Jo Soszynski

Exhibition Dates :
6 March, 2025 – 6 April, 2025
**Installation viewable 24/7

“If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life.” – Siberian Elder

Ancestry often reads like a story.  

Based on family letters and documents, this installation of sculpture, painting and objects explores the intersection between memory and reality.

It draws on stories of a family’s deportation out of Poland and of childhoods lost during World War Two.  From imprisonment in a Siberian working camp, to being orphaned in the Uzbeki cottonfields, to a new life in the West.

Here is a place where narratives overlap, and time and space merge.

Dedicated to Ludmila Goggin (1931 – 2024) who passed away during the making of this exhibition.  She was the last of the Bartniczak children.

Opening Event :
Thursday 20 March 2025, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 20 – Monday 31 March 2025
10:00am – 3:00pm daily

An exhibition of works created as a result of the Struth Ruth! Group Residency at Melaleuca near Bathurst Harbour.  

Presented by the Struth Ruth! Art Group (consisting of graduates and non-graduate artists).

Featured Artists include : Helen Jessup, Trudy Humphries, Jane Broad, Karen Vincent, Janne Mooney, Helen Spaulding, and Susan Kenny.

The exhibition was inspired by a trip to the South West of Tasmania. The paintings are a showcase and a unique representation of our wonderful island.  

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Helen Jessup

Helen Jessup reinvented herself as a painter following retirement from her working life as a TAFE teacher, social worker and academic.  Robin Mary Calvert was her primary art teacher until she commenced a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2013 completing in 2018. Helen joined Struth Ruth! in 2019. She has participated in many group, solo and competition exhibitions since retirement, including a recent residency at Derby. An exhibition displaying works generated from this residency opened in December 2023 and ran over the summer.

Helen paints and shows with several groups regularly, including weekly with local “Struth Ruth!”, Sunny Coasters residential bi annual En Plein Air group based in Orford, Images of Tasmania, an annual group or Art School alumni, and POGO, a  Hobart Based En Plein Air community. She is a member of Huon Art Exhibition Group, Cygnet, showing at the Lovett Gallery.

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Jane Broad

Jane Broad completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts as a mature age student whilst working as a social worker. She has worked extensively with disadvantaged migrants both in tertiary education and in ESL contexts, and these experiences have informed her work, although she does also enjoy painting landscape and abstract

Jane has had three Solo Exhibitions, including one on Refugee experiences at the Moonah Arts Centre and participated in three group exhibitions. She was also a participant in the ‘Transformation’ mural exhibition.

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Karen Vincent

Karen Vincent has been painting since her first watercolour class with Tasmanian art teacher Terry Gough in the ’90s. Travels around Australia, Europe and in the United States, her second home, have involved mostly Plein Aire excursions with fellow artists and numerous exhibitions featuring natural landscapes.

Since returning to live in Tasmania, on the beautiful South Arm Peninsula, she has been increasingly working with other mediums and particularly enjoys pastel and acrylics. Seldom found in her art studio, Karen prefers the company of fellow artists working together to try to ‘capture’ the unique physical and spiritual qualities of Tasmania in the wild.

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Janne Mooney

Janne Mooney was originally a dental therapist but completed her B Fin Arts as a mature age student (with 3 children) majoring in ceramics. She has been an art teacher however this has been expressed through teaching ESL students at Rosny College and special needs students at St Francis.

Janne decided to learn to paint as a vehicle to work collectively with others as she found ceramics an isolating experience. She also joined Robin Mary Calvert’s group, becoming a founding member of the current group after several years with Robin Mary. Janne has participated in solo and group shows as well as curated many exhibitions for her students over the years  

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Helen Spaulding

Life circumstances, ie born in the 1950’s, female, married young, three children required Helen to express her artistic leanings as a hairdresser running a hairdressing salon, and the requirements of homemaking. On retirement she also commenced classes with Robin Mary Calvert and was a founding member in what has become ”Struth Ruth!”

Helen participated in several annual group exhibitions whilst part of Robin Mary Calvert’s group and has had works hung with the Struth Ruth group at local venues including Meadowbank / Coal valley Winery, Amaze Richmond and the commission at Molly’s Run, Cidery at Richmond.

She has also completed several commissioned works and has sold at the Rotary Art Exhibition at Wrest Point.

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Susan Kenny

Susan Kenny’s interest in art began at school and continued in a very protracted fashion for many years. Marriage, family and moving around the state made it difficult to complete her Fine Arts Degree.

She attended many Adult Ed art classes, painting weekends, and joined a painting group. Her journey certainly was rekindled over the past ten years when she joined Struth Ruth! She paints what pleases her, animals, landscapes, portraits, still life and occasionally abstract. Her painting also includes portraits and some commissioned landscapes, working indoors mostly from photographs she has taken, given our Tasmanian weather. She has been inspired recently to give Plein Air and watercolour a go. Her paintings are well received, participating in a Mural for Mollies Run Cidery, exhibiting at Amaze and Coal Valley Vineyard at Richmond. She paints mostly in Acrylic but as her journey continues she is keen to paint in oils too. That journey never ends.

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 7 – Sunday 16 February 2025
Friday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday – Thursday 10am – 4pm

Opening Event :
5:30pm Thursday 6 February 2025

Photographer, Tom Polacheck’s exhibition highlights Madagascar’s rich maritime heritage, where wooden boats blend influences from Southeast Asian outrigger canoes, Arab dhows, and Western schooners along the island’s 3,000 km coastline.

A photo and video exhibition that celebrates the 1000s of traditional wooden boats that still prevail along Madagascar’s 3000km coast line. Madagascar is the last large coastal region where open-ocean, wooden sailing vessels still predominate. These vessels are critical for sustaining the daily lives of the people living there. They are central for providing food and transport in a region where roads and terrestrial infrastructure hardly exist. While off the coast of Africa, Madagascar retains strong links with the Pacific and SE Asia as its original inhabitants sailed there around 1200 years ago. Since then, it has been at the cross roads of the Atlantic-Indian Ocean trade routes. It has absorbed, combined and maintained the traditions and knowledge from (1) Southeast Asian/Pacific outrigger canoes (2) Arab dhows and (3) the western gaff rigged schooners.In November 2024, five Australian’s undertook a journey of discovery to Madagascar, (including a 2 week cruise in a traditional schooner) to learn about and document its rich maritime history. Presented here is a visual display of some of what they learned and discovered about this diverse range of beautiful vessels and the people that build and sail them.

Opening Event :
Sunday 9 February 2025, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 5 – Tuesday 18 February 2025
Sunday – Friday 10:00am – 4:00pm
Saturdays 9:00am – 4:00pm

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Lagarostrobos

Ned Trewartha is known for his beautiful traditional timber dinghies built from Tasmanian timbers.
He is no longer building dinghies but now concentrating on unique furniture and lyrical sculptures. In this exhibition his work is focussed on the beauty of Huon Pine. 

Ned Trewartha has been a traditional wooden boat builder and designer/maker for over thirty years. He is well known for his handcrafted clinker dinghies built from select Tasmanian timbers. He is no longer building boats but now spending his time building furniture, small sculptures, ukuleles and when time allows playing golf.

He has always been passionate about the sustainable use of Tasmanian timbers, believing they are unique and precious and should be treated with great respect. Timber for each project is carefully selected to minimise waste. He does not like waste. Ned uses recycled timber from wherever and whenever he can. He cannot understand how these aged timbers with so much character and history can be discarded as no longer useful.

The hard won patina of age should be celebrated not trashed, and he is not afraid to show off those battle scars and  what some may see as faults, rather adhering to the concept of ‘wabi sabi’. Some of Neds’ furniture has a sculptural element but always maintains form and an honest functionality.

He feels absolutely privileged to be able to work with timbers such as Huon Pine everyday.
He and his wife Kim have created their own workshop/gallery/home at Woodbridge on the beautiful D’Dentrecasteaux Channel.

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Thalassophile

Thalassophile ‘One who loves the sea – a person drawn to the ocean… ‘
New works by award winning maritime artist Jane Flowers explore a love of sailing the ocean blue, being on boats, staring at the horizon and exploring the littoral zone.

Jane has been sailing boats for as long as she has been a professional artist. She has raced to Hobart a few times and done numerous coastal deliveries. Time on the water inspires her often dramatic and sometimes meditative oils on canvas.

Jane’s paintings capture the many moods of our ocean and waterways and express the pleasure of being in, on or around the water  – recurring themes of sea and sky, wind and water, the shape of sail and the treasures of beachcombing.

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Full Program for the Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2025 online HERE

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 6 February – Monday 3 March 2025
Monday – Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm
Weekends CLOSED

A collection of landscape and seascape paintings on paper, by Hannah Blackmore.

Between Land and Sea is a captivating collection of miniature framed paintings on paper inspired by the ever-changing beauty of the Tasmanian coastline. These works explore the land and ocean meeting point, capturing the rhythmic interplay of light and atmosphere unique to this rugged environment. Each painting reflects the raw power of the sea, the subtle hues of coastal terrain, and the quiet moments of transition between tides. Intimate in scale yet expansive in vision, this collection invites viewers to experience the Tasmanian coastline through a lens of delicate detail and poetic abstraction.

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 6 – Sunday 16 February 2025
Sunday – Friday 10:00am – 5:00pm 
Saturdays 9:00am – 5:00pm
*Early Closure on FINAL DAY : Sunday 16 February 2024 10:00am – 4:00pm

This exhibition across all mediums is inspired by water.

Tasmanian artists present their interpretation of water in all its forms. Living on an island surrounded by water gives ample opportunities to capture its moods and beauty. 

Art is for everyone. Both artists and viewers connect with an artwork in a personal way. Reflecting this bond the major prizes are awarded by People’s Choice vote by visitors.

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Full Program for the Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2025 online HERE

Anne and Jay Sykes

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 6 February, 2025 – Monday 3 March, 2025
**Installation viewable 24/7

‘A Collaboration’ features works and ideas from Anthony and Bridget Sutton, brought to life in an eccentric mix of media by their child and grandchild, Anne and Jay Sykes.

A doll house and a set of animals for an ark. Two unfinished projects from a man who made so, so many things for his grandchildren, rediscovered after he left us. We intend to honour his memory by finishing and sharing what he started.

A compulsive doodling habit, the same patterns present without ever being taught. A desire to indulge the imagination, forever and a day. A love of board and card games bordering on the obsessive. These were the things she wanted her grandchildren to keep with them. We will weave them around the carpentry of her husband.

We feel their absence deeply every day. Waves of grief hit, break and return to the ocean.

‘A Collaboration’ addresses family, childhood and grief. The wooden pieces at the centre of the installation were started by Anthony Sutton and the influence of Bridget Sutton is also present throughout.

‘The weeks spent staying with my grandparents on their rural property in Maydena were some of the most formative experiences of my childhood. Hiking in Mt Field, barbecues at Lake Peddar and just romping around, I felt the shadows of what I would later find out was mental illness melting away. My troubles socialising, my anxiety and my dark moods all had a much harder time reaching me up there. The space my grandparents’ made was a haven of fun and wonder that I am forever grateful for. I hope, with this piece, to share some semblance of that place.’ – Jay Sykes

‘While clearing my parents house after my dad had passed I found art projects started and carefully stored away in tins and boxes, toys for my kids lovingly crafted by their grandad, and design ideas by their Granny B. My parents started me on my artistic journey very early in life, always encouraging and facilitating. It will be a wonderful way to honour their memory, to work with Jay using their creations as a starting point and incorporating our own ideas to bring it to fruition. They would be so excited and proud.’ – Anne Sykes

Opening Event :
Friday 14 March 2025, 5:15pm – 7:15pm

Exhibition Dates :
Thursday 13 – Sunday 16 March 2025
10:00am – 6:00pm daily

A walk through half a century of Hobartian Monte John Latham‘s abstract expressionism and ‘worldscape’ paintings.

Monte John Latham’s Walk in the Worldscape exhibition features a selection of striking and vibrant works of oil and acrylic on canvas that explore the interplays between humanity, nature, the metaphysical, mind, journey, and locale. Dreamlike landscapes flow out of and into intricate abstractions expressing serene harmony, dynamism and love through ethereal and evocative colours. 

Largely unknown, Latham is an elusive local underground artist whose prolific journey spans decades of steady and passionate creation, each piece serving as a testament to his unwavering passion for capturing the essence of life and the world around us. Born in the middle of the twentieth century, Latham began painting as a boy. His work blossomed with surrealism, defiance and inquiry during the counterculture currents of the sixties and seventies. 

This exhibition showcases Latham’s most striking works, thoughtfully selected to illustrate the breadth of his artistic journey. It is a rare opportunity to experience the creative evolution of an artist whose vision remains timeless and deeply resonant.

Originals and numbered replica prints will be available for purchase.

Opening Event :
Friday 21 February 2025, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Exhibition Dates :
Wednesday 19 February – Sunday 2 March 2025
Monday – Thursday 9:30am – 3:30pm
Friday 9:30am – 5:30pm
Saturday & Sunday 8:00am – 3:00pm 

A photographic study of the Tasmanian wilderness, by Tim Faircloth.

Viewers will be taken on a black and white journey celebrating and exploring some of the State’s favourite places. 

Tim Faircloth is a classically trained film photographer using a large format wooden field camera, vintage lenses and black and white film, processed in a home darkroom. 

Driven by a deep passion for photography as an art form, images are presented as a single edition artwork, emphasising the rarity and the significant time and effort invested in capturing it.

Opening Event :
Friday 21 February 2025, 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 21 February – Tuesday 4 March 2025
Monday – Friday 10:00am – 4:00pm
Saturday 10:00am – 3:00pm
Sunday CLOSED

After The Rain by Sam Wilkinson, presents an intimate response to a seven day expedition through the remote regions of Tasmania’s South West. 

After The Rain is a body of work inspired by a seven day expedition through the remote regions of Tasmania’s South West. Shaped by a first day of heavy rainfall, the work explores the raw beauty of this majestic, yet unforgiving landscape and the untamed weather conditions that followed. 

These paintings are not exact representations, but rather seek to capture the emotional essence of what the artist experienced – shifting skies, blankets of mist and the stillness of rain soaked air. They delve into the powerful impact this precious and ancient landscape can hold both physically and emotionally, how it enters the body, stirs the mind, and lingers long after the journey has ended.