Kristen Cowland is an artist based in Lake Boga. Coming from a creative family art in some form has always been part of her life. She was introduced to acrylic decorative painting in her 20s and began selling her work at markets and teaching. After a long hiatus Kristen’s passion for art was reignited. Inspired by nature, people and life, Kristen enjoys painting intuitively with acrylics and often combines it with watercolour and mixed media to create her work.

Jodie Curtis is a printmaker, whose works are inspired by Australian native landscapes. Her Pink Olive Studio is in Boort.

Paul Haw grew up on a farm on the Loddon. When he returned from service with the Australian army in Vietnam, he founded Yung Balug, a Keeping Place for Indigenous artefacts, on Lake Boort. The museum began with a small collection of locally-found grinding stones and axes. As the collection grew he became increasingly interested in the history of the past owners of the land, renovated a shed, and set up the museum as a temporary keeping place. Passionate about photography, Paul has shown his own images from his time in Vietnam, and also displays photographs from the extraordinary John Hunter Kerr collection at the State Library of Victoria, depicting the people from the 1850s who lived along the creek that flows into Lake Boort. For this exhibition, Paul is displaying photographs created by his late father, Bill.

Letz Leshetz immigrated to Australia 16 years ago. Now living in Boort, he paints in oils, acrylics as well as digital prints, using strong primary colours, and emotionally resonant imagery.

Fiona Somerville was born in Adelaide and studied at Victorian College of the Arts. Now living in Boort, she is interested in how the landscape reflects the history of place, and, as one reviewer put it, is “full of humour, intelligent, technically original, ironic, beautiful”.

Blake Slatter: Travel, a borrowed camera, and Canada. These were the things that seeded Blake Slatter’s love for photography, which developed into more than a hobby when he also discovered it provided a path to personal healing. Now, still travelling, still finding deep pleasure in creating art, Blake searches for simple elegance, especially in the landscape around his home in Boort. This exhibition of photographs, some years in the making, invites connection to moments in time.

Stuart Tweddle:  The work I’m presenting here are mixed media figurative characterisations of the people in our neighbourhoods. I use clothing, manchester, small domestic items and numerous objects to create indoor sculptures. They have an abundance of details which I feel represents our complicated lives. For me each one of the objects is like an expressionist painters brushstroke. They’re constant variation of texture, space and colour. A broad range of artists have influenced my art, but it’s the art of assemblage that inspires me the most. Artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Leonardo Drew, Lucas Samaras, Rosalie Gascgoine and Tom Friedman continue to inspire me. Having a lot of art materials on hand and the act of sculpture allows me the freedom to express myself.