FOREWORD PAINTING THE

The Australian landscape and environment have Over a century ago, from 1890 to 1917, the Her large study of Governor Game Lookout near played a significant role in Australian art, from based photographic studio Kerry & Co, headed by Garie Beach shows Gymea Lillies flushing their deep artworks by Indigenous Australian artists that the entrepreneurial photographer Charles Kerry, pink against the clear blues of sky and sea. The early reflect powerful connections to country, to early showed Australians the beauty and the variety European botanists were entranced by these giant post-settlement landscapes documenting the of the land in which they lived. He and his staff flowers which still keep the name the Dharawal unique features of the Australian environment made thousands of photographs of both the people first gave them many thousands of years to more recently contemporary visions of an growing cities and the bush – from rainforest to ago. Other paintings of the approach to environment in crisis. the desert. Some of these are in the collection of show the elegant sweep of , surely the Wollongong Art Gallery, while the original glass one of the most beautiful feats of engineering Artist Pamela Griffith’s exhibitionWollongong Then plate negatives are in the Museum imaginable. Griffith captures the contrast between and Now explores the residue of colonisation as it of Applied Arts & Sciences. the smooth curves of the road as it loops around the has evolved over time. untamed hills of Coalcliff next to the sea. The grey Kerry had an especial affection for the rainforests of the road serves to emphasise the intense blues of Responding to photographs of the region taken around Wollongong which were recorded in all their the sea, the many moods of the sky, and the mottled by Charles Kerry 130 years ago Griffith revisits and lush beauty. They recorded the soft vegetation of rugged greens and browns of the hills. Other grand depicts the same landscapes today paying witness American Creek and Fairy Meadow Creek, the tall vistas show the landscape from Bulli, the red sun to the changes that have continued unabated gums and tree ferns at Kembla, the panoramic view reflected in , the historic lighthouse at since that time and to the things that once lost can from Bulli Road and the dangerous rocks at Coalcliff. Belmore Basin, the golden sands of Wollongong’s never be retrieved. It is a valuable lesson of which Occasionally he showed the changing nature of the beaches and the streaky clouds over the wide current and future generations should constantly city, with the growing industrial harbour and rows of stretch of Fisherman’s Beach. be reminded. neat workers’ cottages. The landscapes are intermingled with intimate Pamela Griffith is a consummate artist whose Sandon Point Beach, 2019, acrylic, 30.5 x 30.5 cm There are relatively few paintings of Wollongong’s studies of life interacting with the land. Some passion for Australian fauna and flora and the streetscapes made at the same time as Kerry’s paintings focus on birds – black swans, white- landscape in which they flourish has been the photographs. The Wollongong Art Gallery owns a necked heron and cormorants. Others show the subject of her work over many years and across small oil painting by Lavinia Figtree, showing the people soaking up the sun, playing on the beaches, multiple mediums. We would like to thank Pamela corner of Crown and Church streets. It is clear that or swimming in the ocean pools. The baths at for the unbridled enthusiasm and commitment she the centre of Wollongong’s central business district Austinmer, surrounded by Norfolk pines, serve as a has provided this project. was once best described as a country town. reminder of this region’s long history as a centre of Australia’s beach culture. We hope you not only enjoy the exhibition but like The idea of art becoming a record of time as Pamela, take time to consider the continuing impact well as place, has long intrigued Lavinia Figtree’s Some of Kerry & Co’s photographs recorded the we have on the landscape around us. granddaughter, the artist Pamela Griffith. One of region’s developing industrial landscape. There is a her recent works is an exquisite folded watercolour similar approach to recording the present in Pamela John Monteleone book showing the streetscape along Crown street. It Griffith’s painting as they show the impact of time Program Director is effectively the same subject as that painted by weathering the now derelict structures. Lavinia Figtree, but now it is a lively urban scene. By showing Griffith’s paintings and etchings For over 50 years Griffith has made aspects of in conjunction with Kerry’s photographs this Fishermans Beach, Five Islands, 2019, acrylic, 61 x 91.5 cm the Australian landscape the prime subject of her exhibition enables the viewer to simultaneously art. Her closeness to her grandmother, who lived look at both times past and time present. It is in Wollongong, has led to many of her paintings possible therefore to imagine a time future, when and etchings exploring different aspects of the a viewer will see Griffith’s work as a unique record landscape of the Illawarra and its natural life. of the Illawarra in the years leading up to 2020, Her subjects range from the edges of the Royal and marvel at how times have changed. National Park in the north, to the Shoalhaven in the south. She relishes both the pastoral Joanna Mendelssohn tranquility of dairy herds chewing their cud near the misty escarpment and the the ghostly beauty of the abandoned Wongawilli Colliery, rising above the bush which is slowly reclaiming the land.

Fairy Meadow Creek, Towradgi, 2018, oil, 50 x 70 cm North Wollongong Beach Looking South, 2019, oil, 61 x 91.5 cm Wongawilli Colliery, 2019, acrylic, 41 x 51 cm

Port Kembla From City Beach, 2019, acrylic, 61 x 76.5 cm Garie Board riders, 2020, acrylic, 61 x 91.5 cm

Pamela Griffith,Wollongong Then and Now, 21 March – 14 June 2020 Cover image: (detail) Stanwell Creek, 2019, acrylic, 66 x 56 cm

open Tues-Fri 10am-5pm Wollongong Art Gallery is a service of Wollongong City Council, and weekends 12-4pm is a member of Regional and Public Galleries of NSW. 1528336-JL corner Kembla & Burelli streets Wollongong phone 02 4227 8500 www.wollongongartgallery.com www.facebook/wollongongartgallery