An exhibition featuring 23 international artists opened at the Red Door Gallery at the University of Southern Queensland on October 17.
The exhibition titled The End of the Beginning is in tribute to the 60cm by 70cm oil on canvas – The End of the Beginning by widely-admired Sydney based artist Locust Jones. His work is being shown by courtesy of the Dominick Mersch Gallery.
The opening attracted a number of aficionados, art lovers as well as USQ lecturers and students. Dr Tarn McLean, of RAYGUN Projects, and world renowned contemporary artist Dr Billy Gruner, who are the co-curators, spent many, many hours working on the placement of paintings by the 42 contributing artists.
The Toowoomba showing is part of three Australian events – others are planned for Melbourne and Sydney – presented by West PI and Associates. The aim of this project is to present work by a local coterie alongside a core of international artists. “These shows are designed to respond to the rise in popularity of global social media page Reductive Non Objective Projects from Sydney,” says Dr McLean. “The social, collegiate and academic aim of RNOP is to connect regionally specific, coterie based, presentations of contemporary reductive and non-objective styles to an active international community. The RNOP Toowoomba presentation likewise features select regional art makers with guests from other RNOP events taking place in the United States and Europe. Seen as equally important parts the events are collectively building towards the realisation of the next Biennale in Grenoble in 2019.”
Dr McLean says that an academic publication of the program of events leading into the Biennale will be published, with Dr Kyle Jenkins of U.S.Q. as the main editor and a contributing writer.
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