Maitland Regional Art Gallery launch winter 2022 exhibitions

There will be a launch event on Friday, June 24 from 5.30pm to celebrate the new exhibitions.

One of the highlights is Female Drivers by Newcastle fine arts teacher and curator Madeleine K Snow, which explores the representation of women in art and culture, featuring the work of ten female artists.

Another exhibition, Sleepwalking, features works from the gallery collection and will transport audiences into an eery dreamlike state.

In the news:

It is coupled with Shallow Pond Deepest at Night by young Hunter artist David Lobb and musician e4444e.

One of the gallery staff's favourites is Connected to Nature by local Mai-Wel Creative Arts participants, which celebrates and explores our local and natural world.

A must see for children and adults alike is See You in the Soup by Soft Stories, a whimsical collaboration between Cat Robbit and Isobel Knowles including stop motion animation alongside miniature scenes and large scale soft sculpture.

Gallery director Gerry Bobsien said one of the great things about this series of exhibitions is the amount of local artists who are involved.

"We have lots of local artists involved, exhibiting alongside really long standing, well established Australian artists, we have community artists involved as well and we have an exhibition where we drew on our own collection," she said.

Ms Bobsien said when she and the gallery staff were choosing the winter exhibitions, they made sure to have a really strong mix.

"We wanted to make sure we could use works from our own collection so people can actually see the breadth and quality, but we also wanted to have a show that people can interact with; and that's definitely See You in the Soup," she said.

"We wanted to have a show where the community can see their work on the walls, and that's what we have with the Wai-Wel Connected to Nature show, and we also wanted to showcase the extraordinary power that is the breadth of female artists in this country, and the show Female Drivers really does that well."

All are welcome to Friday night's launch event, register in advance at mait.city/winterlaunch.

Do you know you can subscribe to get full access to all Maitland Mercury stories? Subscribing supports us in our local news coverage. To subscribe, click here.