Coo-ee exhibition

My love of walking and drawing has collided resulting in the exhibition Coo-ee, which opens in November.

Earlier this year, I walked along the Alpine Way Victoria, Australia. I was treated to the beauty of the alpine – walking 96 kilometre along aquaducts, fields of alpine flowers, and the wonderous snowy gums. 

I love to explore mixed media paintings, using watercolour, acrylics, chalk and ink (and anything else at hand) on a range of surfaces. So, when the insta #the100dayproject commenced in February 2022,  I decided to capture the essence of this walk. I also wrote a haiku for each of the drawings, attempting to provide some sense of my feeling of that day’s place.

Some very kind friends who had followed #the100dayproject posts thought it would be a great idea to use some of my paintings as inspirations for other artists who work with textiles/fibres for an exhibition – Coo-ee. 

As you walk in the Aussie bush (or just about anywhere in the world), you may hear the call ‘coo-ee’- and then, if you listen there will be a response. It may be a bird calling another or a call between walkers. From the Dharug word “guu-wii”, literally “come here”, coo-ee is a shrill Australian call to communicate over long distances. The term, as the exhibition title, carries the beauty of adapting or transferring concepts across languages, visual media, time and nature itself.  

From these 100 drawings, 11 paintings were selected providing the participating fibre artists from all over the world a source of inspiration. 

‘The responses’ are as bold and loud as ‘the call’: familiar colours, lines and shapes on fabrics bringing new perspectives and feelings to the original drawings and the exhibition viewers in unexpected clever imaginable ways. Some artworks hint more easily about which original paintings they are responding to, while some are more abstract. Reinterpretations successfully transform the originals  in another art form.

Alongside the original artworks, the creative responses by 50 national and international artists will be presented in a curated group exhibition, “Coo-ee” at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in November 2022.  

The opening is 3rd November 2022 and is open until December 11th 2022

You are invited to come and create your own response to Coo-ee, adding to the artworks.