What’s Happening?
Two exhibitions are now open across Redland City, linking everyday memories with art drawn from fishing and writing.
Visualising the Written Word is showing at The Mezz, inside Redland Performing Arts Centre. Members of Redland Yurara Art Society Inc respond to poetry, song lyrics, personal correspondence and prose.
FISHO by Brisbane artist Jack Rodgers is showing at Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland. A fishmonger’s wall of prized-catch photographs inspired his collection of paintings and small sculptures.
Each work shows how the artist interpreted a selected text and their own response. The results range from deeply personal to abstract.
Why It Matters
Acting Mayor Julie Talty said both exhibitions offer fresh views of familiar objects, places and experiences.
“Redland Art Gallery delivers an exhibition program that allows the community to experience high-quality artworks by a broad range of exciting artists,” Cr Talty said.
She said FISHO should connect strongly with the Redlands Coast community and its close relationship with the water.
“FISHO is sure to resonate with many people in our community, with the waters of Redlands Coast offering plenty of opportunities to throw out a line from a boat or close to shore. The works in the exhibition not only explore fishing culture, from catching, selling and eating fish, to fishing gear and tackle, but also the history of Brisbane’s fishmongers, including the State Fish Market at South Brisbane.”
Local Impact
Cr Talty said Visualising the Written Word also gives local artists an important place within the gallery program.
“Our city is home to a thriving artistic and creative community, so it is always wonderful when the gallery hosts an exhibition of works by local artists,” she said. “Redland Yurara Art Society has been operating for more than 60 years and its members include a mix of beginner and professional artists. In their latest exhibition, the artists share their visual and creative responses to a range of written works.”
Visualising the Written Word runs from Monday 24 August to Friday 6 November 2026. Its official opening was held on Thursday 27 August at 2pm.
FISHO runs from Sunday 6 September to Tuesday 17 November 2026. Its official opening was held on Sunday 6 September at 10am.
By The Numbers
- Redland Yurara Art Society has operated for more than 60 years, bringing together beginner and professional artists.
- Dancer and writer Eileen Kramer was still dancing at 100, inspiring Radcliffe’s painting The Dance of Life.
- Redland Yurara Art Society member Annie Radcliffe continues to dance at 73 after training as a professional ballet dancer.
Zoom In
In an exclusive Q&A with The Redland City Minute, Annie Radcliffe discussed her contribution to the written-word exhibition.
Radcliffe, a Redland Yurara Art Society member, confirmed her painting’s official title is The Dance of Life. She had initially referred to it by its studio name, Movement.
Her connection to Kramer’s writing comes from their shared love of dance and the movement found throughout nature.
“Eileen Kramer first excited me when she wrote in a philosophical manner about how leaves, water and skies all dance. Importantly for me, she said that you never ever stop being a dancer. That is 100 per cent true for me. Eileen danced at 100 years of age. What an inspiring woman. I trained as a professional ballet dancer, so her description of how everything in nature dances struck me as a real truth. I am excited to still dance at 73, and Eileen continued dancing past 100 years.”
Radcliffe used muted colours, strong shadows and natural elements to express both physical movement and inner emotion.
“I think that I found a way to express what it feels like to dance. It is the inner emotion which extends the body as you step, bend or sway. The muted colours and firm shadows are an expression of our living, moving planet, both fierce and soft. Fresh grass, water and people. The rocks cast up, moving from inside the Earth’s crust.”
She hopes viewers consider movement within their bodies, memories and natural surroundings. “I like to think that people might expand their awareness by exploring my painting. They may follow Eileen Kramer’s words to their natural conclusion. Everything does dance if we can but open our eyes to the beauty of our Earth.”
Radcliffe later offered a fuller explanation of the links between dance, nature and personal memory.
“I felt a profound connection reading about the life of Eileen Kramer, whose writing carries a beautiful, philosophical depth. Having trained as a professional ballet dancer myself, I was deeply moved to learn that Eileen was still dancing at 100 years old. She beautifully observed that nature moves everything, the leaves, the water and the wind. She argued that the dancer inside a person never truly leaves. Experiencing her words first-hand made me realise just how true that is for me, too.
“As a dancer, I know that emotion must guide our physical expressiveness. In this piece, the moving figures are anchored by deep, dramatic shadows, while the palette remains intentionally raw and earthy. It is a visual representation of how the body channels both the natural world and the internal spirit. I hope that my viewers will see that the rhythm of life lives inside them, too. They will hopefully think about how their own bodies, memories and spirits are part of that same universal movement.”
“They will realise that what we call ‘stillness’ doesn’t actually exist. They will look at dancers swaying, water rippling or dust motes drifting in the sun and think, ‘That is a performance.'”
She summed up the work’s central idea simply. “I am dancing, the painting is dancing, and the world is dancing.”
Kramer’s words from Life Keeps Me Dancing provided the basis for Radcliffe’s painting.
“Dance began long before humanity itself evolved.
A leaf dances on the tree.
Water dances down the river.
Stars dance above us, giving us light.
Atoms dance inside us, giving us life.
Giving us purpose.
Giving us ecstasy.”
Zoom Out
While Radcliffe began with words, Rodgers began with a wall of photographs inside his local fishmonger.
FISHO presents fishing as more than a pastime. It considers fishing as a shared cultural experience that helps bring communities together.
Rodgers said the exhibition is grounded in nostalgia and people’s connection with familiar places.
“I think most audiences will recognise themselves in the work in one way or another,” he said. “It can be very literal, like a time they caught a fish, or more broadly about their connection to the water and nature. Our local fisho has a wall of fame with photos of locals posing with their prize catches on it. When I saw that, I knew there were the bones of a show right there.”
“I see FISHO as being about my relationship with place. For me, the ‘place’ in this instance is the fisho, or fishmonger, where I go with my kids. For others, it might be their favourite fishing spot that my paintings evoke.”
What To Look For Next?
Rodgers will hold an artist talk at Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland, on Sunday 11 October 2026 at 10am. Visitors can register and find further details through the Redland Art Gallery website.
