbrush seriously.
For Shannamay the life is filled with possibility, the potential of the known, and the unrecognised to become something that engages us and makes us feel. For her art is not a thing to do, but a place to go, to breathe, to be in the moment, a sanctuary, a salve, a home.
Currently clay is Shannamay’s favourite toy. She says: “When the Stone Angels are making their appearance on my work table I feel a new presence to emerge, perhaps another aspect of me. I wrote and produced my first CD as a singer songwriter several years ago. I started sculpting at a particular time, but there really is no point in time of becoming an artist. It has no beginning, no time definition, but rather an ever changing expression and expansion thru one medium or another.”
“Stopping a Moment” from Friday 25th November 2011 to Sunday 15th January 2012
“Stopping a Moment” exhibition displays recent works by three mountain artists: paintings by Louise Grove Wiechers, ceramics and Mixed Media by Maki Horanai, and poetry and mixed media by Hillel Weintraub.
Louise Grove-Wiechers’ art production is a synthesis of her perceptions of the physical world. She says: “I endeavor to capture the spirit of the ideal pastoral experience in my landscape art. I simplify the elements to the basics, leaving only the impression. My goal is to convey the serenity of the moment.”
Maki Horanai creates little worlds in her art. The people in her worlds are whispering and we need to be very quiet to imagine what they are saying. For this exhibition at Hilltop on Tamborine, “Stopping a Moment”, she has made her worlds from clay and resin and pieces of drawings, and always inside are people are sitting quietly, sometimes hiding, sometimes thinking or meditating, sometimes invisible. Those of you familiar with the worlds that Maki creates in her paintings, will be surprised to see how she has transformed those worlds into small 3 dimensional pieces, that, like her paintings, have the power to speak to your heart if you open it.
The basis of the small moments that Hillel Weintraub creates are words. There’s no fixed order or pattern as to how they emerge. Sometimes the words, usually in the form of a haiku poem, come first and then an object grows from them. Sometimes an object appears before him and elicits the words. Sometimes it’s a back and forth interaction between words and objects. For this exhibition, Hillel worked with words, wood, and ceramics and other natural objects such as leaves, branches and feathers. Each mixed media piece is a kind of mini-installation that he only hopes can reflect something about his life and perhaps yours as well.
