Artists in Queen’s Hall
Artists make official presentation in Queen’s Hall, Parliament House!
Artists Peter Biram, Leonie Ryan, Kerrie Warren, Werner & Ursula Theinert join Ted Baillieu MLA and Gary Blackwood MP to celebrate an exciting night in Queen’s Hall, Parliament House Melbourne…
On Friday 5th of February 2010 Mr. Ted Baillieu MLA Shadow Minister for the Arts took great pride in officially launching a new arts movement ‘Environmental Expressionism’ founded by artist Mr. Peter Biram who is overjoyed to have inspired such an historic occassion.
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPRESSIONISM was formed to attract likeminded artists, who feel a need to focus their art into creating a greater awareness of the immense challenges of our current and future environmental concerns, to help stimulate discussion and deeper understanding of these complex issues.
The formalization of this new art movement required a detailed manifesto of beliefs and aims to help clarify the basis of the movement and to convey the strength of feeling that the mediums in the arts were needed to create and facilitate environmental awareness in the community.
Coordinating artist Leonie Ryan gave a presentation on ‘Fields of View’, a touring art exhibition influenced by the Black Saturday Fires in 2009 before giving a more personal presentation about her own art installation and sculpture that is currently on tour.
Artists Ursula and Werner Theinert had been directly impacted by the fires in Callignee and both gave very moving presentations on their personal experience, the rebuilding of their lives and their studio….the influence this has had on their artwork….The guests were amazed to hear that even with these challenges, both artists have since created a strong body of work that is now touring through Regional Galleries in Victoria!
Abstract Artist Kerrie Warren spoke of her own experience on the day before giving the audience an indepth description of her work and the process she goes through to create it.
The night was a great success and 60 VIP guests were treated with gift bags and goodies, including a young tree to take home and plant, carefully wrapped in the ‘Environmental Expressionism’ manifesto to inspire ‘growth’ of the concept and ongoing life to the new arts movement.
The artists were delighted to be joined by Mr. Russell Broadbent MP, Federal Member for McMillan who also spoke on the night, along with their ongoing supporter and MC Mr. Gary Blackwood MP Member for Narracan.
Sponsor International Power / Mitsui Loy Yang B was represented by Mr. & Mrs. Anthony & Meagan Harper. Sponsor GippsTafe was represented by Jim Vivien, David Bruce and Head of the Art Design and Media department, Mr. Gary Dunbier who all supported the artists by being present to witness the official proceedings and passionate individual presentations by these 5 inspiring artists.
The night was filmed by Matthew Cairns who had previously worked with Werner and Ursula Theinert on the documentary, ‘Touched by Fire’ personal stories from Victoria’s bushfire affected communities of 2009.
Artist Steve Gray gave his time to digitally record the event (images on this page) and the artists are very grateful for their colleague’s generous support.
‘The Burning Bush’ painted by abstract artist Kerrie Warren, Queen’s Hall Parliament House Melbourne
(1st – 5th February 2010)
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Kerrie’s Speech now on YouTube!
