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Check out Ipswich Art Gallery’s new offerings

Pine Mountain artist Kylie Stevens not only creates innovative artworks, she creates her own art materials too.

Despite working at an art supplies store, Ms Stevens’ most precious supplies are the ones she digs up in her back yard or collects from rivers and creeks around Ipswich.

The canvases in her exhibition Ways of Water, are stained and encrusted with sediment, appearing as if recovered from the very rivers they are intended to represent.

“I live in a tiny little block of bush, I really love being in nature,” Ms Stevens said.

“People were here long before us because of the river, the river was the life source.”

In her studio, shelves hold glass bottles labelled with the names of their sources  ̶  Bundamba Creek, Brisbane River, Bremer River and Sometimes Creek.

Sometimes Creek, as it’s unofficially named by the artist, is a seasonal creek that occasionally flows through her Pine Mountain property as a part of the headwaters that form the Bremer River.

Ms Stevens applies the bottled river water and thinned acrylic paint to each canvas with varying degrees of manipulation – allowing the paint to puddle and pool, soak into the surface, and run across the canvas.

“The charcoal and ochre I dig up are ground by mortar and pestle and then sprinkled onto the wet paint layer,” she said.

“When the canvas has dried, I begin the meticulous job of mapping the river.”

Ms Stevens uses an online interactive tool which converts physical, geographical and spatial data into map format.

The maps are carefully layered onto the canvases in charcoal and delicate copperleaf.

“It is my aim to showcase the beauty and alchemy of nature, inspiring in the viewer a deeper respect for and desire to protect our precious natural spaces,” Ms Stevens said.

“If there is a piece of litter left on Brisbane Street that gets washed down the drain, that then flows out to Moreton Bay, we are all connected.”

Ways of Water will be on show when the Ipswich Art Gallery reopens on Saturday, 19 September.

An Australian War Memorial touring exhibition featuring home-front propaganda from the First and Second World Wars will open at the Ipswich Art Gallery on Saturday, 26 September.

Hearts and minds: wartime propaganda is a collection of wartime posters from government-issued campaign posters to handmade posters protesting the war in Vietnam.

Propaganda has been used to influence audiences for as long as recorded history.

By presenting facts selectively and using loaded language to provoke emotional reactions rather than rational responses, it seeks to promote the agenda of a particular group.

Posters were an ideal means of communicating propaganda: impermanent yet public, they were designed to be noticed, and could be printed and distributed quickly in large numbers.

The Children’s Gallery reopens on Saturday, 19 September with the return of the free exhibition Wind Tubes.

Wind Tubes is a hands-on exhibition that challenges you to make a flying creation out of everyday materials and launch it into large, clear vertical tubes of moving air.

It’s a playful way to explore the effect that moving air has on objects.

The challenge is to harness the power of the moving air and discover the design that will keep your creation air-born for the longest time.

A range of measures are being implemented in order to provide a safe and healthy environment for visitors, including hand sanitiser stations and additional scheduled cleaning throughout the day.

Visitors are required to pre-book a 90 minute session which will allow you to view all exhibition on show excluding Wind Tubes in the Children’s Gallery.

Wind Tubes can be booked here.

EventBrite booking link for Hearts and minds: wartime propaganda will be activated on 25 September.

EventBrite booking link for Ways of Water: New work by Kylie Stevens.

The Gallery Shop will be open for contactless card transactions from 9.30am to 5pm.

Check the Ipswich Art Gallery website and Facebook page for the most up-to-date information.

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