Past Exhibitions

The Percivals 2024

22 June – 1 September 2024

Visit The Percivals page for more information.

Bruce Reynolds: How Soon Is Now?

20 April – 9 June 2024
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Exploring how we arrived at this point—from the archaic to a language of compressed space—Bruce Reynolds invites us to consider the ancient and the ‘now’ in his work.

His practice has expanded from collage to relief and sculpture over several decades. Recent residencies in Rome focused both studio and architectural works on relief forms that occupy the space between painting and sculpture, between drawing and architecture. He describes it as being both archaic and a fresh place of representation.

_{Image credit: Bruce Reynolds, Bungalow With Cypress 2019, Paint on linoleum on wood panel, 45 x 58 x 7cm. Courtesy of the artist.}

Exhibition Launch

Friday 26 April 2024
6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Floor Talk

with Bruce Reynolds

Saturday 27 April 2024
10am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Acknowledgment

_{How Soon is Now? is a Museums & Galleries Queensland touring exhibition presented in partnership with the artist, Bruce Reynolds. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program; and is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Museums & Galleries Queensland is also supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funds through the Australian Cultural Fund.}

John Nesirky: The Recollection of Sound

20 April – 9 June 2024
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Townsville City Galleries is pleased to present John Nesirky’s The Recollection of Sound, a look at the sounds of insects, their tropical night-time soundtrack, and the structures that allow these creatures to sing.

Memories are triggered by all our senses. We can be transported by a song, a scent, an old photograph; and find distant moments of our lives surround us briefly. It is more poignant when the memory takes you to people lost and places long ago altered.

Early memories of John Nesirky's time in North Queensland are underpinned by the sounds of insects during hot hikes to cool off in a creek or swimming hole. The tropical nighttime soundtrack.

_{Image credit: John Nesirky, Memory of sound [detail] 2024, Timber veneers and resin composite, 100 x 35 cm. Image courtesy of Townsville City Galleries.}

Exhibition Launch

Friday 26 April 2024
6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Floor Talk

with John Nesirky

Saturday 18 May 2024
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Eastern Threads

Curated by Gail Mabo

2 February – 14 April 2024
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

An exhibition of Torres Strait Islander textiles, prints, and paintings from the City of Townsville Art Collection, curated by Gail Mabo.

We are pleased to present Eastern Threads, an exhibition showcasing cultural practices from the Eastern Torres Strait and islands east of Mer Island. Gail Mabo has selected works for inclusion in the show, focusing on pieces originally sourced by Diane Moon as part of the exhibition CarriedLightly at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in 1988 and more recent acquisitions.

There are 66 artworks from Eastern Torres Strait and 14 from the Western, Inner and Central Torres Strait in the Townsville City Art Collection. The artwork on display celebrates Erub, Mer Fibrecraft, and Tongan Tapa. The exhibition features works by artists from the permanent collection, including Ais Bero, Jenny Mye, Lucy Thaiday, Ken Thaiday, Alice Hunai, Andrew Passi, George Sambo, Aicey Zaro, and Tommy Pau.

Guest curator Gail Mabo.

_{Image: Tommy Pau, Sia (Carina Nebula) [detail], 2015. Linocut print on paper, 54.5 x 90.5 cm (plate mark), 71 x 107 cm (sheet). Purchased from Umbrella Studio of Contemporary Arts, 2019. City of Townsville Art Collection. Accession number: 2019.013. Image courtesy of Townsville City Galleries.}

Exhibition Launch

Friday 2 February
6:45pm for 7pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Curator's Talk

with Gail Mabo and Aicey Day

Sunday 24 March 2024
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, no bookings required

Join us for a morning of stories and insights into Eastern Threads.

Videos

Hear from Gail Mabo in these Eastern Threads videos as she shares a deeper understanding of some featured artworks and her curatorial approach to this stunning exhibition.

Sihot’e Nioge: When Skirts Become Artworks

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 8 December 2023 – 11 February 2024

Sihot’e Nioge reveals the centrality of nioge, painted, and sihot’e, appliquéd, beaten bark cloths in Omie culture and life from the first Omie man and woman who arrived on the earth until today. Working from the remote mountain rainforests of Oro Province, not so far from Kokoda, Papua New Guinea, the Omie Tapa artists continue to develop the most colourful and compositionally diverse, bark cloth art in the Pacific region, using all natural products from their vast, rainforest homelands. Curated by Joan Winter.

_{Image: Doris Naumo Buruhi dehi’e Vei’e ijihe Vindho’e, Eagle feathers, lizard bone, human belly button, 2019, natural rainforest plant pigments beaten bark cloth, 118 x 140 cm. Image courtesy of the artist. Omie Tapa Artists PNG and Baboa Gallery, Brisbane.}

Launch

6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Friday 8 December 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Floor Talk

With Curator Joan Winter.

10:30am
Saturday 9 December 2023

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Free, no bookings required.

ASIA Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 4 November 2023 – 21 January 2024

Asia Pacific Contemporary celebrates The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, recently in its tenth iteration. Featuring works that have appeared in the Triennial since its debut in the 1990s, and across media from painting and sculpture to video, performance and works on paper, Asia Pacific Contemporary showcases art from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, Vanuatu and Vietnam. As these varied and compelling artworks demonstrate, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art continues to be a pre-eminent platform for the art of Asia, Australia and the Pacific, surveying a vast and dynamic region through series of exhibitions, forums and cultural exchanges. The diverse works in Asia Pacific Contemporary reflect the triennial embrace of contemporary art in all its forms, ranging from the ceremonial to the conceptual, and from the deeply personal to the resolutely social.

_{Image: Tomoko Kashiki Japan b.1982 / I am a rock [detail] 2012 / Synthetic polymer paint, masking tape on linen on plywood 162 x 227.5cm / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2013 with funds from Michael Sidney Myer through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation QAGOMA – Tomoko Kashiki.}

Launch

6:45pm for 7pm speeches
Friday 3 November 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Free, no bookings required.

There will be an evening of launches in Townsville City on Friday 3 November 2023.

Start your evening at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts from 6pm for 6:15pm speeches, then head down to Perc Tucker Regional Gallery for more exhibitions from 6:45pm for 7pm speeches.

Umbrella will be launching Asia Pacific Video, and A Sense of Place by Ann Vardanega. Perc Tucker Regional Gallery will be presenting the launch of Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT.

Floor Talk

With Simon Wright, QAGOMA’s Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement.

Saturday 4 November 2023
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Free, no bookings required.

There are a range of Floor Talks coming up at both Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts and at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery on Saturday 4 November.

Begin your day at Umbrella Studios at 9:30am for a floor talk with Dr Ann Vardanega who will be discussing her exhibition A Sense of Place, followed by a talk at approximately 10am with Simon Wright, QAGOMA’s Assistant Director, Learning and Public Engagement, who will be sharing insights into Asia Pacific Video. Then join us at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery from 11am and hear insights from Simon Wright into Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT.

Soundtracks

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 13 October – 3 December 2023

Soundtracks is an exhibition in which a group of printmakers explore the relationship between verbal and nonverbal imagery in “albums”, personal narratives resonant in their chosen playlists.

Printmaking is an important element in the personal practice of each of the artists in this exhibition. Each has employed printmaking media and techniques including stencils, etchings, linocuts and risographs in combination with other media and art forms.

Nonverbal memory is what makes it possible to retain and remember content without words and has the ability to code, store, and recover information about faces, shapes, images, songs, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. Sound, particularly in music, is heavily involved in associative memory of events or experiences of our past.

Hearing a few notes of a song or feeling an emotion one associates with a song may trigger involuntary memory of an experience.

Using a smart phone to scan the QR codes, viewers may extend their experience of the exhibits by listening to the linked tracks.

_{Image: Brian Pool, Talkin ’bout a revolution, Linocut, 38 x 28 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.}

Launch

To be officially launched by Mayor Jenny Hill.

Friday 13 October 2023
6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Artist Talk

Saturday 14 October 2023
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Join the artist of Soundtracks as the give an insight into their artwork.

Free, no bookings required.

68^th Townsville Art Society Art Awards

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 29 September - 29 October 2023

The Townsville Art Society Inc proudly presents the 68^th Townsville Art Society Art Awards.

The Townsville Art Society has held an annual or biennial arts exhibition since its inception, and the Townsville Art Society Art Awards exhibition is now a major exhibition in the cultural life of the city.

Held in Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, it provides an opportunity for North Queensland artists, who are affiliated with an Art Society, to display their work in a major gallery and compete for prizes.

_{Image: Steve Crowe, Dawn at the Daintree [detail] 2021, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm. Townsville City Council Open Acquisitive Award Winner, 67th Townsville Art Society Art Awards, 2022. Image courtesy of Townsville City Galleries.}

Launch

To be officially launched by Mayor Jenny Hill.

Saturday 30 September 2023
6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Judge’s Talk

Sunday 1 October 2023
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Free, no bookings required.

Lost in Palm Springs

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 18 August – 24 September 2023

Curated by Dr Greer Honeywill, this exhibition examines the connection between Palm Springs and Australia, and how contemporary artists engage with and respond to modernism’s aesthetic and influence. Place and home, landscapes (real and imagined), and Bauhaus sensibilities inform the exceptional works in this exhibition.

Lost in Palm Springs is the result of three artist-residencies Greer undertook in Palm Springs, California, USA, between 2017-2019 researching the world’s largest collection of domestic mid-century modern architecture and connecting with artists who share her passion. In doing so, she discovered architectural and aesthetic sensibilities with surprisingly strong connections to Australia, particularly the Gold Coast.

_{Image: Kate Ballis, 2350, 2017, archival pigment ink on cotton rag, 103 x 153 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.}

Launch

To be officially launched by Cr Ann-Maree Greaney.

6:45pm for 7pm
Friday 18 August 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Acknowledgment

_{Curated by Dr Greer Honeywill, Lost in Palm Springs is a touring initiative developed by HOTA, Home of the Arts, Gold Coast in partnership with Museums & Galleries Queensland. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through its Visions of Australia program and through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. It is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy, and proudly sponsored by IAS Fine Art Logistics and o2 Architecture.}

_{Museums & Galleries Queensland is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funds from Creative Partnerships Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund.}

Chasing Light - Architecture of the North

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 18 August – 24 September 2023

This exhibition by Andrew Rankin documents recent developments of new contemporary buildings and the changing landscape of urban centres in North Queensland. Many of the structures form part of the master plan for James Cook University in Townsville and Cairns.

Chasing Light refers to the tool kit of a working photographer by searching and waiting for moments of illumination - be it dawn, dusk or bright midday sun. The images also showcase architects responding to the environmental challenges of designing buildings suitable for life in the tropics and dealing with extreme weather events such as cyclones and flooding rains.

Chasing Light is an inspiring celebration of the beauty and diversity of North Queensland's architecture. The images capture the unique charm and character of the buildings and structures that make up this diverse and beautiful region.

_{Image: Andrew Rankin, Cairns Performing Arts Centre, 2019, Cox Architecture + CA Architects, 123 x 95 cm, Cotton Rag Print. Image courtesy of the artist.}

Launch

To be officially launched by Cr Ann-Maree Greaney.

6:45pm for 7pm
Friday 18 August 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Len Cook: Fire and Rain

12 May – 13 August 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Len Cook is one of Australia’s foremost wood-fired potters. The exhibition Fire and Rain draws together nearly 80 artworks created over 40 years of ceramic practice with loans from public and private collections, as well as key works from the artist’s own collection.

Len first became interested in pottery when he moved to Townsville from Victoria in 1977 and joined the North Queensland Potters’ Association. The formative experience of attending a 10-day workshop convened by the Potters Association, led by Carl McConnell whose pottery style was inspired by Japanese techniques, reinforced Len’s excitement with traditional methods of firing.

The exhibition highlights the artists lifelong passion for wood-fired kilns and pots that are glazed by natural ash deposits over extended firing in traditional Japanese anagama (cave) kilns. Len Cook’s practice encompasses domestic ware, ceramic sculpture inspired by the coral forms of the Great Barrier Reef, and his anagama-fired work.

_{Image Credit: Len Cook, Set of 3 square vases [detail] 2013, 100-hour wood fire, reduction kiln using pine and black wattle, a. 24 x 10 cm, b. 20 x 11 cm, c. 17 x 10 cm. Collection of the artist. Photography Michael Marzik.}

Virtual Tour

Take a virtual tour of the Len Cook: Fire and Rain exhibition.

• Use the tool in the bottom right corner to see different views of the gallery or move between floors.
• Zoom in and out using your mouse or finger controls.

Ricky Emmerton: Who Flash!

12 May – 13 August 2023
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Ricky Emmerton is a Kalkatungu man living in Townsville. Emmerton has commenced a Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Arts) at James Cook University. Who Flash! will preview new paintings from his university research which asserts that Kuathuat Ritjinguthinha, Rainbow Serpent Dreaming, is a living tradition that maintains our culture and identity. ‘Flash’, in Indigenous art, is in the form of bright colours, dots and patterns. Emmerton’s paintings reflect experimentation into new and expressive forms of ‘flash’ colours and composition. Inspired from Kalkatungu rock art, historical documents and artists within our family, Who Flash! will demonstrate a continuance of Kalkatungu culture through art.

_{Image credit: Ricky Emmerton, Muu Kunti – Country is Home 2022, acrylic on canvas, 112 x 66 cm. Collection of the artist. Photographer: Andrew Rankin.}

Launch

Friday 12 May 2023
6pm for 6:30pm speeches
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Floor Talk

Join us at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery for an insight into Who Flash! an exhibition by Ricky Emmerton. Free. No bookings required.

Sunday 28 May 2023
10:30am
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Art in Conflict - An Australian War Memorial Touring Exhibition

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates: 3 March – 7 May 2023

Contemporary artists’ responses to conflict bring to light untold stories, reveal neglected histories and deepen our understanding of Australia’s experience of conflict, both past and present.

A showcase of diverse responses to war, the exhibition includes more than seventy paintings, drawings, films, prints, photography and sculptures. Leading Australian artists are represented, such as Khadim Ali, Rushdi Anwar, eX de Medici, Denise Green, Richard Lewer, Mike Parr and Ben Quilty. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, a collection priority for the Memorial in recent years, is featured, with works by Tony Albert, Paddy Bedford, Robert Campbell Jr, Michael Cook, Shirley Macnamara and Betty Muffler.

Supported by research from an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project, the exhibition highlights how war art can lead us to consider different ways of thinking about current and recent conflicts, inviting us to consider perspectives we might not otherwise encounter.

_{Image: Simon Gende, Plane crash into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, ART96124, Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.}

Education Kit

The Art in Conflict Education Kit (PDF, 31.4 MB) has been designed for Secondary and Senior Secondary students in conjunction with the Art in Conflict exhibition presented by the Australian War Memorial, or as a standalone study of contemporary art and history.

To book a free school or group tour please go to Education & Public Programs - School & Group Tours.

City of Townsville Art Collection: Recent Acquisitions

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 2 December 2022 - 5 March 2023

Showcasing a selection of artworks recently acquired for inclusion in the City of Townsville Art Collection, this exhibition includes purchases, gifts, and Cultural Gift Donations of significance in line with the collection priority areas of the City of Townsville Art Collection Policy, including Australian Art/Art of North Queensland, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Australian Colonial and Historical Art.

The City of Townsville Art Collection is at the heart of Council’s efforts to engage, educate and enrich the diverse populations drawn to the Townsville region.

_{Image: Ann Thomson, Water transit [detail], 2016, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 122.5 x 153 cm. Donated through the Cultural Gift Program by Ann Thomson, 2021. City of Townsville Art Collection. Accession number: 2021.0023.000. Image courtesy of the artist and Townsville City Galleries.}

Launch

6 – 8pm
Friday 2 December 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Artist Talk

Townsville City Galleries is pleased to present an Artist Talk in conjunction with the City of Townsville Art Collection: Recent Acquisitions exhibition.

Hear from some of our local exhibiting artists in this speed dating style artist talk.

Saturday 28 January 2023
10:30am – 12noon
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

This talk is free, but bookings are essential as spaces are limited.

Further Artist and Donor Information

• Ann Thomson (PDF, 298.2 KB)
• Anonymous Donation (PDF, 263.9 KB)
• Noel McKenna (PDF, 274.5 KB)
• Ross Searle (PDF, 298.2 KB)
• Tom Risley (PDF, 291.7 KB)

Julie Fragar: Biograph

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 2 December 2022 - 12 February 2023

Julie Fragar makes paintings about the stories we tell, simultaneously chronicling and critically analysing her chosen subjects. Bringing a unique level of psychological enquiry to the activity of painting, Fragar’s practice brings into focus the slippery relationship between reality and fiction. Through her unique language and remarkable aptitude as a painter, Fragar blends intense studies of social politics with biographical detail and personal speculation into vivid figurative and textual imagery. Often superimposing fragments from disparate sources, Fragar’s is a careful process of selection, editing and obfuscation that interprets the glut and vastness of post-internet connection through her own experiences, memories and associations.

Biograph is the first career survey of Fragar’s work. Mapping more than twenty years of practice, the exhibition assembles key works made between 1998 and 2021, including some previously unexhibited. The survey is arranged according to key ongoing themes for the artist, including biography, memory, identity and narrative. This major retrospective of Fragar’s distinctive style will tour between galleries in Queensland from February 2023 to December 2024, commencing at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery before travelling to University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, Tweed Regional Gallery, and Rockhampton Museum of Art.

_{Image: Julie Fragar, The Single Bed 2017, Oil on board, 135 x 100 cm. Collection of Griffith University Art Museum. Purchased 2017.
Photography: Carl Warner.}

Touring Dates and Venues

Julie Fragar: Biograph is a travelling exhibition produced by Townsville City Galleries and exhibited at:

University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery
1 March – 28 May 2023

Tweed Regional Gallery
9 June – 27 August 2023

Rockhampton Museum of Art
8 December 2023 – 3 March 2024

Julie Fragar: Biograph Education Kit

Townsville City Galleries have created an Education Kit in conjunction with the Julie Fragar exhibition Biograph.

This Education Kit is intended to aid Gallery patrons, teachers, and students in their interpretation of the touring exhibition Biograph by Julie Fragar. It can be used as a means of encouraging individual and group responses to the art on display. Included are discussion points, engaging activities and ideas for further research. It can be used to prepare for your gallery visit, during your gallery visit, or after your gallery visit at home or in the classroom.

Collect a free hard copy from Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, or download a digital copy:

• Julie Fragar: Biograph Education Kit (PDF, 1.4 MB)

Facing North: Cutler Footway

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 16 September - 27 November 2022

Cutler Footway’s Facing North comprises of three bodies of work reframing the artist’s last two decades of practice into a compelling and cohesive whole. These series include a clutch of small, erotically charged images recording the painter’s attempt to resume the natural and psychological environs of his birthplace after an absence of many decades.

The second section of the show explores the gradual maturing of Footway’s picture-making. Despite once describing himself as "a Sunday painter who paints every day", a conspicuous authority in conception and handling is discernible in the landscapes, still life and figure subjects finessed by Footway in this period.

The concluding section of the exhibition introduces a miscellany of life drawings, all in the medium of oil crayon on paper. These transcriptions of models posed in Footway’s verandah studio attest to an ongoing campaign of graphic home-schooling. Enlisting sitters from his family and friends, and from Ayr’s backpacking community, his viewpoint is close-up and therefore fragmentary.

In showcasing the life and work of a late-blooming regional painter in Queensland, this exhibition contends that compelling art is not infallibly the product of Australia’s cities and urban centres. It can and does emerge remotely from them, and at no disadvantage either to itself or to that wider cosmopolitanism whose features it reflects - and interrogates - in its mirror of truth.

Curated by Gitte Weise.

_{Image: Cutler Footway, Delta after a Flood [detail], 2020-21, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm. Image courtesy of the Artist.}

Launch

6pm for 6:30pm start
Friday 16 September 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Floor Talk

11am – 12pm
Saturday 17 September 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

People, Culture & Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Project

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 28 October - 13 November 2022

People, Culture & Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Project is proudly supported by Townsville City Galleries, Townsville City Council. In this program, small groups of Upper Primary and Junior Secondary students from schools across the North Queensland region, work collaboratively (in their own school) to produce contemporary wearable artworks to be showcased to the wider community. Students are taught traditional and contemporary skills and techniques (e.g. weaving, printmaking, painting) by First Nations artists in order to create the wearable artworks. They then prepare for a photoshoot experience where one student models the outfit and other students help with hair and makeup design and application. This project supports the linking of emerging First Nations artists with professionals in the Creative Arts Industries, and offers the wider community an insight into First Nations history, traditions, and culture through new works of art.

This year, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is proud to host the People, Culture & Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Project exhibition.

Launch

To be officially launched by Cr Ann-Maree Greaney.

6pm for 6:30pm start
Friday 28 October 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Panel Discussion

10:30 - 11:30am
Saturday 5 November
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image: Doomadgee State School, Ngida gamu Nguguwa Marrangurra [detail], 2022. Photography: Kaitlin Waterson.}

_{The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Project: People, Culture & Country is an initiative of the Department of Education - North Queensland Region, is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and is also supported by Townsville City Galleries, Townsville City Council.}

To be continued... An exhibition by TAFE Queensland Visual Art Students

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 28 October - 13 November 2022

The annual exhibition of TAFE North Queensland visual art student’s works boasts an array of approaches and media. This year’s exhibition once again promises to be an exciting glimpse into the future of Townsville’s emerging artists.

Launch

To be officially launched by Cr Ann-Maree Greaney.

6pm for 6:30pm
Friday 28 October 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image: Jared Goodburn, Animal Collage 2022. Digital Art, various dimensions. Image courtesy of the artist.}

67^th Townsville Art Society Awards

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 30 September - 23 October 2022

The Townsville Art Society Inc proudly presents the 67^th Townsville Art Society Awards.

The Townsville Art Society has held an annual or biennial arts exhibition since its inception, and the Townsville Art Society Awards exhibition is now a major exhibition in the cultural life of the city.

Held in Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, it provides an opportunity for North Queensland artists, who are affiliated with an Art Society, to display their work in a major gallery and to compete for prizes.

Launch

6pm for 6:30pm start
Friday 30 September 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Judges Talk

10:30am – 11:30am
Saturday 1 October 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image: Margaret Crawford, Banksia Life After Fire 2021, Ceramic, 16.5 x 17.5 cm diam, 23 x 11.5 cm diam, 21 x 12.5 cm diam. Major acquisitive prize winner of the 66th Townsville Art Awards 2021. City of Townsville Art Collection. Image courtesy of Townsville City Galleries. Accession number: 2022.0045.000}

Judge

Donald James Waters is an established Australian artist with an illustrious career spanning over three decades. While best described as a contemporary artist, Donald’s artwork transcends many genres to create a truly unique yet ever evolving and eclectic style. Donald has relaxed the confines of his initial beginnings in botanical art now using stylised strokes, overemphasised characters and bold blocks of colour to shift his primary focus to that of a storyteller rather than a technically correct traditional artist.

Donald’s career has taken his art to every corner of the globe and his distinctive style has made its way into the catalogues of many private and corporate collectors alike, including that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s art collection. More recently Donald has concentrated his efforts closer to home completing several commissioned government art projects and participating in community programs within Queensland. In 2016, Donald was awarded with an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to the community and the Arts and has been previously recognised as Gold Coast Citizen of the Year.

Donald James Waters – Australian Contemporary Artist

_{Image: Artist Donald James Waters at work. Image courtesy of The Courier Mail, Logan author explains mind in latest book Earth: the toughest bootcamp in the universe, March 28, 2017.}

North Queensland Ceramic Awards

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 22 July - 25 September 2022

The biennial North Queensland Ceramic Awards has long aimed to increase public exposure to a high standard of pottery from around the nation. A showcase for both well-known and emerging artists, this competition displays the diversity of ceramic art currently being produced in Australia.

The City of Townsville Art Collection Award of $10,000 continues to provide both opportunity for artists to become a part of one of the nation’s most significant ceramic collections, as well as ensuring the continued growth of this important subsection of the City of Townsville Art Collection.

Online Publication

Pat Hoffie: Hi-Vis

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 16 July – 11 September 2022

Under the ongoing series Fully Exploited Labour, the subject of work has been an important theme within Pat Hoffie’s practice for some decades.

The exhibition Hi-Vis is part of that series. The large paintings feature construction workers building frameworks across and within the Australian landscape. The idea of ‘landscape’ or ‘country’ is a contested topic in Australia; nowhere more passionately fought over than in North Queensland, where battles over the rights to mine for coal, coal seam gas, fossil fuels, uranium and minerals have repeatedly divided the nation. Yet the rising interest in environmental consciousness has tended to ignore the problems of continuing to separate the idea of landscape as a ‘constructed site’ from the idea of an untouched ‘wilderness’, even though writer-scientists like Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage have reasoned that nothing could be further from the truth. The Australian landscape, they argue, is the product of thousands of years of cultural belief systems based on Indigenous agricultural practices. That is, they argue that mankind creates what we call landscape, and always has done.

This body of work situates working men and women in the process of actively re-constructing and re-structuring their environment; it raises questions about the ongoing interactions between people and place, and the outcomes and consequences of their endeavours.

Online Publication

Artist Talk

Gain an insight into Hi-Vis, an exhibition that looks at changing ideas about work in Australia. Hear from Pat as she delves into her creative processes, and how this series came about in this informative video.

Virtual Tour

You can now view the 2022 North Queensland Ceramic Awards and Pat Hoffie’s Hi-Vis from the comfort of your home!

To view the tour:

• Use the tool in the bottom right corner to see different views of the gallery or move between floors.
• Zoom in and out using your mouse or finger controls.

Construction Corner

Have you visited the Construction Corner at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery?

Grab a hard hat and a hi-vis jacket in this fun and FREE activity space and create your own construction workers to add to our landscape! Get inspired by Pat Hoffie’s exhibition Hi-Vis then create your own masterpieces.

What will your construction worker be doing in the landscape?

We can’t wait to see what you all create! Be sure to share your fluorescent creations with us on our socials!

Take part in this activity during the Gallery’s normal opening hours, or why not download our construction worker templates by clicking on the image below and colour-in at home!

The Construction Corner will be available until 11 September 2022.

The Percivals 2022

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 23 April - 3 July 2022

Having begun in 2007, The Percivals is an open competition for artists. While showcasing the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by Australian artists, the competitions have also given many emerging artists an opportunity to engage with portraiture and share their expressions of themselves and those close to them.

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery will be closed on Saturday 23 April from 10am – 1pm. The Percivals will instead open to the public on Saturday 23 April for the VIP launch event starting at 6pm.

We have an exciting launch event organised, including live entertainment, roving artists and a licensed area for the general public in front of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. This area will not be ticketed and include a big screen to broadcast the winners announcements.

For more information and to book, visit The Percivals.

Launch

6 - 9pm
Saturday 23 April 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Judges Talk

11 – 12pm
Sunday 24 April 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image left: Cutler Footway, Jack Betteridge Costumed as an Elf: Don't F. with Me, Fellas! [detail] 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 92 cm. Winner of the acquisitive Percival Portrait Painting Prize 2020. Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. City of Townsville Art Collection.}

_{Image right: Janet Tavener, Ben & Saki [detail] 2019, Digital print on Canson Baryta Prestige Paper, 120 x 87 cm. Winner of the acquisitive Percival Photographic Portrait Prize 2020. Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. City of Townsville Art Collection.}

Online Publication

Disintegration: Metadrawing and Expanded Drawing

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 12 February - 10 April 2022

Disintegration: Metadrawing and Expanded Drawing explores drawing as an autonomous artistic discipline, as opposed to its previous contingent uses, such as preparatory drawing, commercial art, design and architecture. While drawing remains associated with traditions of preparatory process or as a pedagogical tool, it is no longer limited to these discourses.

Disintegration investigates drawing’s integral role within contemporary art and responds to a renaissance of the discipline. Remarkably, given the ubiquity of drawing in art practice, little attempt has been made to consolidate drawing’s role in light of technological change, a discourse that this exhibition attempts to settle. The neologism of metadrawing (the principles and philosophies of the drawing discipline applied via technologies far outside the traditional), or, as others sometimes refer to it in practical terms, expanded drawing, directly informing rationale behind this exhibition. Disintegration will bring together ten artists whose work explores this rich terrain.

Featuring Madeleine Joy Dawes, Justin Garnsworthy, Miles Hall, Drew Connor Holland, Jumaadi, Jess Johnson, Claudine Marzik, Helena Papageorgiou, Phoebe Paradise and Grant C. Stewart.

Curated by Jonathan McBurnie.

_{Image: Jess Johnson, Dumuzor, 2021, Pen, fibre tipped markers, acrylic paint, and gouache on paper, 43.8 x 33.7 cm (framed). Image courtesy of the Artist.}

Virtual Tour

Take a virtual tour of the DISINTEGRATION: Metadrawing and Expanded Drawing exhibition.

• Use the tool in the bottom right corner to see different views of the gallery or move between floors.
• Zoom in and out using your mouse or finger controls.

Online Publication

The publication offers a wonderful insight into the exhibition.

Risographomania

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 19 February - 10 April 2022

Risographomania brings together ninety local, national and international artists to explore the unpredictable, bright and exciting printmaking process, risography. Invented in Japan in 1980 by the Riso Kagaku company as an affordable alternative to screen printing and offset printing, the risograph is a medium capable of incredible accuracy and coherence, or anarchic misregistration, depending on the whims of the artist. Since this time, the Riso print has become a popular medium in its own right, with its trademark bright colours and ‘happy accidents’ making it a fascinating addition to contemporary printmaking.

• Risographomania Price List (PDF, 2.1 MB)

For all artwork sales, please contact Perc Tucker Regional Gallery on 07 4727 9011 or email galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au.

Curated by Ashley Ronning and Jonathan McBurnie.

_{Image: Christopher Sperandio, Person, woman, man, camera, TV, 2020, Risograph, 29.7 x 42 cm. Image courtesy of the Artist.}

Video

Councillor Anne Maree Greaney officially opened two exhibitions at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Disintegration: Metadrawing and Expanded Drawing & Risographomania. Gain an insight to these exhibitions with an introduction by the Curators, Jonathan McBurnie (Disintegration & Risographomania) and Ashley Ronning (Risographomania).

Virtual Tour

Take a virtual tour of the Risographomania exhibition.

• Use the tool in the bottom right corner to see different views of the gallery or move between floors.
• Zoom in and out using your mouse or finger controls.

Online Publication

Hear from the co-curators of Risographomania, Ashley Ronning and Jonathan McBurnie in the digital publication below:

66^th Townsville Art Society Awards

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 10 December 2021 - 13 February 2022

The Townsville Art Society Inc proudly presents the 66^th Townsville Art Society Awards.

The annual Awards have been held since 1955, after a group of enthusiastic artists, the Townsville Art Group, initiated a successful exhibition called As We See It. The Townsville Art Group was the genesis of the Townsville Art Society which formed in 1962. The annual Townsville Art Society Awards exhibition has continued over the years with many notable artist judges providing their expertise.

Launch

6 - 8pm
Friday, 10 December 2021
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image: Carole Howlett, Saunders Swagger [detail], 2020, Oil on canvas, 52 x 62 cm. Winner of the Townsville City Council Acquisitive Award, 65th Townsville Art Awards 2020, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. City of Townsville Art Collection. Photo: Townsville City Galleries.}

Fresh Material: New Australian Textile Art

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 10 December 2021 - 6 February 2022

Textile-based art has been enjoying a renaissance after decades of being derided, ignored or ghettoised for being ‘craft’ or ‘Women’s work’, both terms of which are dismissive artworld shorthand for ‘not art’. Contemporary artists have been reinstating the importance of textiles by way of incredible force and ingenuity, and perhaps most importantly, an intelligent and methodical dismantling of established art world ‘rules’, as clung to by the boy’s club of 20^th century painting. Thus textile-based art becomes a powerful and accessible agent in the examination of identity, society and politics. Textiles have grown to command a significant following, offering its own complex and distinctive lexicon, as capable of expression, nuance and polemic as any other media. This exhibition begins by taking textiles’ artistic legitimacy for granted, a point proven many times over throughout its long history, bringing together some of the best and brightest artists working in Australia today.

Featuring the work of Julie Bradley, Regi Cherini, Leah Emery, Marion Gaemers & Lynnette Griffiths, Emma Gardner, Hannah Gartside, Julia Gutman, Vivien Haley, Michelle Hamer, Talitha Kennedy, Sheree Kinlyside, Nicole O’Loughlin, Susan Peters Nampitjin, Ema Shin, Hiromi Tango, Sonia Ward, Jenny Watson, Paul Yore, Troy-Anthony Baylis and India Collins.

Curated by Jonathan McBurnie.

Exhibition Launch

6 - 8pm
Friday, 17 December 2021
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

_{Image: Jenny Watson, Sunshine of your love, 2020, Acrylic on French cotton and tapestry template, 140 x 137 cm; 39 x 31 cm. Courtesy of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.}

Online Publication

Featuring the work of Julie Bradley, Regi Cherini, Leah Emery, Marion Gaemers & Lynnette Griffiths, Emma Gardner, Hannah Gartside, Julia Gutman, Vivien Haley, Michelle Hamer, Talitha Kennedy, Sheree Kinlyside, Nicole O’Loughlin, Susan Peters Nampitjin, Ema Shin, Hiromi Tango, Sonia Ward, Jenny Watson, Paul Yore, Troy-Anthony Baylis and India Collins.

The publication offers a wonderful insight into the exhibition.

Journey Through Images: 40 Years of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 3 September - 28 November 2021

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery celebrates its fortieth anniversary with a diverse selection of work made by the artists of Townsville, the community, and staff of the gallery past and present. Journey Through Images builds on the connections made between artist and viewer through the gallery, and through the art work, an exhibition drawn from connections, stories and anecdotes related to our city, our region and our community. Featuring Tate Adams, G.W. Bot, James Brown, William Bustard, Laura Castell, John Coburn, Ray Crooke, Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend, HAHA, Sandi Hook, Jan Hynes, Robert Jacks, Jenuarrie, Peter Lawson, Sean Leathers, Anne Lord, David Malangi, Ron McBurnie, Stewart McFarlane, George Milpurrurru, Mini Graff, David Rowe, Jan Senbergs, Anneke Silver, Madonna Staunton, Ben Trupperbaumer, Fred Williams and many more.

Exhibition Launch

6 - 8pm
Friday, 3 September 2021
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery

Image: John Coburn, Garden of desire 1976, Screenprint, printed in colour, from multiple stencils, 56 x 89.8 cm, Accession No: 1976.0010.000.
Purchased with funds from the Townsville Art Society and the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, 1976. City of Townsville Art Collection.
Photography: Michael Marzik

Virtual Tour

Take a virtual tour of the Journey Through Images: 40 Years of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery exhibition.

• Use the tool in the bottom right corner to see different views of the gallery or move between floors.
• Zoom in and out using your mouse or finger controls.

Celebratory Video

It’s hard to put into one video all that is Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, but we think this comes pretty close.

Thank you to all of our speakers, all Townsville City Galleries staff past and present, Townsville Citylibraries Local History Collection, and to all artists and patrons of the Gallery for your ongoing support.

Here’s to 40 years!

Online publication

Featuring reflections from staff, artists, and community members, the publication offers a wonderful insight into 40 years of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.

Hard copies of the publication can be purchased from Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.

Robert Preston: Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955 - 2021

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 18 June - 22 August 2021

Inner Visions: Observation, Abstraction and Imagination, 1955 – 2021 is the first career-spanning retrospective of Townsville-based artist, Robert Preston, and the largest and most comprehensive selection of his work to date. The exhibition covers some sixty-six years of artistic practice, and includes key works from every period of Preston’s vast oeuvre, including never-before exhibited student works, studies, commissions and commercial pieces, and the career-defining Communion to the Trees in its entirety, exhibited for the first time in two decades.

This expansive exhibition is drawn from collections public and private, and features many works, journals and ephemera drawn from the artist’s own archives, offering new insights into one of North Queensland’s most beloved and influential artists.

Curated by Jonathan McBurnie.

• 1989 Robert Preston Survey Exhibition publication (PDF, 10.2 MB)

Image: Robert Preston, Morning Raga on Contemplating Pataya, 1978, gouache on Arches dessin paper, 36 x 33cm. Collection of City of Townsville.

Ephemera

Exhibition dates: 17 - 25 July 2021

Celebrating 20 years of Ephemera! One of North Queensland’s most anticipated events, Ephemera will once again feature an array of local, national and international sculpture, installation and ephemeral art talent. Come and enjoy the visual arts at the picturesque destination during Townsville’s glorious festival season weather, vote for your favourite artwork and discover something different and new. We’re sure you will love this very special edition of Ephemera!

Image: Karl Meyer, Hand in the Sand, 2019
Strand Ephemera People’s Choice Award Winner 2019
Photograph: Andrew Rankin Photography

Hannah Murray: Entropicana

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 6 April - 13 June 2021

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is proud to support the next generation of Townsville and North Queensland-based artists. Hannah Murray is fast growing a name for herself as one of North Queensland’s most beloved artists, and Entropicana is her first major solo exhibition. Murray’s Entropicana explores the duality of life in the tropics through lush illustration, and a playful postmodern approach to composition, juxtaposing seemingly unrelated imagery to create a series of beguiling montages. Most life on this planet lives— thrives— in the tropics, and so too does it inevitably die, fulfilling its function in a greater scheme, its nutrients and energy passing along the chain to sustain new life. With the natural world in tumult, and the increasingly unpredictability of life, is our own existence any different? Murray examines such questions in an artistic voice which alternates between the sobering and bleakly humorous; an accurate and symbolic reflection of life.

Image: Hannah Murray, Floating World, 2020, Graphite on Arches Aquarelle watercolour paper, 76 x 57cm. Courtesy of the artist

Carolyn Craig and Damian Dillon: (Dis)Location

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 16 April - 13 June 2021

Dis(Location) examines the intangibility of affect over Australia’s post-colonial landscape. In the visual arts, this is a context where landscape is considered as a set of inter-relations between body and space, inhabitation and other cultural metaphors. The landscape serves as a site of analysis in relation to the underlying violence of capital economies. This cultural matrix is disrupted through strategies of chemical dissolution (Dillon) and copy generated error codes (Craig). Both approaches dissolve the boundary between self and other, and subject and object, to provoke slippages into smooth space.  This space of osmotic fluidity allows the artists to transgress the everyday into an uncanny state of confusion – to implicate the viewer within the abject state of loss.

This exhibition brings a range of new and recent works by both artists, including printmaking and photography, performative, sculptural and installation elements to fuse a new whole between the artists and their various media. (Dis)Location is thought-provoking and visually disarming collection of works, and an experiment in collaboration between these two artists uniquely suited to the modular downstairs space of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.

Image: Damian Dillon, (Dis)integration #5, 2019, unique C-Type print on Alupanel, 100 x 90 cm

Lauren Carter: Yonder

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 12 February - 11 April 2021

Yonder is the first major solo exhibition of North Queensland-based artist Lauren Jaye Carter, and brings together new interdisciplinary works on paper which incorporate drawing, painting, collage and printmaking. Carter’s studio approach is considered and nuanced, incorporating the artist’s subtle sense of colour, which shifts the mood of the works from the sun-bleached climes of so many Australian artists, toward somewhere more liminal, a twilight world.

Image: Lauren Jaye Carter, Closer / Further, 2020
Relief print collage; Kozo natural, BFK Grey, Kitakata Warm

Artist Talk

Katya Venter: Curiouser and Curiouser

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 12 February - 11 April 2021

‘Curiouser and Curiouser is a sublime world of perfection mixed with the grotesque. Immersive in scale, it is an abject yet beautiful playground of hybridised baby-animals. The artist, Katya Venter, invites us to be Alice in Wonderland inside a large scale Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Laser-cut silhouettes cast neon light on the artists’ “babies”, rendered in ink and bleach. The perfection of the machine cut refracts on of the human hand’s splatters of ink and acid. It conjures a new kind of steampunk futurism with a twist of neo-noir.

-Selection written by Kate O’Hara, from her exhibition essay.

Image: Katya Venter, Insight installation component, 2020
Ink on paper and Perspex

Artist Talk

Sylvia Ditchburn: Mapping Loam Island on the Ross

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 12 February - 11 April 2021

‘The deep north has proven a lure for Australian artists, including Sylvia Ditchburn who arrived in North Queensland from Toowoomba in 1967 and has spent decades since walking in, knowing, painting and evoking in form and exotic colour a landscape that she has found entrancing. Mapping Loam Island on the Ross is constructed like a portrait in homage to this special place, a pocket of wildness on the banks of the Ross River, yet located only 27 minutes’ drive to the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in Townsville’s CBD. In her capture of this place, she takes us into its smallness which expands into a sense of the holistic connectedness of the natural world.’

-Selection written Louise Martin-Chew, from her exhibition essay.

Image: Sylvia Ditchburn, Mapping Loam Island on the Ross No. 7, 2020
Acrylic on canvas

Artist Talk

Roland Nancarrow: Maldives Artwork

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 22 January – 28 March 2021

Maldives Artworks, a striking new exhibition by North Queensland artist, Roland Nancarrow, is touring Australia, and will soon be shown at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, kicking off a year-long North Queensland showcase of our region’s artist, celebrating the gallery’s fortieth year. The exhibition features a vibrant selection of watercolour works on paper, acrylics on canvas and hand painted sculptural wall works inspired by recent trips to the Maldives.

Image: Roland Nancarrow, Niyama Sand Garden Series 1 [detail], 2017 Watercolour on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm

Andrea Huelin: Men and Cones

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Exhibition dates: 27 November 2020 – 7 February 2021 High-vis, yet invisible, they are among us. Where there’s traffic to be managed, or roads to be worked, you will find them. Men and Cones turns the generator-powered spotlight onto the reflective workwear of our suburban heroes, as they go through their well-practised motions of daily toil. This exhibition marks a shift in scale and focus from Huelin’s usually-intimate still life works, rendering workers – and their cones – monumental in their everyday lives. Image: Andrea Huelin, Man with Canvas 2020, gouache on paper, 35 x 28 cm

Artist Talk

Leonie Wood: Life Lines

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Exhibition dates: 27 November 2020 – 7 February 2021 Life Lines draws heavily on Mackay-based artist Leonie Wood’s relationship with the curvilinear line of the female form, showcasing works that skilfully weave the contrasting strength and softness of the feminine spirit. Wood’s life drawings in ink, pen, charcoal, and graphite, and her hand-drawn imagery on ceramics, produced in collaboration with her late husband and renowned ceramicist Rick Wood, perfectly illustrate her ability to harness this dynamic force. Image: Leonie Wood, Repose 2020, artist pen on paper, framed, 50 x 41 cm

Artist Talk

Regi Cherini: All the Single Ladies

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Exhibition dates: 27 November 2020 – 7 February 2021 Regi Cherini’s work is a playful meditation on contemporary womanhood. An acknowledgement and companionable shout-out to the single ladies, with each embroidery depicting, through still life arrangements, an aspect of single life. These vary from the public (shopping list items and handbag contents from a night on the town) to the private (the plans for a Saturday night at home, in the form of tea, Tim Tams and television). The deliberate emphasis and meticulous depiction of each object offering a relatable commentary, at times humorous, sincere, personal and  unapologetic; contemporary life in miniature. Image: Regi Cherini, Saturday Night In 2019, embroidery floss on cotton, 38 x 27.5 cm

50 Treasures: Celebrating 50 Years of James Cook University

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Exhibition dates: 30 October 2020 – 10 January 2021 Take this unique opportunity to explore the people, places, and events that have shaped North Queensland and the Tropics through a stunning selection of the most rare and precious artefacts, including original manuscripts and artworks, drawn from the JCU Library Special Collections. Journey through 150 years of history as you encounter explorers and creators of all kinds and gain insights into life - on the land, in our towns and on the Great Barrier Reef. View the online catalogue Image front: Anton Hasell (1994), The Investigator (maquette), JCU Art Collection. Photograph by Michael Marzik. ©Anton Hasell, 2020. Reproduced with permission.

Virtual Tour

Shireen Malamoo: Work is a Healer

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Exhibition dates: 25 September – 22 November 2020 Shireen Malamoo’s paintings are meditations on the artist’s upbringing in the strict, Pentecostal church system, and fuse the iconographies and narratives of Christianity and her own South Sea Islander and Aboriginal heritage. Drawing on these very distinctive cultural and spiritual backgrounds, it is no surprise that Malamoo’s works are complicated and beautiful meditations on her people’s past and future. The artist expresses her own difficulties in reconciling these parts of her life, as well as some of the more troubling aspects of only Australia’s colonial history, specifically the people of the South Sea Islands, whose story is such a seminal, heartbreaking and often overlooked part of North Queensland’s history. Malamoo’s paintings are vivid, beautiful and powerful, reflecting her own complex world. View the online catalogue Shireen Malamoo: Work is a Healer Price List (PDF, 505.6 KB)

Image: Shireen Malamoo, Appeal to higher power | Black elegance pray | Keep your mouth shut there are people worse off than you [detail] 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 86 x 86.3 cm Photo: Through the Looking Glass Studio. Courtesy of the Artist

65^th Townsville Art Awards

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: 25 September – 25 October 2020

The Townsville Art Society Inc proudly presents the 65th Townsville Art Awards.

The annual Awards have been held since 1955, after a group of enthusiastic artists, the Townsville Art Group, initiated a successful exhibition called As We See It. The Townsville Art Group was the genesis of the Townsville Art Society which formed in 1962. The annual Townsville Art Awards exhibition has continued over the years with many notable artist judges providing their expertise.

Image: Laura Castell, One fish for dinner 2019, woodcut on paper, 62 x 42.5 cm.
Winner of the Townsville City Council Open Acquisitive Award, 64th Townsville Art Awards 2019, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. City of Townsville Art Collection.
Photo: Townsville City Galleries

North Queensland Ceramic Awards 2020

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition Dates:  Friday 31 July - Sunday 20 September, 2020

The biennial North Queensland Ceramic Awards has long aimed to increase public exposure to a high standard of pottery from around the nation. A showcase for both well-known and emerging artists, this competition displays the diversity of ceramic art currently being produced in Australia. The City of Townsville Art Collection Award of $10,000 continues to provide both opportunity for artists to become a part of one of the nation’s most significant ceramic collections, as well as ensuring the continued growth of this important subsection of the City of Townsville Art Collection.

To view the virtual tour of the exhibition, see the winning works, watch the Judge’s talk, read through the exhibition publication, or to view the price list, please visit  NQCA webpage.

Image: Simone Fraser, Landscape Series (single)  2017, clay and dry glazes, 63 x 27 cm
Major acquisitive prize winner of the City of Townsville Art Collection Award, 2018 biennial North Queensland Ceramic Awards, Townsville
City of Townsville Art Collection

The Percivals

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Exhibition dates: Friday 22 May – Sunday 19 July 2020

Having begun in 2007, The Percivals is an open competition for artists. While showcasing the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by Australian artists, the competition has also given many emerging artists an opportunity to engage with portraiture and share their expressions of themselves and those close to them. There are three entry categories for the Percivals which include:

• Percival Portrait Painting Prize
• Percival Photographic Portrait Prize
• Percival Animal Portrait Prize

To view the virtual tour of the exhibition, see the winning works, watch the Judges’ and artists’ talks, read through the exhibition publication, or to view the price list, please visit  The Percivals webpage.

Image: Jenny Rodgerson, Balancing in the big red coat, 2017, oil on linen, 180 x 150 cm.
Winner of the acquisitive Percival Portrait Painting Prize 2018, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. City of Townsville Art Collection.

Reflections: The TNQ7 Film Archive Project

Exhibition dates

3 April – 17 May 2020

Take a virtual tour of the exhibition!

• View the exhibition publication
• View the exhibition price list

Reflections: the TNQ7 Film Archive Project is a partnership between Townsville City Council Galleries and Libraries. The Project comprises of eight local artists who, facilitated by the Libraries team, have been given access to the historic TNQ7 Film Archive in order to find and respond to footage that is of significance to the artist and our city. The archive consists of approximately 8625 tapes of archival footage, and this exhibition aims to highlight the value of its digitisation for future generations.

Reflections: the TNQ7 Film Archive Project includes works by Neil Binnie, Elijah Clarke, Rob Douma, Kathy Cornwall, Sheree Kinlyside, Hannah Murray, Anneke Silver, and Kellie Williams.

Image: Elijah Clarke, Stories from Bwgcolman (8) 2019, printed scan from 4x5 negative, framed, 40.64 x 50.8 cm

Stewart MacFarlane: Outside Looking In

Exhibition dates

3 April – 17 May 2020

Take a virtual tour of the exhibition!

• View the exhibition price list
• Download colouring in pages adapted from Stewart MacFarlane’s artworks!

Fifty years ago, 1970, in Adelaide, Stewart MacFarlane entered art school, aged 16 (The South Australian School of Art). He’d always known he was going to be a painter. It consumed him more than anything else at the time, apart from pop music. But there was no school for pop music, so art school it was. He was forever chasing the perfect image, the illusive masterpiece. The perfect image never really came, but each new canvas would bring him a flicker of hope that this could be the one.

Outside Looking In spans these decades of exploration, reflecting MacFarlane’s consistent fascination with the world, with people and places, and how light falls on it all. Inspired by his heroes of the Modern Art world- Van Gogh, Picasso, Drysdale, Nolan, and Boyd- as well as his Contemporary idols- Americans, Edward Hopper, Fairfield Porter, and Alex Katz, his figurative influence and vision has remained constant. As the dialogue of the art world has gradually become narrower and politically driven, MacFarlane prefers to remain on the outside looking in; a figurative, narrative painter from an earlier time.

Image: Stewart MacFarlane, Self Portrait, 2017, oil on canvas, 42 x 402 cm

Virtual Tour

Artist Talk