ART: Seven Painters still creating

In the present large exhibition at Newcastle Art Space until July 26, more than 70 works by six artists celebrate 15 years of their coming together every Tuesday to paint and support one another.

Remarkably, some only paint in moments snatched from busy professional careers. All are serious about their art. Over years of exhibiting, all of them have evolved as painters.

They are all now painting landscapes, which for Malcolm Sands is a welcome new excursion into low horizons and wide spaces.

New, too, are the layered collages of Patricia Williamsz, evocatively capturing riverbanks, with slow water and a jumble of warm sandstone boulders. Layers of paper and glaze produce a richly textured, ambiguous surface.

Sarah Knights is another accomplished painter, with the red McDonnell Ranges and pale spinifex given vivid life in gouache as well as oils.

Michael Bateman has extended his subjects into the Arcadian landscape from his familiar Newcastle foreshore, rendered less familiar by some novel viewing points.

The smaller gallery is given over to Jennifer and Andrew Finnie. She is an instinctive painter, investing familiar scenes with primal energy. The works are small, often done outside at a single sitting, a true performance with several notable successes.

We know Andrew Finnie in several modes. Here, his many small paintings find new and fruitful subjects in Newcastle's coast and older suburbs. Some are puzzles, others surprising, with colour now romantically balanced between warm and cool.

It is Andrew who keeps this group together. Fifteen years is a long time for a group to survive, let alone grow in strength, a tribute to his energy and enthusiasm.

- PRINTMAKERS traditionally make a numbered edition from each of their plates, so have in all likelihood a cabinet of multiple copies.

Vera Zulumovski is showing prints from the last 15 years at CStudios until August 2.

It's good to see again the band rotunda and tug, but her exacting linocuts here include previously unseen images. Subject matter is often autobiographical, but story becomes subservient to the wealth of pattern, inexhaustibly inventive. The plates get bigger; the detailed surface continuum remains completely crisp.

Sharing the exhibition space are Justin Montefiore's immaculately constructed musical instruments and filigree timber music stands and floor lamps. A curious contrast comes from the group of figurative wooden sculpture, where the timber sets its own free agenda.

- A YEAR ago, Linda Greedy and Nicola Bolton made a painting pilgrimage to Provence. Their exhibition, at Back to Back Galleries until July 26, is centred on the old town of Vence, with its well-used doors and windows and its insouciant canine inhabitants.

Anne Gazzard's ceramic bowls and beakers refer to the Provencal landscape in painted stoneware, relief porcelain and one splendid monumental hand-built vessel.

- FORSIGHT has re-opened with accomplished paintings and drawings of the familiar and less-familiar Newcastle environment by Ellen Howell and Richard Kearney. Both are experienced painters of architectural subjects and breezy prospects of our engrossing coastline. This rewarding exhibition runs until July 26.

- OTHER dormant galleries have recently re-opened.

Eden Art used to be Four Point at 681 Hunter Street, where five talented recent TAFE graduates have a varied exhibition until July 26. Maggie Hall and Emily Tseronis are printmakers. Melissa Baldwin is a painter and Donna Hawkins a sculptor. Lynda Gibbins makes detailed botanical fantasies in painted clay. Commanding waratahs are just the tip of a wildly creative imagination.

- STUDIO 48 capitalises on its domestic ambience in a group show.

Helen Walker, Pam Carroll and Jenni Gander paint birds and flowers. Newcomer, South African Christelle Grey contributes leopards, lions and elephants. Robyn Bailey is another fine painter.

Marea Kozaczynski-McCaig creates elaborate personifications of the four seasons. Bruce Vote's pen and wash drawings depict Japanese heritage sites.

Vlase Nikoleski has an eclectic group of bronze sculpture, while a finely decorated ceramic bowl by Helen Stronach completes the diverse line-up.

- FOR the next few weeks, Una Rey will be writing this column.