In August of 2022, the art space at Condobolin’s Wiradjuri Study Centre was transformed.
It is now a modern Art Gallery that will serve the region’s artists and enrich cultural life.
“Arts OutWest is working in partnership with Wiradjuri Condobolin Corporation and Big Skies Collaboration and one of the parts of that was working on changing the exhibition space,” Arts Out West, Arts and Health Coordinator, Christine McMillan said.
“We wanted to make it so that it really made the artwork shine. So that when you walked into the space the first thing that you saw was the magnificent works of the local artists. So, we’ve taken out a lot of the furniture that was in the space and all the visual distractions.
“We have put up a new hanging system thats very flexible so we can put different sized works in the spaces, and they still can be hung at the right height. And we had the trainees from WCC’s Galari Agricultural Company, and they were fantastic. They worked together for two days putting the tracking systems inside the gallery and deserve special thanks.”
A new outdoor hanging system is now in place, so that large sized artworks can now be shown on special occasions.
“WCC’s CEO, Ally Coe, was also interested in having a hanging system on the outside of the building so large works could go up for special occasions. That was something we’d never worked with before, so we had to work out how to do it! What we did was appropriate the hanging system that Real Estate agents use! Now, with the new hanging systems, the gallery space is all ready for SkyFest!” Ms McMillan explained.
Ms McMillan and Steven Cavanagh from Arts OutWest will be installing the exhibitions of artworks by Beverley Coe, Belinda Coe, the SistaShed artisans, the Shine Group from Marathon Health, and possibly other artists in the week before SkyFest.
Bev Coe’s new paintings expand on the Seven Sisters theme she has been developing for some years to ‘re-awaken’ stories about one of the region’s most important sacred sites, Seven Sisters Ridge near Yarrabandai. In these stories, seven young women leap into the sky to escape a hunter and become the Mulayndynang, or the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades star cluster.
Belinda’s image of the Celestial Emu, the same one she used on her beautiful SkyFest poster, will be projected onto a wall as digital art.
“The Emu in the Sky just resonates with the event coming up, SkyFest, which is all about the sky and the cultural stories.
“The Emu in the Sky is a very popular cultural story amongst Aboriginal people, so it just felt right to have that on the poster,” she said.
Award-winning astro-photographer, Niall MacNeill, from Bathurst, provided the stunning photograph of the Celestial Emu that Belinda used in her image. He was delighted with the outcome of their collaboration.
Belinda borrowed an ancient x-ray style of painting from Arnhem Land to depict the internal organs of the Celestial Emu to bring it to life and placed it over the Celestial Emu in Niall’s photograph so that it appears in the correct position in the Milky Way. She hopes it will help people imagine it in the sky when they hear our stories. For her, the Celestial Emu is about continuing her connection to culture.
“It’s pretty cool to think that these stories that have been passed on for thousands and thousands of years continue on through our generation, and that I get the opportunity to express them through my artwork and pass them on,” Belinda said.
The new gallery will be open for the Gala Dinner on Friday night, 2 September, and on the Saturday afternoon of SkyFest. It can be opened by appointment at other times. Artworks will be available for sale at these times.
“The gallery will be great for cultural tourism in our region and could be a key destination on the Central West Art Trail,” Christine commented. “Tourists are very interested in Wiradjuri culture and there’s a great hunger to learn more about First Nations arts and crafts,” she concluded.