An Artist’s Garden showcases work by two of the Coffs Coast’s most established and respected painters; one abstract, one figurative. Terri Butterworth and Guy Gilmour have been painting the people and places of the Orara Valley for decades. Strongly connected to place, these artists interpret the Valley’s landscapes through two distinct lenses. Terri Butterworth’s pure, abstract paintings immerse us in a layered experience of place, including her Glenreagh garden. Spanning the past 20 years of his practice, Guy Gilmour’s sensitive and intimate observations suggest imagined narratives and prompt nostalgic memories. The sounds and scents of the Valley are invoked through depictions of this unique place and An Artist’s Garden draws the viewer into a sensorial experience of the Orara Valley’s ever-changing landscape.

Terri Butterworth

In this body of work, I use An Artist’s Garden as metaphor for the imagination and its world of infinite possibilities, together with the influences of my own garden and all of its wonderful arrangements.

As a painter I am seeking to achieve expressive images based on elements of inspiration which consider feelings, sense of place, mood and atmosphere.

The notion of transience, interconnection, the perception of defined boundaries and how much intensity of emotion can be conveyed with seemingly so little, continues to intrigue and inspires me to continue painting.

Guy Gilmour

What makes me want to paint what I paint is the light – specific light on specific things. But I also like to make well-balanced compositions. So my paintings aren’t spontaneous responses – I spend time arranging them and painting them. And I don’t want to pursue style or technique that might obscure what I’m interested in – I just want to show as clearly as I can what I saw when that particular subject was in that particular light.

So the title of this exhibition, An Artist’s Garden, functions for me as a metaphor for my practice as an artist. My ‘garden’ is the life that goes on around me and that I’m involved in daily. My paintings are flowers that I pick out of that garden, stick in a vase, arrange as nicely as I can then get out of the way so you can look at them.