Milawa Gourmet Region’s Off Centre Gallery to Plate up a Ceramic Arts Feast this Winter
On the Queen’s Birthday long weekend 2018, Friday to Monday, June 8 to 11, Off Centre Gallery will celebrate winter with a full-scale winter-themed dining setting showcasing English born, Sydney-based ceramicist Katherine Mahoney’s contemporary functional wares. Off Centre Gallery will also present a special ‘meet the artist’ event on Saturday, June 9. Katherine produces outstanding functional wares – plates, cups, bowls, spoons and platters – and unique signature ceramic pieces. Her work features a lovely range of textures and colours including natural sand and earth tones that mix and match well.
Visit Milawa Factory Complex
The Milawa Kitchen will celebrate the weekend by offering a special package including a macaron and coffee served on and in a Katherine Mahoney ceramic side plate and beaker. The adjoining Milawa Cheese Company will offer a selection of cheeses served on a Katherine Mahoney ceramic platter. The ceramics are yours to take home as part of the specially priced deals.
Art gallery owner Di Mangan is well known and respected within North East Victoria as the previous director of Wangaratta Art Galley, a position she held for 18 years. She’s also a well-collected ceramic artist in her own right. On the subject of launching her Off Centre Gallery at the Milawa Cheese Factory complex in the Milawa Gourmet Region, she explains: ‘I always had a dream of having my own studio and gallery and supporting local artists, including people like King Valley painter/printmaker Anita Laurence, whose works are always of a high standard and widely loved. Now the dream is a reality and people are enjoying the space.’
Wangaratta landscape painter Andy Pye is also featured. ‘His works offer a fresh, contemporary approach to landscape, and he’s careful not to overwork paintings,’ says Di. ‘Some works are minimal or perhaps austere; yet they’re warm in feel. Others are more frenetic and layered in texture, like the Australian bush – a kind of chaos.’
Other local art featured includes beautiful works by abstract painter Kate Gorman; layered and embossed handmade paper works inspired by the Warby Range, from Claire Beausein and pastels by Ben Jenkins: deep, atmospheric misty-mood landscapes. Frank Burgers’ views feature clever use of muted colour juxtaposed with bright geometric shapes. These could-be-recognised objects or perhaps industrial buildings are more of a suggestion; it is not clear. His works offer a wonderful escapist feel and a deep sense of visual and emotional maturity. Celebrated printmaker Fleur Rendell also features reassuringly familiar shapes, divinely printed in apple greens, sky blues, fire engine reds and earthy browns. There is a celebration of Australiana and a study of human behaviour, connecting us with other works featuring birds and bush flora. The bird images suggest sharp movement, the single-minded focus of wild animals.
Off Centre Gallery has partnered with The Milawa Bakery Café and Woodpark Wines – which also operate in the Milawa Cheese Factory complex – to present a June Queen’s Birthday long weekend event, Feasting at the Winter Table. Don’t miss it!
Off Centre Gallery
Milawa Cheese Factory complex,
Factory Road, Milawa Victoria
off-centre.com.au
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