Bathurst Regional Art Gallery presents major solo exhibition, Now is Beginning, by Tina Havelock Stevens, Guest Curated by Ann Finegan.
A gentle epic, inspired by Bathurst – yet not about Bathurst, Now is a Beginning embraces magical thinking, place(s), architectural space, where you begin, the unknowns, new narratives in a place once familiar, improvisation, social and sensory engagement. Embodying a universal experience of the shifting, contemporary ‘now’, the exhibition offers a gathering point for reflection on the past as well as the current state of play of the world, marked by political urgencies and the ruptures of unforeseen, unpredictable events.
Tina Havelock Stevens presents an existential narrative of connections over time, borne from the adrenaline of riding motorbikes as a ten-year-old on her uncle’s farm, to the metaphysical experience of packing up her late mother’s house. Zones in the gallery, swathed in saturated colour, create charged atmospheres for exploration of light installations, video/film, photography, object-based works, sculpture and sound.
Prominent ultramarine blues and rich oranges gleaned from Havelock Stevens’ 2024 work Sonic Luminescence, a commissioned sound and light work for Muru Giligu (the new pedestrian link at Metro Martin Place Sydney) will form new links at BRAG. Orange Alert, 2025, an orange flocked drumkit, references the nearby city of Orange, but also the occurrence of a locust plague in Bathurst that the artist experienced as a child. The artist’s family lineage goes back to painter Roy De Maistre who explored the relationship of colour to sound. For Havelock Stevens, drum kits are conduits for loaded spaces, either through improvised compositions or as non-playable sculptural objects. “For me it’s about what colour can do: an overt gesture. It’s about the vibrations whether you see them or not.”
On until 22 June 2025