Airport display features regional artwork

Three artworks by northern rivers artist Emma Walker are now on display at the Ballina-Byron Gateway Airport.

The display is part of the Art at the Airport program, coordinated by the Northern Rivers Community Gallery.

Ms Walker’s artworks are the second to be displayed as part of the series, which aims to raise the profile of the region’s professional artists.

With 30,000 people passing through the airport each month, the Art at the Airport program also offers a new dynamic to the airport environment.

Ms Walker, whose art ‘consistently engages with landscape and the natural world’, lives and works in the northern rivers.

Her work is featured in various corporate and public collections such as Macquarie Bank, Lowenstein’s Arts Management, Lismore Regional Gallery, Tweed Regional Gallery as well as numerous private collections in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

Local artist Angus McDonald has initiated the Art at the Airport concept, with the program featuring six artists.

Previous Northern Rivers Community Galley coordinator Ingrid Hedgcock, Arts Northern Rivers chief executive Peter Wood and Mr McDonald, have curated the inaugural program, which runs until the end of June.

Mr McDonald said the program represented ‘a fabulous opportunity to bring their work to the public in a different type of venue’.

‘Artists are always looking for ways to get their work seen and to engage with the public,’ he said.

‘In a regional area, particularly, that is not always easy.’

All artworks exhibited in Art at the Airport are for sale via the Northern Rivers Community Gallery.

The Northern Rivers Community Gallery is located at 44 Cherry Street, Ballina and is open Wednesday to Friday from 10am until 4pm, and weekends from 9.30am until 2.30pm.