October 8th, 2024Two sisters, an artist and a poet…

Mother Mother, a new exhibition exploring the sometimes vexed relationships of mothers and daughters through images and words, has opened at Newstead’s Railway Arts Hub and runs through to October 27.

In this evocative and moving exhibition visual artist Pam French and poet Leni Shilton, explore the cycle of life-long female relationships and links between generations long passed.

Now living at Newstead, Leni Shilton is a poet, nurse, educator and researcher who has worked in Aboriginal adult education in the Northern Territory for 25 years.

She has twice won the Northern Territory Literary Poetry and Essay Awards, and in 2015 was shortlisted in the University of Canberra Poetry Prize.

Pam lives south of Sydney NSW works as multidisciplinary artist. Her studio situated in remnant Cumberland Plain Woodlands alongside a dry swamp. Her ongoing fascination with the wonderful diversity of people, places and nature is the source of inspiration in her work.

French and Shilton are sisters and artists working in collaboration for Mother Mother. They have worked together over many years and have collaborated in two previous exhibitions.

Their work explores the experiences of life and the creative threads between their work. Despite the work being created in isolation from each other, the visual images and poetry sit alongside each other with an ease and familiarity that comes from their family threads and shared values.

Viewers will be able to explore the work through a multimedia experience – artwork, projected images, audio, written and spoken word.

This exhibition is highly accessible and interactive with the Newstead Railway Art Hub gallery open Saturdays and Sundays 10-4pm.