Opening night

8 – 30 September

Opening event – Saturday 13th September, 4:00 – 6:00 pm

ca Gallery is delighted to present Lost Dimensions, the latest solo exhibition by Robyn Shaw. This new collection of work explores the immediacy and presence of painting plein air, merging with memory and a lifetime of connections in a tender series of figurative and abstract landscape paintings.

Robyn Shaw is a Cooloola coast-based artist, who has participated in a number of exhibitions across South- East Queensland. Her work has been collected both nationally and abroad. Robyn has spent much of her early and adult life on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, and completed her BA (Fine Arts and Visual Culture) and a BA (Hons) through Curtin University.

Robyn works primarily on canvas with acrylic and oil paint, building layered and tender compositions of abstracted figures in the landscape.

An online catalogue will be available for this exhibition shortly. Please email Erin art@coolartgallery.com.au to receive a preview once available. Pre-sales will be available for this exhibition. Contact the gallery on (07) 5471 7366 or art@coolartgallery.com.au for all inquiries.

ca Gallery is delighted to present

stairseach | thresholds

an exhibition by Joolie Gibbs and Katie Harris-MacLeod

10 June to 3 July, 2025

Opening night Saturday 14 June, 4 – 6 pm

Both artists work with similar botanical materials and a deep connection to nature, but reveal the many differences in their approaches to their separate practices. Using the title (in Scottish Gaelic and English), they test the threshold of representation. Katie’s loose, uninhibited, free and unfettered style of mark making is in stark contrast to Joolie’s tighter, and controlling containment of wallum representations.

 Joolie Gibbs

Joolie Gibbs enjoys being provincial as a regional Queensland artist living and creating in Gympie (Kabi Kabi country). Gibbs completed her Master of Art in Visual Art (MAVA) in 2014 at Griffith University Queensland College of Art, and is influenced by walking and documenting her natural surroundings through the connections with the Mary River and the region. From insects, her 5-acre property, the Wallum, big trees and forests and the effects of floods, she finds meaning and direction for her practice. Her aim is to be part of the solution rather than the problem in her own small way.

Using strong drawing skills and very time consuming, controlled, deliberate and mindful processes from the integrity of making her own botanical inks to the final mark making, Gibbs incorporates the macro/micro easily from work on paper on a large scale (up to 9m), to minute drawings. It keeps her going and makes her heart sing.

 Katie Harris-MacLeod

In this body of work, Scottish-Australian artist Katie Harris-MacLeod explores interwoven themes of kinship, ecological intimacy, mortality, bodily memory, thresholds, and the more-than-human. Each drawing emerges as a layered response to the emotional and psychological complexities of these states and relationships, shaped by the landscapes from which they have taken form.

The drawings are grounded in a site-responsive, materially sensitive approach. Each work evolves through slow, embodied processes of gathering, preparing, and applying materials – both organic and anthropogenic – sourced from specific locations across Scotland and Australia. Materials such as tree sap, salt and copper oxide ink are integral to this practice, each selected for its intrinsic chemistry, symbolism, and ecological resonance. These substances are not passive but active collaborators: they move, react, and age within the work, creating a living archive of place, body, and time.

Through these processes, the drawings trace a quiet yet profound shift in MacLeod’s understanding of identity and belonging, revealing an ongoing dialogue between body, memory, and the environments that shape and remember them.

Pleease contact the gallery on (07) 5471 7366 or art@coolartgallery.com.au for all inquiries. An online catalogue will be available for this exhibition in the coming weeks.

We are delighted to be hosting A BIT MUCH, the latest solo exhibition by Odessa Mahony-de Vries. Guided by instinct and intuition, Odessa’s abstract paintings and ceramics explore a visual narrative of excess, emotion and human connection.

‘A BIT MUCH’ is a comedic title that emerged from a conversation with a friend about my dating life and the common narrative of women being labelled “too much.” As a result, this show is about excess, indulgence, and taking up space unapologetically.

Paint spills off the canvas, onto plinths and sculptures, covering the gallery in colour and movement. The work is bold, playful, and at times overwhelming, it’s an invitation to revel in the mess, the joy, and the unpredictability of it all. By blurring the lines between painting and sculpture, surface and structure, I want the space to feel alive as an immersive celebration of paint and clay, all co-existing in an over-the-top display of abundance.

Sunshine Coast-based artist Odessa Mahony-de Vries has been exhibiting since 2019. Her abstract paintings and sculptures are an indulgence of colour, gesture, and movement. Odessa’s process is largely intuitive, where each mark and layer guide the next. She works instinctively, letting her body respond to the way paint behaves, discovering unexpected interactions, and embracing both control and chance.

This exhibition will run 6 – 28 May, with an opening on Saturday 10th May. Please email art@coolartgallery.com.au for all enquiries.

Book launch & exhibition

18 November – 10 December 2024

Official reception & book launch – Saturday 23 November, 4-6pm

Christine Hall’s “Studio Project” is a compelling testament to the vibrant artistic community of the Sunshine Coast. Through her lens, Hall captures not only the diverse works of 42 of the region’s artists but also their personal spaces of creativity where the magic of art transpires. The publication includes portraits of the artists in their creative spaces and specifically studios, and also includes access to short-form recorded audio from the artists via a QR code.

For further details about ‘The Studio Project’ book- head to
myphotomotion.com.au/shop/studio-project

This exhibition will include Christine’s photographic portraits of the artists, as well as an original work from the artist. Join Christine and some of the featured artists in the gallery on Saturday 23 November, 4-6 pm to celebrate the book launch and the official opening of this exhibition. ‘The Studio Project’ book will be available at the gallery from the 23rd Of November 2024.

CHRISTINE HALL

Christine Hall is a professional photographer residing on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, specialising in artwork capture for gallery exhibitions, archive, reproduction, flat lay, and commercial/corporate promotions. She currently services 146 artists and 2 galleries. Beyond traditional portraits, Christine sets out to represent the individuality of her subjects through a perceptive use of medium, style and setting. Undertaking this creative project of her own, the development of the ‘Studio Project’ book – photographing artists in their studios to visually describe the idea of the artist as elemental to their art, and documenting new, emerging, mid and long-term career artists that call the Sunshine Coast region home.
Her photography has been exhibited in Australia, and internationally online, with recent highlights; as a finalist in the 2023 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize; the 2022 and 2023 Salon de Refuses for the Brisbane Portrait Prize; one of thirty photographers accepted into the 2023 Nyland Kennedy Art Prize; the 2023 Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Prize; one of forty finalists in the 2024 Sunshine Coast Contemporary Art Prize; as well as two finalists artists portraits in the 2024 Percival Portrait Prize; and winner of the 2024 RQAS Photography Prize.

Saturday 2 November from 10 am

This November we will be hosting a charitable exhibition with all proceeds going towards a donation to the Sunshine Coast Arts Foundation (SCAF).

SCAF’s mission is to promote the development and prosperity of the arts on the Sunshine Coast through fundraising and philanthropic investment. These funds go toward supporting the professional development and mentorship of artists;
architecture and spaces where the arts can be seen and experienced; and
the production and presentation of visual, performing, screen, literary and Indigenous arts, to celebrate the identity of our region.

IN THE POST | from 2 November

IN THE POST will feature a collection of donated, envelope/DL-sized art works. The exhibition will take place in our sidespace at ca Gallery over 10 days from the 2nd – 11th November. All artworks will be $30 and all proceeds will go to a donation to SCAF.

Subject to availability

First in – first pick, limit of 3 per person

No pre-sales available

From 10am Saturday until sold out (during usual gallery hours)

Of course there are many ways to support the arts and culture of our region- did you know that you can donate directly to the foundation- to find out more about the Sunshine Coast Arts Foundation and learn about their programs please head to their website.

 Exhibition details

8 – 29 October 2024

Opening reception Saturday 12th October 5 – 7 pm

Pam and Adrienne share a love of being outside and a delight for the peace and the drama of wild places. It has been the cornerstone for their art practices across the past 30 years. Both artists paint their contemporary stories of nature in very different ways yet through a similar process of immersion and study. Pam’s minimalist works sing with energy and quiet hope, while Adrienne’s colourist pieces emerge as dreamlike, utopian compositions. Their two collections flowed from conversations under old, shady banksias on the coast and flurries of messages sent between studio spaces and journeys locally and further afield.

Pam Walpole

Pam never ceases to be inspired by her surroundings.  From camping in the vast Australian outback, observing the changing habitat in her local area, to exploring foreign countries, she combines her love of travel – always with a sketchbook at hand.

Bold and contemporary, often minimal in style she likes to portray the essence of the natural environment.

The devastation of both natural and man-made disasters often the subject of a series once back home in her coastal studio, that are captured in large mixed media works on canvas or far smaller abstracted works on paper.

Adrienne Williams

Adrienne has always been drawn to wilderness – to nature’s quiet, sheltered spaces and its exposed wild places. Her recent works focus on the joyful moments of walking through wildflowers and in particular the banksias near her home and on the Sunshine Coast. Her practice is an ongoing navigation of connection to particular habitats and site-specific stories. Merging selected landscape traditions and colourist techniques, her plein air recordings are translated into dreamlike, utopian compositions. Adrienne paints these wilderness stories – the miraculous, the beautiful, the dire – through the romantic lens that is memory. Her recent works reflect the quietude of nature’s forms, nestled with the messy beauty of complex plant communities. Adrienne’s works on canvas and paper include drawing, painting and printmaking. She has exhibited professionally since 1999 in commercial and public galleries, and completed international and national residencies.

An online catalogue will be available for this exhibition in coming weeks. Please email art@coolartgallery.com.au to register your interest or join our mailing list (form below) to receive an early preview.