Remote Artist Solo Exhibition Opening

Venue: Judith Wright Art Centre

Date: 23 October

Time: 6 – 8 pm

Exhibition dates: 23 October – 9 November

Looking for the Pink Opal

As part of the prize as winner of The Remote Artist Award, Karen Stephens and Flying Arts present Looking for the Pink Opal, a solo exhibition of previous and new works in a two-week exhibition at Judith Wright Art Centre.

Looking for the Pink Opal invites the spectator into the multidimensional world of light, water and earth, trapped in stone and hidden underground. The formation of opals is as mysterious as their location and their colour, a play that is never quite resolved.

This exhibition is inspired by a psychic medium who approached the artist in Townsville to tell her that she had channelled the late George Cragg. George Cragg discovered and established the thriving settlement of Boulder Opal in 1888, 127km west of Winton. George whom Karen is a descendant of, communicated through the medium that she would find something very rare near Opalton Qld, but did not communicate the exact location. Looking for the Pink Opal follows a previous, large-scale exhibition ‘Fishing for Landscape’ (2020) which was similarly inspired by opal mining.  

With both opals and painting, the truth is always on the move. Opals’ flashing colour that performs with movement, draws the eye and can never be pinned down. Their fluidity of colour leaves you searching for more. It is the same with painting. To capture the experience and essence of a moving landscape is like an attempt at grasping a reflection in creek water, where the image is active as the water moves. The brilliance of painting is that it can show a fleeting picture inside the eye and mind to bring you closer to the unimaginable.           

Karen Stephens’ winning artwork of the Remote Artist Award is Looking for the Pink Opal (2024). This work is currently on tour in Resolution, the QRAA touring exhibition, on show now in Charleville.

Image: Karen Stevens, Looking for the Pink Opal (2024), Acrylic on canvas

Photo credit: Joe Ruckli