On the river’s edge, we meet, 2022, pencil and gouache on 300gsm Arches paper

An evolving project to connect art and environment and people in the Clarence Valley through multimedia installations

Artists: Deb Taylor, Rochelle Summerfield, Tracy Pateman, Will Rodgers and new artist Louise Lavarack.

The Sanctuary Tree Project – multimedia installation representing the importance of old trees.  Will Rodgers, Tracy Pateman and Rochelle Summerfield

Mapping Project – the next stage of showing positive environmental efforts in the Clarence Valley, Debbie Taylor & Tracy Pateman

Feral shadows Rochelle Summerfield and including Bush lemon Project Tracy Pateman

The Flooded  Forest Louise Laverack

The artists: Deb Taylor: Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr mixed media artist, Will Rodgers: sound & ecological recordings, Tracy Pateman: fine metal work, Bush Lemon Project, Rochelle Summerfield: shadow plays and drawings. And new artist Louise Lavarack: Conceptual artist & installation work.

 

Hopeful Disruptions: Caring for Biirrinba is a long-term project to connect art and environment and community in the Clarence Valley.  The artists came together with hope for connecting.  Alone we couldn’t battle the weeds and degradation of the river.  Together the 6 local artists decided that hope for Biirrinba (Clarence River) was through connecting with each other and otheres who are doing positive things with onground regeneration in the Clarence Valley.  Through planting, weeding and making marks together these artists are caring for Biirrinba, the Clarence River.

 

The project is beginning with the first show at the Cowper Art Gallery and Studio.  Hopeful Disruptions is made up of six artists: Deborah Taylor is a Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung woman (Paintings), Malcolm King (Photography Print) Julie McKenzie (Painting Sculpture) Tracy Pateman (Metalwork and Sculpture) Will Rodgers (Soundscape ) Rochelle Summerfield (Works on paper and metal mobile)

 

A major part of the project is to create a dynamic map of the Clarence Valley that represents all environmental efforts going on in the Valley.  During the open studio, we are hoping people doing environment work will help us to document their work and include it in the map. After the show at Cowper Art Gallery, we will upload and maintain the map on our website and (with appropriate permission) start to link it with other websites that represent people and organisations who are doing environmental work.

 

This program is proudly funded by the NSW Government through Arts Restart. This program is supported by Arts Northern Rivers.  The project is working with Landcare (Townsend Nursery) and Maclean Lions Club (Environment). The Cowper Gallery has very kindly donated their time and space to the project during the 2021 Clarence Valley plunge Arts and Culture Festival. 

In Crossroads Rochelle Summerfield explores environmental loss and transformation and its impact on the human condition through a series of drawings and multimedia works. Each work reflects the experiences and emotions that Summerfield faced when confronted by the drought-stricken Macquarie River and its riparian landscape.  Instead of a river downstream, she found a barren, dry riverbed.  Two hauntingly beautiful and stoic Macquarie River Gums stood exposed, with their entangled history of root systems reaching out for water.  Where water once flowed, now the bright green of the Noogoora Burr is thriving in this bare dirt. 

The exhibition aims to reconnect people to our precious river systems and deeply appreciate their value, beyond economics.  Rochelle says “Our rivers are the lifeline to a multitude of communities- people, wildlife and habitat. When we connect with the natural habitat, we feel a lightness of spirit and improve our health and well-being.  Humans benefit from rich biodiverse landscapes.”

Her works ask us to come to our own understanding of the value we place on our natural environment. Ultimately Crossroads is a show that asks us to reflect on the choices we make moving forward; as we enter a new realm where the loss that is occurring may be irreversible. At the heart of it all Summerfield wants us to reflect on the consequences of a future that could potentially worsen, and that each one of us has a part to play in this greater narrative.

This project was assisted by a grant from Create NSW, an agency of the New South Wales Government and supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian State and Territory Governments. The program is administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).

This residency was two weeks of new and mixed media research and creation at ‘Hazelhurst Cottage’. exploring the Georges River, Sydney and local waterways. The research was looking at the juxtaposition of human relationships with nature in a metropolitan context.

‘The good, the bad, the inspirational’ 4 artists Jenny Kitchener, Rochelle Summerfield, Sarah Mufford, Malcolm King

‘living the dream’ 4 artists based in Northern NSW, are full time artists who creatively make works on paper.

‘As far as the eye can see’ curated by Rilka Oakley, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre is a nationally touring exhibition of works by prominent Australian printmakers investigating their local landscapes. It celebrates the breadth and depth of printmaking practice in Australia today and is a stunning reflection of Australia’s unique and varied geography.

Happy participates really ignited their creativity with my 2 day collagraph workshop. With the beautiful textures of fabrics, feathers and even lolly papers, these textures made collagraph blocks. They learnt how to ink up and print their block and were thrilled to take home a special individual print.

Artstate is a new four year project by Regional Arts NSW showcasing regional arts practice across the state.In 2017, in partnership with Arts Northern Rivers in the river town of Lismore, during 30 November to 3 December there was an exciting two day program of speakers exploring the themes of creative practice and creative partnerships. In conjunction with this there was a multi-genre arts program featuring the amazing creatives from the north coast of NSW.

During this program I was given the opportunity to have a projection of my animation ‘Warning Remote Areas Ahead’ on the Quad, back of the Conservatorium of Music, Lismore.

Curated by Rilka Oakley in association with the Print Council of Australia’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.

As far as the eye can see is an exhibition of works by prominent Australian printmakers investigating their local landscapes. It celebrates the breadth and depth of printmaking practice in Australia today and is a stunning reflection of Australia’s unique and varied geography. The artists express their stories and relationships to the land through a variety of print media, describing the vast scale or intimate detail of our diverse natural environment. As far as the eye can see portrays the similarities and differences of coastal, mountain, desert and island terrain all contained within our country.

Printmaking has a history of being a dynamic and innovative media that is constantly embracing new technologies. The exhibition includes printmakers working in traditional print mediums such as etching, woodcut and lino block. It also showcases some of the innovative print techniques currently being used by printmakers.

To celebrate almost 20 years, the Windmill Trustees and Management Committee together with NAVA saw the opportunity to hold a 20th anniversary exhibition to celebrate the Windmill and to reconnect with past winners. The Windmill Trust with support from MAMA, the Murray Art Museum Albury hosted the exhibition and secured funding from Arts NSW ensured the fruition and success of this exhibition.

‘Northern Rivers Contemporary’ are artists that play in a zone where classic and new media collide, to make contemporary works on paper that are playful and astute observations on nature, gender, history and identity.

Participating Artists: Christine Willcocks, Leonie Lane, Rochelle Summerfield, Travis Paterson, Scott Trevelyan. A selection of contemporary works on paper presented during Paper Contemporary.

‘Rochelle Summerfield – A Wayfarer on the Nepean’ features drawing and animation works resulting from the artist’s recent Summer Studio Residency at Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest. While in residence at Penrith she considered the Nepean as a riverscape – a cultured and gendered space – all with a darkly humourous nod and a wink.Rochelle’s plucky red-shoed heroine – a recurring protagonist – makes an appearance again within the rich, lush riverscape of the Nepean.

The artist finds inspiration in riverscapes, and was strongly drawn to the Nepean – so much so she camped at the nearby riverside caravan park during her three-week professional artist’s residency last December. Each day Rochelle walked or bicycled from the caravan park to The Gallery along the banks of the Nepean River. She records her experience of the Nepean River as one of contradiction and love.

“I explored the river banks, felt summer’s heat and relished the shade of the trees. I observed the houses encroaching on the vegetation needed to stabilize the banks. I felt sadness at litter arrogantly left behind. I witnessed the community’s affection for the river partaking in picnics, weddings, swimming, boating and exercising. I thought about how the Nepean River is part of this city and its identity, and yet also estranged and neglected like so many of our rivers.”

‘Local Provenance’, curated by Jan Davis and Susi Muddiman OAM is the Tweed Regional Gallery’s contribution to the ‘Year of Print’ – a national celebration of the Print Council of Australia’s first 50 years of advocacy for Australian printmakers.

Local Provenance is a botanical term which describes plants grown from locally collected seed. This exhibition presents the work of twelve printmakers who live and work in the Lismore, Tweed, Byron, Kyogle or Grafton regions, or who trained locally in the printmaking studios at Southern Cross University. If we think of the university studios as a hothouse, then other gardening notions proliferate; seeding, germination, pollination, seed dispersal and regeneration. The development of these artists’ careers, from their local seeding to their current status as artists of national significance, can be described in these terms. Importantly, local institutions such as the Lismore, Grafton and Tweed Regional Galleries might be thought of as elaborate trellises that have supported the growth of these artists, and their collections are also acknowledged in this exhibition.

Rochelle Summerfield’s billboard, one of ten temporary public artworks installed in positions central to various venues for the Biennial Artlands Regional Arts Conference, Dubbo 2016

The curator Alex Wisser wrote, “The exhibition title ‘Future Public’ has been chosen because it communicates the exhibition’s intention to stretch boundaries and thinking about what is and can be public art.  The works are ‘propositional’ in nature, and while they will not need to be permanent artworks, they will need to exist in an outdoors environment for four days at least.”

The project was initiated by Rochelle Summerfield to facilitate youth 12-16 years to make a super character from collage. They had to think about ideas to show positive and/ or transformational strengths in the characters. The resulting characters would then be set in context of the Clarence River.

As the facilitator, we worked on two collage workshops, preparing and making the collage figures, then exploring them as drawings and paintings. Once scaled up, each young person worked on their character, and as a group we jointly painted the river in springtime, with the purple blooms of the Jacaranda trees. The mural is 2100mmh x 9700mmlong and was in the gallery carpark for 6 months.

Through collages of found, photographed and hand-drawn imagery, Rochelle Summerfield tells stories of female subjectivity, nature and transformation. Much can be inferred from our relationship with nature, and Summerfield creates images that explore how our identity is bound as much to the natural world as it is to relationships, responsibilities and the constraints of urban life. Summerfield’s collages are replete with references to the grotesque, burlesque and the art historical canon. Along with a dose of humour and irony, she uses these references to examine the body in flux as it seeks to find a place for itself within the Australian landscape.

Summerfield lives on the Clarence River in north-eastern New South Wales. It is one of the most beautiful and striking regions of Australia, this exhibition explores her relationship with the Clarence River since moving there 5 years ago.

Writer Rebecca Gallo

Arts Northern Rivers partnered with Plunge 2016 for the Pop Up Hub in Yamba that will house an exhibition, workshop and residency space for the duration of the festival. http://artsnorthernrivers.com.au/project/pop-up-hub/

Local artist Rochelle Summerfield was commissioned by Arts Northern Rivers to curate part of the Pop Up and is taking the opportunity to showcase female artists from the Clarence Valley.

Curator Rochelle Summerfield “This is She celebrates women artists of the Clarence Valley at the Pop Up Hub, Yamba, Plunge. I chose works that reflected women’s experience of this landscape, its history and lifestyle. I found multifaceted approaches by creative women speaking of their experiences. This Clarence Valley story begins with Frances Belle Parker through beautifully stitched fine linen- tells of her indigenous family history that is bound to the Yaegl landscape and the river that runs through it- a story of love, identity and dispossession.  Artist Tracy Pateman, tells a classical Greek tale of the underworld set in the rolling hills of the Clarence Valley engraved in metals of copper and silver. The story of fire, memory and loss is told in delicate charcoal drawings by Sue Harris. This story also celebrates the dedication of being a woman artist at 83 years old- in quiet reflection and study of still life- by Pat Jenkins.” It is a contemporary story of our rich cultural legacy expressed through a diversity of media by women as only the arts can tell. Grateful thanks to Arts Northern Rivers NSW.

‘Aberrant Play’ is an exhibition that celebrates contemporary approaches to printmaking and collage. Curated by local artist Rochelle Summerfield, the show includes seven artists from regional and metropolitan New South Wales. These artists push and break the rules of traditional printmaking, using their extensive knowledge of printmaking processes to combine old and new technologies, creating unusual, playful and striking results.

Artists- Claude Jones (Sydney and Munich), Jenny Kitchener (Kyogle), Leonie Lane (Clunes), Bill Moseley (Hill End), Janet Parker-Smith (Sydney), Rochelle Summerfield (Seelands) and Sandra Winkworth (Sydney).

An allegiance to collage, invention & the Clarence.
I recently moved to the Clarence Valley for love and found the mighty Clarence River. It’s been quite an adventure of discovery with my new relationship and a rural life that includes historical floods, fire and wildlife.Subject to flooding takes inspiration from this environment.

A small tributary off the mighty Clarence River meanders inland to an unknown and secret place, where lit by dappled sunlight perches a painted kingfisher and a collaged female form pondering the meaning of life, art and nature. She is what the body can be. She is my heroine. She is a beast, often flamboyant and may have wings when she wants to soar.

‘Skirmish’ is a collaborative cross discipline conversation with video artist Rebecca Ingram, dancer Samantha Crameri-Miller and projected drawings/ animation by Rochelle Summerfield and sound by Mick Dick.

The project was part of a curated cross-disciplinary/cross-art form collaborative exhibition in October 2014 at Spectrum Project Space, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA.  My drawing animated series contribution came from ‘The Elements Within Series’ an ironical look at the domestic chaos of our busy lives.

A residency to explore and extend my collage practice and drawing at the Freemantle Arts Centre. The work was informed by historical research on women’s lives researching the historic Freemantle Arts Centre previous role as a women’s home.

I felt the looking glass shudder and peered through.  She is dancing upon the rooftops, stamping her time.  It is a dance of curiosity and wonder.  Her treasures are kept close.  She floats on a songbird.  Beware the entrapments.   I’m learning how to hunt house.

I’m interested in ideas on the grotesque and fable, and how they elicit qualities of otherness, transformation, discovery and humour.  I work with collage as the classical cut and paste as well as the contemporary cut and paste of the digital space and the hybridization of photographic and print media.  The outside fragment brings the potential for imagination and invention to the pictorial field.

By Zoe Bechara, Concrete Playground
It is not easy to reference, much less celebrate, the work of Dada artists. By its very nature the Dadaist art movement self-destructs at the mere hint of mainstream acceptance.  And yet here is Going Gaga for Dada – a dedication to the Dadaist chaos, nonsense and whimsy – so compelling and so deliciously relevant, it reminds the viewer that there is still plenty to be protesting about.

Dada, the artistic and literary manifesto of nonsense, originated in Europe during World War I as a protest against the atrocities the war was bringing to the artists’ front doors.  Out of disgust for a seemingly senseless war, the likes of Duchamp and Tzara created works intended to be provocatively absurd, as a metaphorical thumbing of the nose, if you like.

Here, curator and Dada scholar Akky van Ogtrop seeks to, like the Dadaists, define the undefinable, with contemporary mixed media such as collages, books, zines, posters and sculpture.  And while the Dadaist references in colour, composition and typography are frank and fierce, this exhibition still feels fresh, germane and utterly evocative.

Here, the iconic, horrifying irony of Dada is manifested (Richard Tipping, the ‘Gift’ and is joined by an ironing board (Dianne Beevers, ‘Bristling’) as absurdly inoperable at the iron itself.  Dianne Longley’s ceramics are wicked: the placement of Tim Burton-like baddies on the domesticity of plates is nightmarishly good.  A giggle at the ‘Chicken Tank’ (Will Coles) will lead your mind to questions of power in politics, and the anxiety of Rochelle Summerfield’s tumultuous cityscapes will evoke the words of Dadaist Hugo who lamented that “words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms – Dada is the heart of words.”

A body of work that proposed the image of the face as an assemblage of disparate objects and materials. In the lively fusion between various elements potential transformations occur. My primary methodology was collage to tease out the juxtapositions between ideas and processes to bring about transformative processes and manifest new ways of thinking and making work. Mixed media installation, multiplate etchings, collagraphs, collage, photography and fake fur faces.