By Taylah Eastwell
Selby Community House is looking forward to welcoming the public into its new art space for an upcoming exhibition showcasing work created by local artists during lockdown.
With help from a Covid-19 Community Relief and Recovery Grant from Yarra Ranges Council, the community house refurbished its main lounge space last year into a new gallery known as ArtSpace Selby.
House Manager at Selby Community House, Anna Reid said ArtSpace Selby will open its doors for its first official exhibition on Thursday 25 March from 6-8pm, which will run until Wednesday 28 April.
The free exhibition, titled ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ will showcase the work of local artists Jacqui Christians and Chris Lawry.
“It’s for the artists affecting during lockdown who were not able to work or receive any financial support. These artists are quite established and used their art forms to support themselves to a certain degree, so it is a way of providing some support for them to get back on their feet,” Ms Reid said.
“All funding from the exhibition goes to the artists and all money from sales goes to them, the exhibition is literally about giving money back to artists and their art form,” she said.
Ms Reid said Ms Christians typically spends time going to locations outside her immediate area to draw and paint.
“She was often inspired by things that weren’t so much in her backyard but because of lockdown was forced to redevelop her subject matter, so lots of things she has painted were within her 5km radius,” Ms Reid said.
Some of Ms Christians work was completed in Minak Reserve at the back of Selby Community House.
“She has painted in our beautiful reserve and has really drawn from a local, natural space that she’d never normally be painting in but Covid gave her the opportunity to find these little pockets,” Ms Reid said.
Ms Lawry’s work involves taking photos and creating lino prints. Ms Reid said Ms Lawry used time in lockdown to refer back to research and work she had previously envisioned.
Her prints are “traditionally printed by hand on an etching press between metal rollers, or by rubbing the back of the printing paper over the hand carved block with a wooden spoon or burin”.
“There is a delicateness with Chris’s fine lines and then a boldness of Jacqui’s bright, vibrant colours, so they are quite complementary together,” she said.
Local mixed textile artist and freehand painter Matthew Rutten will also have the chance to show off his work at the exhibition, having painted on canvas, silk and paper.
Work from all three artists will be for sale throughout the exhibition.
Ms Reid described the exhibition as the “launch of a new era for Selby Community House, reconnecting with a grassroots community of artists”.
“We want it to be the start of a community of artists coming to the house, being a part of exhibitions and making this community house their space,” she said.
