Water: Group Show

'It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself.' - Carl Jung

As mist or ice, a wave or brook, a bowl full of goldfish, a pool or a droplet, rivers, vases, splashes, bubbles: there is nothing else in the natural world as varied as water. It can be clear and shallow, or deep and impenetrable. It can restore and destroy. It can transform and be transformative, yet simultaneously reflect a natural continuity. In its various states, water has long preoccupied the painters and sculptors of the Western and non-Western artistic canons, revealing itself to be as spiritual as physical, a vessel through which emotional and intellectual ideas are expressed.

The Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery continues this tradition, presenting a group exhibition which celebrates water's disparate forms. The display will include a new aquatic-themed bookshelf print from Phil Shaw, large-scale oil paintings by Emma Haworth, embroidered work by Rose Blake and an op-art interpretation by David Whitaker (1938 - 2007). Roy Wright will be represented by a charcoal river drawing, which will be joined by new work by Esther Nienhuis and Sheila Clarkson. The gallery will also be showing a selection of new artists, including New Zealander Holly Zandbergen with her impasto oil series on Antarctica and Marine Crosta's ocean-themed tondi. Joining the display of Western artists will be a collection of Aboriginal canvases from the central Australian desert which depict water dreamings.

With the exhibition celebrating water's diverse manifestations through a variety of media, the theme of water ultimately serves to reveal the multiple workings of a human response, its possibility and flexibility.