Ballina’s Northern Rivers Community Gallery presents four dynamic, experimental and connected exhibitions running from 16 October until 7 December. The final exhibition series for 2025, will see wild colours in paint and sculpture, camera obscura impressions and a site-specific experimental installation.
Gallery Coordinator Imbi Davidson said, ‘This group of exhibitions bring the best of contemporary arts to the heart of Ballina. Featuring Northern Rivers artists whose work pushes the boundaries of experimentation, joy and immersive experience.
‘NRCG is delighted to end the year with four stellar exhibitions – we can’t wait.’
New shows
CONNECTIONS: Through the mediums of painting and sculpture, and by blending abstraction and figuration, Gill Williams creates artworks from an ever-flowing source of creative expression for the pure joy of the experience.
CONNECTIONS demonstrates the commonality of human desires and capacity for connection beyond the limits of language and social structures. Gill encourages viewers to put aside the mind and connect to his work with the heart forward.
Bubblegum Bruises: Offering a universe that is tender, tough, and unapologetically pink. This is a space where trauma softens, where colour becomes a form of resistance, and where play is survival. Guided by impulse and play, artist Katie Pink allows materials to run wild, pushing, pulling, and reshaping until they surprise her and the viewer.
This exhibition features abstract paintings, and ceramic and mixed-media sculptures with pieces that celebrate both fragility and strength. Katie Pink is the recipient of the 2024 BSA Graduate Award.
Tending: this photographic series was created using camera obscuras formed from the earth; shallow chambers dug into the woodland floor behind Grace Fayrer’s late grandparents’ home in southeast England. Made after their passing, photosensitive paper placed inside the chambers recorded a day’s light from sunrise to sunset.
The resulting soft, ghostly impressions of the tree canopy serve as quiet monuments to memory, place, time, and grief.
Food and Drink (entities in deference to their being): Home School Achiever Artist duo Betty Russ and Michael Donnelly) present an experimental exploration of the ambiguity of meaning when material is encouraged to be objective.
Informed and inspired by contemporary ideas of speculative horror and science fiction, institutional theory and immersion techniques within the expanded field, the artists engage in the creative process with the intention of generating a site specific, humming field of ontological activity unbound by intentional outcomes.
All exhibitions open tomorrow (Thursday 16 October) and continue until Sunday 7 December. The official exhibition launch will be held from 5.30–7.30pm, tomorrow night.
The Northern Rivers Community Gallery is located at 44 Cherry Street Ballina and is open Wednesday to Friday from 9am until 3pm and weekends from 9.30am until 1.00pm.
For further information contact the gallery on 02 6681 0530 or visit the website www.nrcgballina.com.au.
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