Liz Wickramasinghe’s paintings explore a combination of themes around domestic crafts, such a textiles and hand-making traditions and the rugged, costal landscapes where she lives on Wadawurrung country in Victoria. By combining a range of painting, masking and relief-printmaking techniques, her works explore layering, repetition, texture, linework and pattern. This approach allows Liz to explore naturally occurring repetition and pattern found in the landscapes and botanical life of her region, highlighting the parallels with her love of weaving, patchwork and collaged imagery. This body of work includes Liz’s first attempts at portraying a still life setting, which bring together the themes and visual references so often apparent in her art practice.

Spending most of her time living and working on a cattle property in Texas, Qld,  Jane Henry uses her rural surroundings as a constant inspiration for her creative artworks.

A mostly self-taught artist who enjoys blending various mediums, recently including her own individual style of fibre art. She is constantly extending the capabilities of hand stitching on archival paper with foraged natural fibres and objects creating extremely unique artworks.

These recent intricate botanical creations combine Jane’s love of Australian native flora as well as paying homage to her mother & grandmothers who passed down the skill and appreciation of slow needlework.

This collection of work explores domestic life centred around the dining table that occupies an important place in the artist’s home. A table of interesting dimensions, long and thin, it was made originally to fit a difficult space. It has since moved house twice, and has fitted into each new space as if it were made to be right there.

As the cold season approaches, the table becomes the place to sit in the warmth of Winter sun - to eat, to read, to work, or to talk with friends.

To honour and celebrate of a decade of cultivating and showcasing Australian talent, The Corner Store Gallery proudly presents a commemorative exhibition featuring ten of our distinguished artists from the past decade. Each artist has created two unique 10 x 10 inch works capturing the spirit of their practice and reflecting the gallery’s enduring commitment to artistic innovation.

TEN not only celebrates the last decade of The Corner Store Gallery, but also acknowledges the vibrant community of artists who have contributed to our success. Join us as we honour the past and look forward to the future with this milestone exhibition.

Moving from New York back to Australia, I now live as I grew up, on the edge of a National Park. As a remote location, it is this natural environment that fills me with inspiration which I continue to learn about every day. 

Walking the local tracks and being part of the community bush care group I’m in constant awe of our Australian bush and its fragility. The unique vision of our wildflowers and endangered birds are globally understated or recognised and it is something that drives me paint and share. It is that possibility of a new story that moves me.

I see that we are all small parts of a whole. We adapt and are forever evolving, I cannot help but be influenced by situations, people and places around me and this observation makes for an ongoing story.

Narelle Higson returned to full time art practice following many years of doing other things, including working in health and children’s television. Describing herself more as a scribbler than a painter, Narelle has embraced oil pastels which when combined with cold wax, enables layering and scraping back to create a unique finish and texture. Narelle is drawn to capturing Australian landscapes, describing the colour, light and movement of grasses, bushland, flora and water.

How does exploring a new place make you feel ? Do you find yourself taking note of the differences in landscape, mentally jotting down the colours and shapes?

Recently I’ve been lucky enough to experience some travel and found myself taking note of these changes unable to quiet my mind until I’ve brought those new colours and compositions to the canvas.

‘Field Notes’ celebrates finding beauty in the things that surround us…whether that be noticing the new colours with the changing of seasons or taking note of the beautiful shapes from little flowers in our very own backyards.

My hope for this exhibit is that it will bring joy to each viewer and reason to take note of the beauty within colours and shadows of our everyday surrounds.

To celebrate our 9th anniversary, Gallery Director Madeline Young has curated a group exhibition of 21 artists from across varied and diverse practices. Many have exhibited with The Corner Store Gallery before with some joining us for the first time. Artists were invited to create two artworks each exploring the term “Quiet”.

Exhibiting Artists

Michelle Arnott, Laura Baker, Emily Birks, Kim Bizo, Clare Dubina, Liss Finney, Andrea Hopgood, Matt James, Ingrid Kwong, Sandon Gibbs O’Neil, Stacey McCall, Brendan Nicholl, Amanda Ogilby, Nerrida Parfitt, Sarah Randall, Ruth Rawle, Daniel Rivers, Georgina Sambell, Andrea Shaw, Meg Walters, Alex Watts.

Ordinary Things is a celebration of the tenacity, joy, dedication, humour, and chaos that permeates my life as a working-from-home artist. It is an exploration of the endless balancing act of being a mother, wife and creator. The works blur the boundaries of domestic and artistic life, where household items or children’s toys playfully invade the composition as if they’re in the process of being tidied up. The exhibition also explores the bittersweet passing of childhood, highlighting the brevity of this period of innocence and playfulness, where the young child’s locus in the domestic sphere begins to expand and well-loved childhood toys are abandoned.

FLORA is a group exhibition curated by Gallery Director Madeline Young to celebrate the arrival of Spring. This collection brings together a fantastic group of unique, colourful botanical artworks of all mediums, shapes and sizes.

These contemporary artists use wonderfully diverse techniques and approach experimentation with mediums and materials and throughout their practices.

Exhibiting Artists: Misha Harrison, Zoe Sernack, Fleur Stevenson, Natasha Townsend, Liz Wickramasinghe and Madeline Young.

Exhibiting Artists: Emily Heath, Melanie Vugich, Linda Kruger, Mary Donnelly, Michelle Fogarty, Jan Spencer and Jude Keogh

Curated by: Madeline Young

Domestic Goddess is a group exhibition curated by Gallery Director Madeline Young, bringing together the work of some of Australia’s most exciting, contemporary female artists. Each artist creates vibrant, lively, colourful Still Life and Interior works celebrating the domestic environment. This exhibition is a visual, “tongue in cheek” take on the modern Australian woman’s role in the household.

In Safe Keeping pays homage to the natural treasures we gather, collect and study. I have long been fascinated with natural history collections, and through my horticultural background, herbarium specimens. There is a reverence to the taking and preservation of a single fragile specimen. When pulled from the crowd and treated with care, these individual beings are elevated to a position of great importance, capturing a moment in time and inviting study and appreciation through a quiet and still voice.

This body of work comprises ornithology, entomology, mycology and herbarium specimens and collections - a gathering of works in paper, as fragile as those they represent and intended to be observed closely and cherished in safe keeping.

This series of works explores the theme of belonging through the recurring motif of banksia integrifolia foliage, which is drawn, painted or scraped back into each artwork. Banksia integrifolia, or Coast Banksia is common along Newcastle’s coast and streets and the foliage of this plant is symbolic for me. I planted one of these trees on my birthday in Dad’s garden after he died. This is my sister’s garden now, so it’s where my nephews play.The familiarity of this iconic plant, and seeing it everyday in my neighbourhood, connects me to my own sense of belonging. Having a sense of belonging is something that I realise I actively need to cultivate for myself, and reconnecting to nature and making art are part of this active process for me.

This collection of still life and interiors paintings is my way of celebrating the everyday objects that keep me connected to loved ones and to places that have provided sanctuary… My coffee pot, favourite jug, tableware and pieces of cloth came from my apartment in Florence, where I lived and worked for 25 years; coloured glassware, ceramic vases and vintage teapots have been gathered in the 12 years since I returned to Australia; books have been bought on my travels or were left to me by my beloved mentor, Susan Nevelson. Functional household items have become deeply meaningful to me over the past year and I find myself mixing bolder colours and deliberately seeking out beauty and familiarity as a counter to heartbreaking news and the tyranny of distance.

The Corner Store Gallery is celebrating our 6th anniversary this August with a Group Exhibition of new work exploring the notion on HOME in the time of Coronavirus lockdowns.

What a strange and unsettling year 2020 has been. Our world was turned upside down due to the Coronavirus epidemic and many of us have experience the most difficult few months of our lives. With forced lockdowns, quarantine and isolation rules, many of us have been spending a lot of time at home. Home means something different to everyone, and we’d like to hear your stories.

Applications care now closed

Nicola Woodcock's still life works are inspired by the flora surrounding her home on the edge of the Australian Bush. First Cut is a collection of the most vibrant stems she cold find, whether foraged or bought. Working in oil pastel with bold, gestural marks and always from life, Nicola creates works that are vivid and immediate.

Suburban Requiem collages together the unruly miniature landscapes of potted gardens and common succulents, overgrown ground cover and Nanna’s staked begonias. The ubiquitous camelia and gaudy eternally flowering geraniums pay homage to the waning suburban garden.

Canberra based artist Emilie Patteson returns to her hometown of Orange, NSW, to bring to you her latest work in glass and illustration. 
"From Little Things" explores life cycles by examining tiny elements of nature: leaves, stamens, seeds. 
Emilie will be working within the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. 

My artwork starts with the process of collection. I have been collecting for as long as I can remember. Throughout my childhood I had a large cardboard box that I filled with my treasures: feathers, pressed flowers, smooth pebbles, and skeleton leaves. My work is inspired by this collection and the sense of wonder experienced in childhood.

I have always been fascinated by homes and how the people living in them choose to add individual touches for comfort and pleasure.  I paint scenes that invite the viewer to step inside, perhaps take a seat or just smell the flowers - Josephine Jagger Manners.