Meet the Bells: A Wallum Journey - Joolie Gibbs
This exhibition showcases large and small 2D works depicting the Wallum environment in particular its wildflowers, focusing on Joolie’s technical drawing ability.
Joolie chooses to only use botanical inks that she has made mostly from her 5-acre property. Luscious, sepia red colours from Gympie Messmate, Iron Bark, Eucalyptus, Bunya and golden yellow from the Red Kamala, compound her love of the environment. This results in a limited colour range, which seems to add to the reality of birth, maturity and destruction.
Joolie’s message is environmental, wanting to be part of the solution rather than the problem in her own small way. She has particular concern for her local/regional environment, the Mary River, the Wallum and her property. These subjects have meaning to Joolie, and they contain the stories of her youth through to now. This fragile but impermanent environment is constantly in a state of transience, going through the rites of birth, maturity and destruction or death on a daily basis as the area becomes smaller and smaller due to human expansion. Her time spent connecting to the Wallum is a time of meditation and internal exploration on impermanence, her inescapable mortality and those things she has no control over.
*Image: Meet The Bells, 2021, Botanical inks on 300gsm Arches paper (Eucalypt, Iron Bark, Red Kamala, Mangrove, Bunya, Gympie Messmate), 1500mm x 1350mm by Joolie Gibbs
Website: www.jooliegibbs.com.au
About the artist
Born in Maryborough and raised in Hervey Bay, Joolie could say she is parochial in her love for the wallum environment. Living now in Gympie, she has been influenced by her natural surroundings more than she realised. After completing a Master of Art in Visual Art (MAVA) in 2014 at Griffith University Queensland College of Art, her practice became more environmental as she found meaning and new direction in her artwork through connections with the Mary River and the region.
While Director of the Gympie Regional Gallery for 23 years, Joolie still found time to keep her practice alive by exhibiting, competing and having her work accepted for two Flying Arts Alliance touring Regional Art Awards and exhibitions in various galleries in South East Queensland.
Using her strong drawing skills and leaning towards the integrity of natural inks, Joolie has documented her immediate surroundings including insects from her 5-acre property, the surrounding wallum bushland, and the effects of the Mary River in flood, as seen in her ‘Flood Language’ series. Joolie often works on paper on a large scale (up to 9m) down to minute drawings, and incorporate the macro/micro easily. Julie's environmental approach also branches into mediums like papermaking and basketmaking.
Artist in Conversation
Join Joolie as she takes you through her current exhibition of large and small 2D works that focus on the wallum environment in particular its wildflowers.
When: 29 April, 2023
Time: 11am
Location: Gatakers Artspace - Gallery 4
Gatakers Opening hours
9.30am to 3.30pm Tuesday to Friday
9.30am to 2.00pm Weekends including public holidays.