The Hive has begun, and aims to build on, and bringing together a wide range of artists both nationally and internationally, to collaborate on projects. With our support, these artists explore critical ideas, such as sustainability, through their works. We provide a curated platform for these works to then be displayed to raise public awareness.
A Brush with Birds
Our first foray into an ambitious exhibition that took over our entire, large second story gallery space, was both a book launch with Hardie Grant, and Exhibition of the original works both for the book, and throughout the 50 year career, of artist Richard Weatherly OAM. The book has gone onto sell well over 5,000 copies globally and the second print run was produced in multiple languages.
It tells the story of Richard’s travels over five continents in his journey of knowledge, understanding of the environment and its birdlife. It includes works created for the book and seminal paintings throughout his career, beginning with an solo exhibition in London in his early twenties.
A joint Exhibition with renowned sculptor Lucy McEachern and her bronze birds, that are known and collected, both nationally and internationally. This ran for seven weeks in a lucky window of 2020, attracting visitors from near and far.
Mangroves and Wetlands on the Bellarine
Just beginning…the seed has been sown, or drifted in the case of mangroves.
Introduced to the idea by Zahidah Zeytoun Millie and her ‘Mangroves from the Water’ Art Project and PhD, several of our artists recently jumped into kayaks and paddled down the Barwon river to where the mangroves grow. Up close and personal with their aroma, their structure, their unique breathing tubes for gaseous exchange, the pneumatophores, – and trying not to fall in, we had an invigorating time learning about this plant that is so vital to our carbon capture around the world.
Zahidah has already exhibited works in the U.A.E., at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington 2022, and the Gordon in Geelong 2020 in Group Exhibitions as she aims to spread the word about the value of mangroves and the beauty they can inspire in art.
Next stop is The Hive in 2024 with an expanded focus to include our local wetlands, so stay tuned for more details. Please talk to us if you have an interest in the field. We intend to enable opportunities for presentations, education and discussion about the important role of mangroves within the wider wetlands ecosystem – and we would love to welcome you as part of that.
