Like Oil and Water is a solo exhibition of artwork by Claudia Bellsmith, a first year graphic design student at RMIT, which will be displayed at Lemon Hill Gallery in Wairewa from September 7.
Some of the work that will be exhibited was also on display at Melbourne Museum this year in its Top Designs 2025 exhibition which showcased the best art presented for VCE in 2024.
The inclusion in that exhibition was a credit to Claudia’s work and Lemon Hill Gallery is pleased to be bringing her art to East Gippsland this month.
Claudia has always had a passion for art and design. At primary and secondary school she chose subjects focussed in these fields while outside the school curriculum she moved away from the traditional mediums of oils, watercolour and charcoal and explored digital tools – like Adobe Illustrator and Procreate.
In this new exhibition she explores how the medium she uses can change both the audience’s interpretation of her artwork and the themes she, as the artist, puts into it.
Of her watercolour paintings, she says, “they have no greater meaning than being aesthetically pleasing and picturesque”.
This is in stark contrast to her oil paintings which include “darker themes of inner turmoil and the complexity of the human form”.
“The difference is striking and the title of her exhibition undoubtedly very apt,” gallery owner Elizabeth Blakeman said.
This is Claudia’s second solo exhibition at Lemon Hill Gallery.
The gallery has had a policy to each year set aside a period to show work by a teenager. Claudia’s first exhibition was in 2021 when she was 14 years old.
Viewers who saw her work then will most certainly appreciate the remarkable growth in the young aspiring artist and designer who is now approaching 19.
This is an exhibition worth seeing.
All welcome.
It opens at on Saturday, September 7.
For details, see public notices.
