What determines our views on life? How can art effectively convey our unique perspectives? Three artists help to answer these questions in Perspective(s), a new collaborative exhibition opening at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in March.

Ollie Cool, Flora Friedmann and Glenese Keavney feature their diverse artistic styles and outlooks in Perspective(s). The exhibition explores how mental, cultural, emotional and historical points of view develop, resulting in both deeply personal convictions and those held on global issues.

Personal beliefs can incorporate the views of others and be influenced by the information we absorb. Each of the exhibiting artists brings a unique technique and approach to the Perspective(s) exhibition.

Flora Friedmann uses basketry to create pieces evoking the concept of ‘Perspective’. She sets out to demonstrate that our ‘viewing point’ affects our point of view.

“My pieces aim to show how outside forces and personal biases and circumstances can influence our perspectives,” she explains. “Some of my pieces are traditional shapes whilst others, although using traditional weaves and fibres, are unexpectedly not baskets but more sculptural.”

Glenese Keavney also used traditional basketry techniques to create her work – twining, coiling, looping and assemblage, as well as learning a new method – knotted netting.

 “I began this project to reflect on my life journey,” Glenese said. “How have I travelled, what have I collected and carry, and to what extent am I now closed or open to change?”

Glenese embraced random weaving as she delved deeper to question her ability to embrace new perspectives. Her search to attain a new inner attitude is reflected in her work.

Ollie Cool’s perspective and her work are inspired by the ocean. As she lives by it and breathes it, she muses on what we can do to renew and conserve it.

“It’s easy to say we need to stop overfishing and polluting, but truly exploring different perspectives means we need to accept that different people have different beliefs, cultures, motivations and knowledge,” she says. “I embrace a nurturing and romantic perspective on the environment, believing that nature is most beautiful in its purest state.”

Ollie uses her work in Perspective(s) to celebrate the beauty of our ocean and its creatures. Predominantly photography based, she incorporates ocean ‘textiles’ including shark leather, fishbones and scales. She hopes her work inspires viewers to embrace greater stewardship of the ocean.

Perspective(s) runs from Wednesday 11 March until April 5^th. Opening Night is Thursday 12 March 6-8pm.

Aftermath Exhibition finds positive regrowth after trauma.

A second collaborative exhibition by thought-provoking fibre artists and sculptors Glenese Keavney, Meri Peach and Flora Friedmann, Aftermath, will open at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in March.

Aftermath builds on the themes of the trio’s 2014 exhibition at the Gallery, called Small Mercies, in which they offered a remedy to dark times. These themes of redemption and positivity are revisited in this inspiring new exhibition.

An aftermath arises from a catastrophic or life-changing event, but it also describes the new growth of a field after it has been mown. The three artists have used basketry vessels and other fibre pieces to express the difficult, surprising and positive ways that they have experienced the aftermath of personal trauma, as they turn towards new growth to come.

Flora Friedmann said the aftermath of a trauma can be life changing, for better or for worse.

“My woven pieces in this exhibition aim to show how the pattern of our lives can change as a consequence of a dreadful occurrence and how this can force us to move in new directions. These new directions can lead us down difficult, unexpected or exciting paths. For some, this can mean that opportunities are gained (or lost). I aimed to show that life can fall apart after a tragedy. But we can also pull our lives together again and, in doing so, find an inner strength which otherwise may not have been revealed. I want to send the message that life should be lived to the full because who knows what is around the corner?”

Glenese Keavney said the word Aftermath came to her like a gift.

“I had always thought of the aftermath as the devastation following an extreme event such as a bushfire. But as that word sat in my consciousness, I sought further meaning. I had been mown down by the death of my husband, but then I discovered/uncovered that the word had originally meant the new growth after mowing. I knew that I needed to turn towards the new growth that would come. It was almost a promise. Grass wishes to rebound and I am enormously grateful to have found abundant regrowth.”

Meredith Peach experienced a number of difficult years in the aftermath of her father’s death.

“Themes from my life play out in my artwork. I live with the consequences of my own and others’ actions. These are both internal and external. Creatively, there has been a tumultuous branching inwards, outwards, forwards, backwards, down and up. I am retracing old pathways, and finding them changed, turning in new directions.”

 The moving and uplifting Aftermath exhibition runs from 15 March until 9 April 2017, with an opening at 6-8pm on 16 March.