12:00a.m. 24th September 2007

William Robinson: Grassy Painting with William and Shirley looking at a Regency Bower Bird, 1985. Oil on canvas 98 x 109.5 cm

Artbank: Celebrating 25 years of Australian Art will be launched at Noosa Regional Gallery on Friday, 5 October at 6 pm by Noosa Councillor, Frank Wilkie.

“Artbank has both helped to shape the contemporary art scene and broadened our appreciation of contemporary art by ensuring access to it,” Senator George Brandis SC, Minister for the Arts and Sport.

Artbank—the Australian Government’s art rental initiative—is celebrating its first quarter of a century by touring 42 artworks by 33 artists.

“This exhibition will give regional audiences an opportunity to appreciate the quality and variety of the artworks available for rental from Artbank” says Artbank Director Geoffrey Cassidy.

Councillor Frank Wilkie and Christine Ballinger, Director of Noosa Regional Art Gallery are delighted to host this touring exhibition that provides a snapshot of Australian art collecting during the past 25 years.

The exhibition presents diverse array of arts and crafts collected since Artbank’s inception in 1980, including abstract and landscape paintings, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, glass, photography and sculpture.

Founded with the Australian National Gallery loan collection comprising 600 works and supplemented with purchases made since, these artworks are only representative of the 9000 in the collection by almost 3500 artists, some of whom are the most important emerging and established artists working in Australia.

Artbank purchases significant works as they become available through the primary market commercial galleries, artists’ studios and craft workshops throughout the country. The collection is conservatively valued at more than $24 million and includes pieces from a diverse range of media and styles including paintings, photography, drawings, textiles, sculpture, ceramics and glass by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from each state and territory of Australia.

The Queensland artists whose work is presented in the exhibition are William Robinson, Ken Thaiday, Judy Watson, Rosemary Laing originally from Brisbane, and Daniel Mellor who was born in Mackay.

The exhibition is supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions with funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia.

The exhibition will be displayed at Noosa Regional Gallery from 5 October to 10 November 2007.

For more information on Artbank: Celebrating 25 Years of Australian Art visit www.artbank.gov.au