The Midlands: whimsy & pathos

This exhibition is now closed.

Displayed at the Queen Victoria Art Gallery from 10 November to 24 February 2019. 

An exhibition by Mandy Hunniford. 

Tasmania's midlands have always held a sense of haunting beauty and mystery for Queenstown-born artist Mandy Hunniford. Explore the gothic and the whimsy that can be found in the natural and man-made worlds in this remarkable landscape.

Mandy Hunniford is a fourth generation of her family to come from Queenstown, a mining town situated on the West Coast of Tasmania. As a child, this dramatic landscape had a significant impact and has created a lifelong artistic and ancestral pull. Later Mandy moved north with her family to live near the beach at Port Sorell where she was encouraged to paint. Early works reveal a creative interest in this beach as well as her mother’s gardens both of which later lead to Mandy’s various visual interpretations of flowers, trees, beaches and gardens.

After years of pushing the boundaries of what the Tasmanian landscape looked like, Mandy now asks the questions: how do we fit in this land? What are our stories? What secrets do the towns hold? Her aim is to delve deeper into the mysterious, contested and beautiful Tasmanian landscape and into the complex histories of its towns and communities.

The Midlands: Whimsy and Pathos will further explore Mandy's interrogation of the Tasmanian landscape along the Midlands Highway, celebrating the joyous native and introduced flora and reflecting upon the tragedy and loss this stretch of road has survived.

Image detail: Midlands Settlement 2018, acrylic on canvas. Private collection. 

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