After hosting 43 exhibitions in the past five years, Lemon Hill Gallery in Wairewa last Sunday launched its final exhibition. The gallery doors of this extraordinary venture will close on November 30.
More than 100 artists of different varieties have hung their art. Some were highly respected, competent artists and others artists who had never exhibited before and never expected to.
There have been 1700 visitors to the gallery over the five years and more than $20,000 worth of art sold.
But measurements in numbers do not convey the whole story. The human warmth generated by the whole project has been by far its biggest reward.
Wairewa was a designated ‘fire affected community’ after the Black Summer Bushfire when 11 of the 35 houses in the valley were burnt down. Brian and Elizabeth Blakeman were some of the lucky ones who did not lose their house, but the farm was completely burnt out otherwise. It was a black and bewildering time.
The Blakemans will always be grateful for help that came from friends, family, charities and government programs and services in the following years.
In particular the chief executive officer/chairman of The Victoria Container Terminal, who was overseas at the time, but decided to donate 50 shipping containers to East Gippsland. Their distribution was monitored by Rotary, and they were transported free of charge by a convoy of truck drivers in the Transport Workers Union. A 20-foot one was allotted to the Blakemans. It was bright orange and battered.
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It could have been a shed, but everything that the Blakemans owned in their sheds had been burnt, so storage was not a hugely urgent issue.
“In a completely illogical way, moving away from ‘replacing’ to ‘creating’, we decided to turn it into an art gallery,” Elizabeth said.
“The walls were scrubbed and painted, lino laid, lighting, rails and hanging devices installed and Lemon Hill Gallery was born.”
Last Sunday’s launch event was a day of firsts and lasts with ‘Unused Unusual’ being the first solo exhibition for industrial punk artist Nathan Roberston, along with artist Kim Sherry’s paintings – the last for the gallery.
The exhibition is unusual in that it shows the stark difference between two genres of art; the industrial punk with its salvaged machine parts to the pinks of the beautiful works by Kim who discovered her talent for painting after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.
The exhibition will be open every Sunday from 2pm to 5pm up until November 30, or by appointment.
