Musical Tour De Force — Bach in the Gallery
Published 30 April 2025
Handmark has secured Australian viola virtuoso, James Wannan, for an intimate concert in the Gallery that promises to be unforgettable – not just for the glories of Bach, but also for the magic of James himself.
This will be a musical Tour de Force. James, a life-long Bach devotee, will be performing the six Cello Suites on viola which he has been obsessively playing since the age of eight: “These are the greatest works, by the greatest composer. It’s a once in a lifetime experience,” he states.
James will pepper this musical odyssey with unforgettable tales and Bach insights. It would be near impossible to find a more charismatic and entertaining person. James proudly describes himself as “an eccentric musical personality” sharing his home west of Sydney with peacocks, ostriches and two poodles, which he regularly serenades.
Luxuriating in Bach and surrounded by Max Mueller’s wonderful exhibition, this is one super Sunday. James will perform Suites 1 to 4 before a lunch break, during which you are encouraged to enjoy a meal with friends at Salamanca. After the final two suites, join James and Max for a glass of bubbles – and unforgettable conversation!
The concert will be held in Handmark Gallery on Sunday May 25, from 11am – 3pm. There is limited seating and tickets are available through Eventbrite.
Jock Young — Upcoming exhibition
Published 30 April 2025
Tasmanian painter Jock Young has come full circle. His life, and artistic journey, began in Avalon on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Now, he is back in his childhood home producing glorious landscapes where magical memories burn bright.
Water is everywhere. Jock’s exhibition of new works, Waterways — Plein Air to Abstraction, is inspired by “the dynamic between the movement of the sea and stillness of the land. It’s really about the light,” he explains. Jock paints en plein air with pared-back form and colour. “I am not reporting what I see, it’s how I feel, and my latest works are more abstract.”
Jock has spent the past year in Avalon. “I needed to reconnect with the place where I grew up.” In Yellow Tree Bird Sanctuary, Jock re-visits his “special spot overlooking Careel Bay where I painted as a teenager. It’s magical and untouched.” The bobbing boats and old sheds of this beautiful bay pop up in other works. “I loved sketching here with friends. Now I am back as a professional artist.”
Jock takes us on other adventures. Glowing with rich ochre, we marvel at the Larapinta Trail in Central Australia. While a favourite Tasmanian surf beach, Goats Bluff, shimmers on a scorching day. “It felt like the whole place was burning with colour.”
Jock’s exhibition, Waterways — Plein Air to Abstraction, will be on show at Handmark Gallery from May 2 – 19.
Image credit: Careel Bay Boat Shed in the sun, 2025, Oil on linen, 65 x 80 cm
Barbara Heath — Glistening gems
Published 30 April 2025
One of Australia’s most revered contemporary jewellers, Barbara Heath, has just delivered a collection of beautiful new rings to Handmark Gallery. This small batch of handcrafted delights dazzles with glorious gemstones and luscious pearls.
Only eight new rings. Each one is a masterful balance of boldness and refinement. The largest is a showstopper. A sizeable domed rose quartz is surrounded by delicately crafted gold petals dripping with white enamel. This 9ct cabochon ring glows with “the play of light across the top of the stone giving it a delicate softness. It’s a very feminine ring,” Barbara tells us.
There are also cross-over rings sprinkled with yellow sapphires, garnets and citrines, or polished tourmalines of deep green and pink. Three pearl rings complete the collection. The most striking sparkles with a large creamy south sea Mabe pearl surrounded by smaller black Tahitian pearls which Barbara calls “quirky and off-the-cuff.”
Barbara has spent the past 50 years crafting her beautiful jewels. Each is a work of art designed to last a lifetime and beyond: “Nothing we wear defines us quite the same way as jewellery. It is a miniature art form that light up our lives.”
Barbara Heath’s collection of new rings is now on display at Handmark Gallery.
Artist book trilogy — Jennifer Marshall
Published 6 April 2025
A decade long collaboration between artist Jennifer Marshall and writer Janet Upcher has concluded triumphantly with the launch of Turning – the final instalment in their Artist Book trilogy.
Turning, a collection of prints by Jennifer and poems by Janet, is their third Artist book about the four elements: earth, wind, fire and air. Meticulously hand-crafted, it is a work of art. Pages are hand-sewn by an artisan book binder, the paper is cotton, and the poems handwritten. Only six copies exist.
Artist books are rare treasures. Jennifer produced her first in 1977 and all are held in private and public collections, “Artist books are compelling in their intimacy. We engage with them, touching the paper and turning pages. It’s a personal connection,” Jennifer explains.
The first in the trilogy, Quaternity, introduces the four elements. Book two, Turbulence, warns of chaos, but in Turning we look to the future with hope. Expressed so eloquently in Jennifer’s cover profile of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, and the words of Janet:
“When wars rage and woes of the world weigh on you and wear you down
Let sunlight in the garden release you from the shadows…”
The Artist book trilogy by Jennifer Marshall and Janet Upcher is in the Rare Book collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and is available to purchase through Handmark. Please contact the Gallery for further information.
Alex White — Shelter
Published 6 April 2025
Printmaker Alex White is a relatively new Handmark discovery. And his second outing for the Gallery is another homage to Tasmania’s iconic mountain huts.
Last April Alex had two works in the Emerging Artist Exhibition. One year later, 16 of his striking black and white prints are being showcased in his Shelter exhibition. “This is beyond all my expectations,” he says. “Again, I am inspired by the old high-country huts that provided shelter to hunters, stockmen and trekkers.”
Most of Alex’s huts are in the ruggedly remote Central Highlands. But in this exhibition, he also ventures closer to home, to Sama Hut on Mt Wellington/Kunyani, “a very unusual ‘A’ frame structure clad in corrugated iron, which according to local legend was carted up from Glenorchy.”
In another work, Alex takes us inside Sama Hut where a kettle, frypans and an old billy hang above an old stone fireplace immediately enveloping us with a feeling of comfort and safety. “These shelters are part of our history, but just a few remain. I am on a mission to document as many as I can before they are lost forever.”
Alex’s Shelter opens at Handmark this Friday 4 April at 5pm and continues until 27 April.
Image credit: Alex White, Sama Hut II, 2025, linocut, edition of 8, 40 x 32 cm
Olivia Moroney — Komorebi
Published 6 April 2025
The Southern Midlands is Olivia Moroney’s artistic playground, and the exhibition of new prints and drawings revisits this landscape with a dramatic boldness. Her inspiration – Komorebi.
There is no English equivalent. Komorebi is a Japanese word describing the interplay of light through leaves on a tree. “After spending time at an artist’s workshop in Japan, I was passionate about capturing Tasmania’s strong light,” Olivia tells us. She does this brilliantly in a series of dry-point print tree profiles. Summer’s sun casts long dark shadows. These diffuse on winter’s arrival.
A monochromatic palette and pared-back forms, brings the stark beauty of the landscape around Olivia’s family farm at Jericho, to life. In the charcoal and gouache drawing, The Last Light of the Day, a dramatic shard of light pierces the countryside, while a subtle softness falls over the land in Morning Blaze.
Komorebi takes us on a powerful journey. We glimpse familiar scenes in Artist Books as Olivia drives across her beloved Midlands. “All the roads are different. Where are we going? Where will we end up? But as we continue nothing is more captivating than the beautiful light.”
Olivia’s Komorebi opens at Handmark this Friday 4 April at 5pm and continues until 27 April.
Image credit: Olivia Moroney, The last light of the day, 2025, gouache and charcoal on paper, 70 x 89 cm
Kaye Green — Book Collaboration
Published 4 March 2025
Handmark printmaker, Kaye Green, was honoured to provide the artwork for The Ancients, a book by acclaimed Tasmanian nature writer, Andrew Darby.
The Ancients takes us on an odyssey across wild Tasmania to discover the world’s oldest trees, and Kaye was the perfect choice for the illustrations. In terms of subject, nothing has consumed her artistic life as much as trees: “They capture me. Trees seem to call me,” she explains.
Kaye’s beautiful lithographs include gnarled pencil pines bent low by howling winds, a primeval King Billy, and most memorably, the rare King’s Lomatia. “This tree is so impossible to find, I couldn’t track down any photos to work from. Instead, I used a sapling from the Botanical Gardens as my guide.”
“My collaboration with Andrew was a match made in heaven. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my career. The chance to work with such a committed and wonderful author was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
The Ancients will be launched at Fullers Bookstore in Hobart on March 3, with an exhibition of Kaye’s work, including the limited edition lithographs featured in the book.
Vika Fifita — Memories and Marks
Published 4 March 2025
Much has happened in the two years since Vika’s last Handmark exhibition – motherhood, marriage, and moving state. These life-changing events are gloriously captured with vivid splashes of colour in Vika’s collection of new paintings.
Her one-year-old daughter, Hannah, is the star of Vika’s Memories and Marks exhibition. In One and Only the joy of Hannah’s birthday is infectious. “It also honours my husband Zaher who is a great dad, which is why I painted them together,” Vika explains. It’s a Monet, named after Hannah’s middle name, “is the first painting I did after her birth and it’s my favourite.”
Vika impresses with her bold neo expressive pop style inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. “I am intimidated by black and white and always gravitate towards vibrant colours.” Snippets of text reveal deeply personal emotions. “These paintings document my personal transformation.”
She recently moved to Brisbane, but home is always nearby. Thinking of Tasmania is Vika’s homage to teenage memories of “summers swimming and sunbaking at Launceston’s Gorge.”
Vika’s Memories and Marks exhibition is at Handmark Gallery from March 14 – 31.
Image: Vika Fifita, No olives only fear, 2024, Acrylic, ink, chalk on canvas, 87 x 87 cm
Glover Season — Landscape Exhibition | Michael McWilliams
Published 4 March 2025
Come March, art enthusiasts flock to Evandale for Glover Prize season, and Handmark has something very special.
Every year the prize honouring Tasmanian landscape artist, John Glover, draws crowds to historic Evandale. Handmark joins the action with the annual Celebrating our Landscape Exhibition held at the Clarendon Arms Hotel.
This exhibition coincides with Glover Season and showcases 36 wonderful landscapes by Handmark artists, including Luke Wagner, a finalist in this year’s prize. And, just by visiting the exhibition and voting, you are in the running to win $500 in our People’s Choice Award.
Glover festivities then move to Launceston, where Handmark celebrates much-loved landscape painter and the first Glover winner, Michael McWilliams. He is being honoured with a beautiful concert by the Flinders Quartet, and the location is perfect: It will be set among Michael McWilliam’s extraordinary exhibition ‘Gentle Protagonist’ at QVMAG.
Handmark’s Concert is on March 16 at QVMAG, Launceston. Book tickets through Eventbrite.
Handmark presents the Flinders Quartet at QVMAG to celebrate Michael McWilliams
Published 19 February 2025
Handmark Gallery celebrates artist Michael McWilliams, with an intimate concert by the acclaimed Flinders Quartet set amongst his extraordinary exhibition ‘Gentle Protagonist’ at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston.
Michael McWilliam’s survey of 100 works at QVMAG recognises the extraordinary contribution he has made to the Australian art world. As one of Tasmania’s most loved artists, his distinctive and quirky landscapes, are also imbued with a more serious undertone of the human impact on our natural environment.
Flinders Quartet:
Elizabeth Sellars, Wilma Smith, Violins, Helen Ireland, Viola and Zoe Knighton, Cello.
Program:
Fanny Mendelssohn – String Quartet No.1 in E flat Major (1st movement)
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon – “Bungaree”
Dvorak – String Quartet No.14 in A flat Op.105
Why not view the Glover Prize along with Handmark’s Annual Landscape Exhibition at the Clarendon Arms in Evandale, and then join us for this special concert on Sunday 16 March, at 2pm. Tickets are limited and available through Eventbrite for $80 (inclusive of booking fee).