“If you drive from Coffs Harbour to Grafton, you’re driving through what was old forest, and all of our major galleries – Tweed in Murwillumbah on the Tweed River, Lismore on the Wilsons River, and Grafton on the Clarence River – they’re all situated [in these towns] because of the cedar-cutters coming in and cutting the forests down,” explains Northern Rivers artist Christine Willcocks.
Willcocks is an award-winning artist and printmaker whose works can be found in numerous collections across Australia, a founding member of the Byron School of Art and the Guest Curator of True North: From the Forest Floor, now showing at Grafton Regional Gallery.
For True North, Willcocks has curated an exhibition showcasing the diverse practices of artists living and working in the Northern Rivers – one which shies away from ‘hippie’ stereotypes and which instead homes in on the environmental destruction caused by the clearing of ‘the Big Scrub’.
Formerly blanketed by dense subtropical forests, the region suffered from the arrival of European settlers – especially the cedar cutters in the 1840s – resulting in environmental destruction on a massive scale, with which the Northern Rivers region is still grappling today.
“Up here in the Northern Rivers, we really depend on our regional galleries. They’re fantastic support and there’s a great sense of connection here as well,” Willcocks tells ArtsHub.
“Just like forests have a community – and to be a very strong forest it needs interconnection and diversity – it’s the same with our arts community. We’re all connected. We all know each other. It’s very strong, but it’s very diverse at the same time.”
Celebrating diversity and the arts ecology
Connecting artists thematically for True North: From the Forest Floor made curating the exhibition less challenging personally, Willcocks admits.
“Because I know so many people, I decided having an open exhibition was a bit dangerous. I’d have to knock back so many people… Then I saw how different artists were seeing the forest and their connection to it in scientific ways, through storytelling, survival through the fires, all sorts of different ways. And I thought that was fabulous,” she says.
Willcocks adds: “I went for diversity. There’s sound, there’s installation, I think there’s only one painter – it’s very diverse.”
The exhibition’s featured artists are Lucia Canuto, Casino Wake Up Time, Ellen Ferrier, Mia Forrest, Shirley Gibson, Hopeful Disruptions, Emily Imeson, Helle Jorgensen, Jay-Dea Lopez, Laith McGregor, Lae Oldmeadow, Emma Walker and Natalie Wilkin.
“Jay-Dea Lopez’s piece is sound and projection; he went into one of the National Parks and there were just all these cars from backpackers and there was a lot of noise. He was thinking he’d be going in there listening to silence, but he actually ended up pointing his microphones towards each other and getting this very eerie sound. And then in the background you hear cicadas and bellbirds; it’s a really interesting piece. And his projections are very grainy, filmed at twilight.
“Laith McGregor’s piece is a big work of reclaimed paintings, but he has [emblazoned the word] ‘SOS’ on it; it’s all intrinsically connected to climate change. And Casino Wake Up Time [a collective of Bundjalung and Kamilaroi women] have been very busy of late – they’ve been very popular, including Sydney Biennale, and they’ve actually done Bangalow Palms,” Willcocks says, referencing the native palm tree species, which regularly sheds and removes its own dead leaves, eliminating the need for regular pruning when planted in streets and gardens.
“Indigenous people in the past have made baskets out of those fronds, and Casino Wake Up Time has made about 12 of those baskets, and they’ve painted on them also.”
Overall, despite the theme of environmental destruction that runs through the exhibition, it’s a hopeful show, Willcocks believes.
“There are a lot of people replanting the forests, people like Landcare [Australia] doing fantastic work. People are very conscious of doing the right thing, so there are parts of ‘the Big Scrub’ that are coming back. And even where I am, you have stretches of it. People are very careful about how these areas are approached, because there is so little of the old forests left. So, we have to protect and look after the forest,” she concludes.
True North is a Grafton Regional Gallery exhibition supported by Create NSW and Clarence Valley Council.
Key dates for your diary:
True North: From the Forest Floor at Grafton Regional Gallery on Bundjalung Country from 1 March to 27 April 2025.
Public programs include the Hopeful Disruptions floor talk at 11am on Saturday 29 March, and the Drawing to Paint workshop with Emily Imeson at 10.30am on Saturday 5 April.
Visit Grafton Regional Gallery for details.
This article was amended after publication at 9:48pm on 6 March 2025 to correct the name of the Wilsons River.
