What’s new at the Art Gallery of Ballarat

Two new Art Gallery of Ballarat exhibitions are challenging the way we view this country and town.

Beating About The Bush brings together the gallery’s collection of Australian Impressionist landscape paintings with works by some of the nation’s most exciting contemporary female artists, including local Wadawurrung artist Deanne Gilson.

The free exhibition explores the role of white male Australian Impressionist artists in setting our cultural agenda for more than a century.

It puts women, First Nations people, people of diverse cultural backgrounds and gender orientations back into the frame and shifts the lens on how we see ourselves.

Beating About the Bush is open daily until 19 February.

Meanwhile, Bren Luke: Streets of Your Town shines a spotlight on some of Ballarat’s lesser-known built forms, such as quirky shopfronts, back alleys and mid-20th century architecture. 

Over the past decade, Ballarat artist Bren Luke has focused on traditional drawing techniques, primarily using pen and ink on paper.  

His distinctive, highly detailed cross-hatching style is born from an interest in the 16th-century engravings of Albrecht Dürer and from studying the work of underground comic book artists and illustrators. 

The free exhibition is open daily until 5 February.

You’ll find the Art Gallery of Ballarat at 40 Lydiard Street North.