Artists living in the heart
A GROUP exhibition featuring five local artists is occupying the Art in the Heart shopfront in Magellan Street, Lismore. Entitled Menagerie, it will be opened next week by Mayor Jenny Dowell.
The mayor sat for sculptor Laszlo Biro, one of the resident artists, last Monday, as the model for a clay bust, which he will work on and unveil at the official opening.
The other artists-in-residence include artist-musician (and long-serving Art in the Heart volunteer) Kim Mclean, clothes designer and sculptor Jeht Burgoyne; as well as collaborators JanAnn Fleming and Marie-lise Laviolette, who are contributing three major pieces they have worked on together over the past four months.
Lismore Art in the Heart coordinator Stephen Nelson described Menagerie as "the penultimate Pop-Up show", enabled through the generosity of property owners Lynn and Darren Bassey.
"Art in the Heart has enabled around 200 artists to show their work to the world, and we estimate that nearly 14,000 people have visited the solo and group exhibitions, workshops, long-term residencies, film and poetry nights, and other events which have taken place in seven separate 'empty spaces' over the past two years," Stephen said.
"The program is still continuing, with an application for Regional Arts Funding sent to the NSW State Government recently. Art in the Heart is currently involved in assembling a coalition of all the organisations that make up Lismore's vibrant cultural sector, in order to commission a strategic plan which can guide the future direction and raise the profile of the arts here in the heart of the Northern Rivers," he concluded.
Menagerie will run until Saturday, November 4, with the opening on Thursday, November 1, at 5pm.
