Hollywood, Los Angeles
Group Exhibition
My Country
Gruin GalleryTo make an appointment, please visit: bit.ly/3G0x2s9 Belynda Henry Judy Martin Amber Wallis My Country is a group exhibition of painters from Australia depicting their interpretation of their landscape, their country. Judy Martin paints her father's country, Wakura. Wakura is near Nyapari, on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in remote North-Western South Australia. Belynda Henry paints the long lush valley in New South Wales where she is exposed to its constantly ever changing sights, sounds, light and textures. Amber Wallis paints a sexualized & escapist landscape from Byron Bay. Artist Belynda Henry, as a multiple Wynne and Archibald prize finalist, is one Australia’s leading notable and celebrated landscape painters, however her work has also been acquired by private collections in the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, New Zealand, Ireland, Hong Kong, Athens and London. Her fascination with the Australian landscape is the main inspiration for her work. Living and working within the landscape itself at the end of a long lush valley in New South Wales where she is exposed to its constantly ever changing sights, sounds, light and textures—witnessing and absorbed by nature’s compositions and colours. This proximity affords her the luxury of constantly being exposed to—and meditating on the medium and incorporating those impressions in her imaginative works. Although she inhabits the land, at the same time—is inhabited by this unique and seductive landscape—and that is evidenced in her work which is a vibrant, modern and a unique visceral experience. Judy Martin paints her father's country, Wakura. Wakura is near Nyapari, on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in remote North-Western South Australia. Even though Judy lives in Mimili Community now, she is still a custodian of the land around Wakura. Her focus lies on the importance of the water sources in the area, which have been guarded and cared for by her father's family since the beginning of time. Judy maps the kapi tjukula amongst the puli (mountain ranges) and tali (sand hills) of Wakura. Mimili Community is home to 300 Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who have been living in the area for millennia in harmony with nature and acting as custodians of the land and the Tjukurpa (creation stories). Mimili was formerly known as Everard Park, which was a cattle station that was returned to Aboriginal ownership through the 1981 APY Lands Act. Mimili Community was incorporated as an Aboriginal Community in 1975. Amber Wallis work has been included in exhibitions at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, regional institutions including Hazelhurst and internationally in USA and Canada. Wallis’ significant career milestones include being awarded the tenth Brett Whiteley Traveling Art Scholarship in 2008, subsequently working in New York, Montreal and completing a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Her work is held in the Artbank and Arthur Roe Collections as well as various private collections in Australia and internationally.