Ten artists were commissioned to create works for the exhibition, A Conspicuous Object - The Maitland Hospital, at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery, 16 October 2021 to 6 February 2022.
On this page you can meet the artists and follow links to detailed stories and images about the work they created. You can also follow links to find out more about each artist.
G.W. Bot
G.W. Bot has an aesthetic visual language that talks with, and responds to, Australian landscapes. She drew on this to engage with stories, memories and images of the Maitland Hospital gardens as they shaped, re-shaped and changed over time.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition: It all takes place in the garden.
For more details about G.W.Bot’s art practice visit https://www.gwbot.net/
Linda Greedy
Linda Greedy engages with ‘uniquely and quintessentially Australian themes’ for her paintings and works on paper. Landscapes, people, events, places and still life feature. For the exhibition, she painted portraits of objects from The Maitland Hospital Collection.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition: Hospital blue.
For more details about Linda’s art practice visit https://www.lindagreedy.com.au/
Oliver Harlan
Oliver Harlan is a multi-discipline artist based in equal parts in Newcastle and Los Angeles. His work focuses mainly on human connection and playfulness across a variety of mediums: video, performance, installation and music.
Oliver created a video work that merges historic and present day images of the hospital and puts them into a new 3D space.
See and read the story about Oliver’s work in the exhibition: First light last light.
For another example of Oliver’s art practice visit Oliver Harlan ‘Cable’ 2020
Anita Johnson
Anita Johnson works with familiar objects and language to elicit feelings of longing and memories of place. Salvaged broken objects are transformed into artworks that explore experiences of separation and union, illness and repair.
For the exhibition, she selected items of medical equipment that expose our intimate relationship with contemporary healthcare.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition: An archaeology of care.
For more details about Anita’s art practice visit www.anitajohnsonartist.com
Adrian Lockhart
Adrian Lockhart paints, draws, prints and sculpts. Through lines, shapes and colours his work evokes landscapes, objects and people in places. It moves between figurative and abstract. He has combined his art practices to create installations that connect items from The Maitland Hospital Collection with a sense of the people who use or have used those items.
See and read the story about his work in the exhibition: Inspired by the people.
For more details about Adrian’s art practice visit https://adrianlockhart.com.au/
Catharine Neilson
Emerging documentary photographer Catharine Neilson is drawn to ‘everyday life, human nature, family and time’. She focuses on details. She also turns her lens to gatherings of people at work, at leisure and at home.
She has spent time in The Maitland Hospital photographing details, places and spaces, and people at work.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition: Little things and Working, caring, recovering, reflecting.
For more details about Catharine’s art practice visit http://www.catharineneilson.com/
Peter O’Doherty
Peter O’Doherty’s paintings of buildings, interiors, furniture and other items are ‘tonal assemblages of oblique geometric detail’. He walked around and through The Maitland Hospital seeking views, angles and details of the exteriors and interiors of the hospital buildings that could be translated into paintings that evoke different aspects of the hospital’s built and furnished environment.
See and read the story about his work in the exhibition: Facelifts, rebuilds, additions and adaptions.
For more details about Peter’s art practice visit https://kingstreetgallery.com.au/artists/peter-odoherty/
Susan O’Doherty
Susan O’Doherty recycles everyday materials into assemblages, collages, paintings and sculptures that offer provocative commentaries on ‘gender, consumerism, violence, memory and history.’
She has engaged with the history of women working at the Maitland Hospital to make a series of soft sculptures that represent the various occupations available to women at the hospital over time.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition at: Stitched together.
For more details about Susan’s art practice visit https://susanodoherty.com.au/
Peter Poulet
Peter Poulet’s paintings are abstract and, in his words, are ‘inspired by colour, form, gesture, tone and their interplay’.
Drawing on engagement with community memories and stories, he has created the large wall painting in the foyer of the new Maitland Hospital and a smaller work for the exhibition at The Gallery.
See and read the story about his work in the exhibition: Fragments of memory.
For more details about Peter’s art practice visit https://www.peterpoulet.com/
Lesley Salem
Lesley Salem is a descendant of the Gringai and Wonnarua Nations in NSW. She is also a generalist and chronic disease nurse practitioner.
She paints the flora and fauna that she sees on her travels for rural and remote nursing, and she uses dotting to paint the life stories of individuals or families and their physical journeys through this land.
Her work in the exhibition draws on her art practice, her nursing experience and her own experiences of birthing at The Maitland Hospital.
See and read the story about her work in the exhibition: Birthing at Maitland Hospital.