Published on 03 June 2020

Arts alive

Great news for lovers of arts and culture – the Port Noarlunga Arts Precinct has reopened for business.

The Arts Centre and Sauerbier House were forced to close due to COVID-19 in March, but both provided access to scheduled exhibitions online and they’ve now opened their physical doors in the wake of easing government restrictions.

Visitors can enjoy two exhibitions at the Arts Centre and two exhibitions and an artist-in residence experience at Sauerbier House (details below), with some conditions of entry – around social distancing, contact tracing and hand hygiene – applying to all visitors on arrival.

Opening hours have been reduced to 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday at the Arts Centre; and 10am to 4pm Wednesday to Friday at Sauerbier House.

In other news, the Arts Centre has launched an online Art Shop, showcasing works for sale from talented local artists, including jewellery, prints, original artworks, glassware, ceramics, textiles and more.

Peruse the shop online or view the works in the physical Arts Shop (in the Arts Centre foyer) to take home a piece of the south.

There has never been a better time to engage with the arts in Onkaparinga!

Arts Centre

Port Noarlunga artists Dan and Emma Monceaux’s exhibition River to Reef reflects the rich biodiversity of the Onkaparinga River estuary and Port Noarlunga reef, incorporating documentary video, photographs, paper collages, glass art and digital illustration.

Dan’s observational and illustrative work is balanced with Emma’s abstractions in a vivid celebration of colour, pattern and form in nature.

An exhibition of photographs by members of the Noarlunga and Southern District Camera Club is also on display, featuring images of local landscapes, portraits and landmarks.

The Arts Centre’s next exhibition, opening on Friday 26 June, is the annual Beanies to Berets exhibition.

Celebrate creative, wearable headwear, from the traditional to the sculptural, from the playful to the wild, and from the wonderful to the bizarre.

Enter your own creative handiwork or visit and enjoy the experience.

Sauerbier House

Two exhibitions are currently showing at Sauerbier House, while you can also engage with an artist in residence working on-site.

ZINC by Rosina Possingham and Brianna Speight is a collaborative underwater photography project exploring everyday activities at the beach.

The exhibition responds to themes of protection, visibility and heat, and the works were created underwater at Port Noarlunga Jetty and on land at Sauerbier House, paying close attention to notions of protection and play at the beach.

…in an unsettled position by Cynthia Schwertsik explores through video works the complexity of the Anthropocene and the enormous challenges it presents.

Should we strive to develop new languages of grief or hope? What is the art of the Anthropocene – a memorial?

Bot of these exhibitions are open until 21 June.

Artist in residence Jake Novick is currently working on site, using the process of drawing to explore the tension of opposites; light and darkness, life and death.

With a personal connection to Sauerbier’s coastal location, the landscape between Port Noarlunga and Sellicks Beach informs his studio works, allowing him to weave an illustrative narrative that reflects on his deep and layered connection with place and the emotion of homecoming.

Jake’s exhibition, SLOW BURN, kicks off on 27 June.

Sauerbier’s other artists in residence, collaborative duo Sasha Grbich and Kelly Reynolds, have been forced to work offsite due to COVID-19 restrictions, but are working from a replica studio to generate accumulative performative acts in an attempt to make sense of pandemic times.

Their Time traveller for hole residency and exhibition reflects on art-making while in lockdown to reveal an intimate manifestation of cohabitants and found materials.

Their exhibition will also launch at Sauerbier House on 27 June.

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'Ladder ascidian' - digital illustration by Emma Monceaux.