Rural City of Wangaratta Collection. Purchased with funds from the Wangaratta Arts Council.A rectangular landscape of forest ferns painted in oil using shades of green, brown, and blue.Obverse: Elaine Burge/ (bottom right corner)wangaratta art gallery, elaine burge, landscape, forest, healesville, painting

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection. Gift of Mayor Lance Bullus, 1983.A landscape that features the scout hall in Yarrawonga, painted using oil in greens, blues, whites, browns, and reds.Obverse: DONALD CAMERON/ (bottom right corner)wangaratta art gallery, donald cameron, yarrawonga scout hall, landscape, painting

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize 1974.A snowscape painted in oil using tones of white, brown, blue, and yellow.Obverse: Con Carter/ (bottom left corner)wangaratta art gallery, con carter, landscape, snow, painting

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize 1978.A snowscape painted in oil using shades of brown, white, blue, and green. Obverse: colby/ (bottom right corner)wangaratta art gallery, shirley colby, painting, landscape

naïve art, outsider artRural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize 1980.A landscape of a valley scene featuring animals and humans painted in oil using vibrant colours.wangaratta art gallery, tony convey, naïve art, landscape, painting, outsider art

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection: Grand Winner 1996 Wangaratta Art Show.An oil landscape of rolling hills and a mountain painted in shades of yellow, blue, brown, and grey.Obverse: RAMON HORSFIELD/ (bottom right corner) 1996 Grand Winner - TOWARDS CATHEDRAL MOUNT/ By - RAMON HORSFIELD/ Judge - PAUL McDONALD SMITH/ (plaque on mounting board)wangaratta art gallery, ramon horsfield, landscape, painting

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection. Wangaratta Art Show Grand Winner 2001.A pastoral landscape of a farming property painted in oil using a colour palette of yellows, greens, blues, browns, and creams.Obverse: RAMON HORSFIELD/ (bottom left corner) Grand Winner - 2001/ "Golden Summer"/ By Ramon Horsfield/ Judge Kevin Taylor/ (plaque mounted on frame)wangaratta art gallery, ramon horsfield, landscape, pastoral, painting

Knight’s art style is heavily influenced by the Australian Impressionist movement of the late 19th century and he paints his work in outdoor settings, which is known as plein-air painting. Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize Grand Winner 1992.An aerial landscape of a costal view painted in oil using a tonal colour palette of browns, blues, greens, oranges, and whites.Obverse: KEN KNIGHT/ (bottom right corner) WANGARATTA ART SHOW/ GRAND WINNER 1992/ 'COASTAL VISTA'/ By KEN KNIGHT/ (plaque mounted on frame)wangaratta art gallery, ken knight, landscape, painting, costal, plein-air, plein air

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection.A costal landscape of a group of stones painted in oil using a colour palette of blue, green, white, black, yellow, and orange.Obverse: Mezaks/ (bottom right corner)wangaratta art gallery, maggie mezaks, painting, landscape, costal

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize 1990.An oil landscape of gums and grass trees painted with a colour palette of green, yellow, brown, blue, and grey.E. MICHEL 90/ (bottom right corner) GRAND WINNER 1990/ ELLEN MICHEL/ 'Summer In The Warbys'/ (plaque mounted on frame)wangaratta art gallery, ellen michel, landscape, painting, warby ranges

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection.An oil landscape of Lake Mokoan that has been painted using shades of blue, green, yellow, and brown.Obverse: A. D. MORRIS/ (bottom right)wangaratta art gallery, a. d. morris, ad morris, landscape, painting, lake mokoan

Rural City of Wangaratta CollectionA costal landscape of boats mooring at a small dock, painted in oil using shades of blue, green, brown, yellow, and white.Obverse: Ross Paterson '91/ (bottom right corner) APRIL MORNING EDEN By ROSS PATERSON/ GRAND WINNER/ JUDGE - BARBARA McMANUS 1991/ (plaque on frame)wangaratta art gallery, ross paterson, landscape, painting, eden, costal, boats, dock

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection. Wangaratta Art Show Grand Winner 1985.A landscape of a pastoral scene, painted in oil using shades o green, brown, blue, and yellow.R Paterson '85/ (bottom right corner) - GRAND WINNER 1985 -/ WANGARATTA ART SHOW/ (plaque mounted on frame)wangaratta art gallery, ross paterson, landscape, painting pastoral

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize Grand Winner 1981.A aerial landscape of a rural road, painted in oil using a colour palette of blue, green, white, yellow, and brown.Obverse: L Pawluk/ (bottom left corner)wangaratta art gallery, len pawluk, landscape, rural, painting, walhalla

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection, Wangaratta Art Prize 2005.A coastal landscape of people frolicking on the beach of an inlet, painted in oil using blues, browns, yellows, and whites.Obverse: L Pawluk/ 2005/ (bottom left) Wangaratta Art Show - 2005/ ** Grand Winner **/ 'Otway Coastline' - Artist: Len Pawluk/ Judge: Wykeham Perry/ (plaque mounted on frame) wangaratta art gallery, len pawluk, landscape, painting, coastal, otway

abstractRural City of Wangaratta Collection. Purchased with funds from the Wangaratta Art Council.An abstract painting of an eatery dinning area painted in oil using a colour palette of predominantly blue alongside shades of green, pink, brown, and yellow.Pyett/ '76/ (bottom left corner)wangaratta art gallery, christopher pyett, painting

Rural City of Wangaratta Collection. Wangaratta Art Show - Grand Winner 1998.A oil landscape of Lake Buffalo, painted using shades of blue, green, yellow, brown, and white.Obverse: R SYMMONS/ (bottom right corner)wangaratta art gallery, rodney symmons, landscape, painting, lake buffalo

Tadich spends time observing night time phenomena, the light from the moon, street lights and other sources; atmospheric states, fog and dampness and the nature of surfaces, vegetation, road, vehicles and buildings. She uses photographs and sketches before settling on the final idea for a work.This painting is typical of Tadich's recent work. She continues her exploration of the Australian landscape (most often the local, Nillumbik Shire). It is 'a dramatic interplay between narrative, landscape and the binaries of light/dark and the known/unknown of local landscape. The swathes of darkness within the work(s) pose questions about our inscribed fears and tensions, both cultural and existential'. (catalogue, 'Silent Space' Ex. 2006) Tadich's early experiences of fireworks, simple fireworks and bonfire in the surrounding bush of her outer Melbourne home, caught her imagination. She was inspired to investigate the issues surrounding nights in the bush. In this painting the narrative is ambiguous, the pinpricks of light, in this case from the car headlights provide a critical element. We can distinguish familiar features, a road, trees and a car that suggest human presence. However, what is going on is unclear. The resulting tension can leave us unsure, unsettled and anxious.Oil on canvascamilla tadich, nillumbik shire council, kangaroo ground

Walter Magilton's professional painting career is highlighted by numerous solo exhibitions, five of which have been in Great Britain. He has also won countless prizes, which include many 'Best in Show' awards. Walter is represented in a great number of private and corporate national and international collections, including ART Bank, in approximately twelve countries.This painting is a one of a series of approximately eight works of the river at Warrandyte and the local creeks, with particular emphasis on the reflections in the water and of the wattle growing along the banks. I was particularly inspired by Penleigh Boyde who did similar work while living in Warrandyte in the early 1920s.'Sunlight and Shadows, Warrandyte' is an oil on canvas painting depicting the Warrandyte landscape, featuring a winding creek with beautiful reflections cast upon it. The colour palate comprises muted green and earth tones, with a vivid aqua for reflective water.walter magilton, nillumbik, warrandyte

David Armfield studied at the National Gallery School in the 1940s and turned to full time painting in 1965. RMIT printamking. He has won several art awards, including the Ramsay Prize - NGV School, the Redcliffe and in 1980 the Eltham Prize. Armfield is represented in the National Gallery collection, Art Gallery of NSW, Tasmanian Art Gallery, several regional art galleries across Australia as well as private collections. David Armfield first came to Eltham in the late 1903s on painting trips and used to camp on the banks of the Diamond Creed. He returned to Eltham in 1957 with his wife Joan who has subsequently become one of the district's potters, and built a mud brick house and studio in John Street on land adjoining Peter Glass. He has painted many landscapes in the district including intimate studies of the bush floor and the aftermath of bush fires.Oil on canvas painting depicting a Panton Hill bush scape.Signed: D. Armfield in lower right hand corner. Not dated.david armfield, eltham art prize, panton hill

David Armfield studied at the National Gallery School in the 1940s and turned to full time painting in 1965. RMIT printamking. He has won several art awards, including the Ramsay Prize - NGV School, the Redcliffe and in 1980 the Eltham Prize. Armfield is represented in the National Gallery collection, Art Gallery of NSW, Tasmanian Art Gallery, several regional art galleries across Australia as well as private collections. David Armfield first came to Eltham in the late 1903s on painting trips and used to camp on the banks of the Diamond Creed. He returned to Eltham in 1957 with his wife Joan who has subsequently become one of the district's potters, and built a mud brick house and studio in John Street on land adjoining Peter Glass. He has painted many landscapes in the district including intimate studies of the bush floor and the aftermath of bush fires.'Untitled' by David Armfield an oil on canvas painting depicts sand, sea, distant mountains and various figures scattered about in a typical Armfield landscape. The figures tend to be annonymous, sometimes included more to establish the scale than for a narrative purpose. The figures are well clothed and it could be assumed that it is not a hot summer's day. Depth is established by changing of colours and diminishing the size of the figures.david armfield, beach, eltham, nillumbik shire council

Penelope Aitken lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She makes paintings and installations about relationships: between people, between things and between people and things. Recurring subjects include friendship, genealogy, romantic liaisons, and cross-cultural exchange as well as gardening, craft and landscape design. 'I am interested in the social, psychological and aesthetic motives behind organisation, belonging and displacement and I often make work that investigates such arrangements.' She has held regular solo exhibitions since 1995 and has been represented in group exhibitions since 1989. These have included shows in public and commercial galleries, artist run spaces, outdoor projects and festivals in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Bundaberg, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tokyo and Famagusta, Northern Cyprus. Aitken has previously worked at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and at Asialink at the University of Melbourne. From 2006 - 2009 she was a board member of the Melbourne artist run gallery, West Space and she has also curated and coordinated numerous exhibitions and written and edited catalogues, articles and essays. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education (Visual Arts) both from The University of Melbourne and completed her Masters of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2004. In 1997 Aitken was selected to be a studio artist for two years at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne and in 2000 she undertook an Australia Council Studio at the Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan. More recently she spent two months in 2007 at the Laughing Waters Residency, Birrarung, in Eltham, Victoria. There she began her current interest in the rocks used in the landscape designs of Gordon Ford. Paintings of Ford's rocks made since 2007 as well as glacial erratics, meteors, and other natural and displaced rocks were exhibited in March 2011 at the Light Factory Gallery in Eltham in a show called My History of here, and Second Nature, one work from this exhibition, was awarded first prize at Eltham Masterworks 2011. Other work made about rocks in nature and culture include: the project, A dark archive, as well as in two installations: You seem so settled for one that doesn't belong held at West Space in 2009 and Gathering these things to remind me of home shown in 2010 at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, Queensland. In July and August 2007 Aitken undertook an arts recidency at Birrarung, a house and garden designed by Gordon Ford and managed as the Laughing Waters Artist in Residence Program by the Shire of Nillumbik Victoria. The rocks depicted in the painting 'Mapping Mass & Void 10' are all taken from the garden at Birrarung. Aitken has made reference to those rocks and the way in which Ford thought of the rocks as individuals that need to be handled and placed with consideration to show off their best aspects.oil and acrylic on linen ek prac 2015

Strampp lived and worked at Clifton Pugh's artist colony Dunmoochin from 1980 to 1985. 'Into the Night' is Strampps' "own marriage painting". The wedding dress and horse, "a symbol of virility and passion" represents Strampp and the background landscape was inspired by her stay in Somerset, England. The cliff edge on the left symbolises "an audacious step into the future." The painting "is of a bride, passionate yet absent, about to embark upon a new journey in life, and of the voyage ahead. It is about acknowledging the past, and having the courage to move forward. To take risks". Strampp was largely influenced by both the new German Neo-Expressionists of the time and by English artist John Walker, which is evident in this painting. Her work took on popular stylistic trends and themes of the time, which included a painterly aesthetic and an energetic application of the medium, which transferred to an emotional and or personal connection to subject matter that was communicated symbolically. Strampp is an artist of national significance. This work encompasses themes and a style of painting (Neo - Expressionism) that was prevalent during the time of its making in the eighties. This work represents a transition from Strampp's highly regarded early paintings of heroic horses in the mid to late 1980’s to her highly regarded paintings of contemporary wedding and/or armour-like bodices dresses of the 1990s. Both the 'horse' and 'dress' were often set in empty backgrounds or dreamy/foreboding landscapes. Painted in oil on linen (x2) in a 'Neo-Expressionist' style, 'Into the Night' depicts a ghostly white horse to the right of the painting looking away from a ghostly white wedding dress to the left of the painting. The dress has sprouted white wings and is adorned with bows on the bottom edge of the dress and roses on the sleeves. The dress seems full bodied although there is no figure. The dress and horse are placed in the foreground on a stage like platform with a white curtain framing the picture to the right, and a black ladder and brown cliff edge framing the picture to the left. The background depicts a foreboding and dark cloudy sky and seascape with a firery red landscape burning on the horizon. Signed low right (1988.7b VA) with brush in purple (light) 'Adriane Strampp 87'. into the night, neo expressionism, wedding dress, horse, symbolism, painting, seascape, dramatic, emotional, poetic, strampp

oil on canvasek prac 2015

Murray is an artist with a renowned reputation within contemporary art practice. This painting was exhibitied in the 1999 Nillumbik Art Award. Oil on linen abstract painting. A painting within a painting. A stretched orange canvas with its back (black wooden support and brace) facing the viewer. It is resting on a pink floor and against a blue wall. Style is quite graphic with strong lines and flat colour. Not signed and not dated. ek prac 2015

Rick Amor was a good friend of three times Archibald Prize winner Clifton Pugh, living and working at Pugh's artist colony Dunmoochin, (Cottles Bridge) during the 1980-1990s. Amor made frequent outdoor painting trips with Pugh. His studies of Williamstown and areas around the port fuelled a period of sustained painting in his studio at Dunmoochin. Amor is an artist of national significance who had lived locally in Dunmoochin (Cottles Bridge) during the time of this work's making. This painting was exhibited/entered into the 1993 Shire of Eltham Art Awards. The work is representative of Amor's style and interest in seascapes as subject matter. Oil on linen, seascape painting. A solitary and motionless male figure in an overcoat stands at the edge of a dock/jetty with his hands in his pockets looking out to sea with his back towards the viewer. A motorised boat is moored close by and a white house with a blue roof can be seen in the distance. The figure is engulfed by the landscape and a resounding sense of desolation. A storm is brewing; the mood forecast by dark, heavy and thick ominous clouds, alternately darkening with the approach of night, a polluted haze and rough seas. In red paint, lower right, signed 'RICK AMOR '93'amor, seascape, painting, personal, boat, dramatic, atmospheric, ekphrasis 2015, dunmoochin

Piers Bateman was a local artist, held in very high esteem by his peers and community. He was born in Perth in 1947, moving to Eltham in 1955 as a young child with his family. In 1966 Bateman moved to London for eighteen months to develop his craft. In 1969 he settled in St Andrews, where he built a studio. The St Andrews locale is said to have been a strong influence on his work. Bateman’s talent was such that he was promoted and mentored by such ilk as Charles Blackman, Clifton Pugh and Arthur Boyd, among others. Bateman’s work is an intimate dialogue with the environment, renowned for his paintings of the outback, wilderness frontiers and the sea. He spent a year in the mid-seventies sailing the Greek Islands and the French canals to Amsterdam. In 1980 Bateman and Marcus Skipper embarked on a trans-Australian venture to the red centre and across northern Australia from Cairns to Broome. In the mid-eighties Bateman returned to the Mediterranean, before returning to the Australian outback in the late-eighties. His international career continued on an upwards trajectory between the Australian outback and European seas, providing a unique contrast throughout the course of his career. Bateman's work questions our relationship with the natural world, and in particular, reconciling our colonial heritage with our indigenous past. This line of questioning and his genuine response to place is the key to Piers Bateman’s work, for which he is lauded and celebrated. On September 4th 2015, Piers Bateman died in a boating accident on the NSW coast line. Piers Bateman was an instinctive painter whose inspiration came from nature. He reworked and scraped off the paint, moving it around until forms and colours of the landscape took shape. Although Bateman lived in Spain and Italy, his time in Europe made him aware of the contrast between the two continents and the bright clear light that defined the Australian landscape. At the time of this work, Bateman was living in St. Andrews, but travelled regularly to New South Wales and South Australia on painting trips. The ‘Grass Tree’ Xanthorrhoea johnsonii (commonly known as ‘blackboy’) is indigenous to these areas. It is a uniquely Australian, slow growing plant with twenty-eight species growing within Australia. Old examples of this tree are survivors of many wild fires, which can cause their blackened trunk, of one to two metres, branch into two or more heads. These heads consist of thick, rough corky bark, surrounded by long, wiry leaves and flowers that produce seed capsules with hard black seeds. The tree’s ability to be one of the first to flower after a wild fire ensures a food source for many insects and birds.Oil on canvas painting. Detail of three grass trees resting on the side of a mountain/hill. Green and gold palette throughout depicting the colours and light of the Australian landscape. Hand written, low right in capitals: 'BATEMAN'bateman, grass trees, xanthorrhoea johnsonii, landscape

The painting was purchased from the Eltham Outdoor Art Show. Smith endeavours to capture mood, atmosphere and light in this work by heightening and intensifying the imagery where possible. Smith is concerned with expressing a 'sense of place' inherent in the subject matter. Painting of a landscape at dusk with dirt walking track and trees somewhere in Eltham. Oil on composition board. Moulded frame. Painted in the 'Western Realist Tradition'. Signed 'HARRIS SMITH/84' Hand painted in capitals in red paint; bottom right. eltham, painting, landscape, smith, evening

Oil on canvas board, landscape painting in muted tones of an dry creek bed. Trees line the creek banks and a log bridge crosses the creek bed, perhaps built from the local tree timbers.Lower right, black paint 'Yvonne Ball'

Oil on canvas board. Landscape painting of Eltham with Brougham Street bridge in the foreground. People walking down the road and cars in the backgroundLower left, red paint 'HILARY JACKMAN 80'landscape, painting, eltham, bush, bridge, brougham street, jackman