BUNDABERG, AUSTRALIA.- The Bundaberg Arts Centre presents Queensland Live: Contemporary Art on Tour. Contemporary art in Queensland is vibrant, energetic and unexpected. This exhibition includes works by 11 of Queensland’s leading artists, and is a snapshot of the excellence, diversity and achievement found in the visual arts in this state today.

‘Queensland Live: Contemporary Art on Tour’ is a condensed selection from a far wider field; one that is rich, varied and very sure of its place in the world. The majority of works in this exhibition date from the last ten years, but most of the artists have been practising their art for decades more. They have studied, travelled and exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally.

Each artist has a distinctive personal vocabulary, expressed through a deliberately honed practice, and the diversity of materials and methods seen in ‘Queensland Live’ speaks to the individuality and the independence of the artists. Each has pursued their own path; each has their own vision of the world. And their works demonstrate precisely why we turn to artists – for new and fresh ways to see our world.

Some of these re-imaginings refer directly to living in Queensland. Scott Redford, for example, plays with highly charged and colourful images of the Gold Coast, where he grew up and where his family still lives; Judy Watson’s paintings and prints find their most fundamental inspiration in the country of her Aboriginal grandmother in far north-west Queensland around Riversleigh Station and Lawn Hill Gorge; and we could hazard a guess that Luke Roberts’s Wunderkammer/Kunstkamera still resonates with the sense of wonder from a childhood in Alpha, in central western Queensland.

All 11 artists pose questions that are crucial to contemporary Australia: Who do we see? How do we see? These issues are also at the heart of ‘Queensland Live’, as this group of 11 very different people, from totally different backgrounds, pursue their ideas and their ideals, as artists and as Queenslanders.