River on the Brink: inside the Murray-Darling Basin
S.H.Ervin Gallery. Observatory Hill, Sydney. September – November 2019
Led by Barkindji artists and supported by leading contemporary artists disgusted with the destruction of the once great Darling/Barka River, the exhibition is a rigorous protest in response to a national emergency.
Interiors
Orange Regional Gallery April – June 2018
The exhibition was a navigation around the spaces and objects that shape and reflect the physical and psychic contours of our lives. Interiors was seen through the eyes of a select group of modernist and contemporary Australian artists.
Country & Western: landscape reimagined
Touring, July 2015 – April 2017
Country & Western: landscape re-imagined brings into focus the contrasting insights and cultural imperatives of artists, Indigenous (country) and non- Indigenous (western), that have given shape and substance to our evolving attitudes and perceptions of the national landscape since the Bicentennial.
Self Portraits on Paper
Yellow House Potts Point – March 2016
Self Portraits on Paper was a one off fundraising eventfor the Bouddi presents self-portraits on paper by 25 of the most celebrated and highly-regarded artists in the country. All works were be offered by renowned auctioneer, Andrew Shapiro on 17 March 2016, the final evening of the exhibition at the Yellow House Potts Point. Much thanks to all the artists who supported the foundation with their wonderful works.
Natura Morta: recent perceptions of an age-old genre
Orange Regional Gallery November – December 2014
Displaying works by Genevieve Carroll, Janet Hanslett, Juz Kitson, Joanna Logue & Bill Mosley, Euan Macleod, Guy Maestri, Luke Sciberras and Rosemary Valadon
View e-catalogue here
Refiguring Dystopia: the art of Richard Goodwin
Visions Touring 2013 – 2014
The exhibition was launched at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2013 and travelled in January 2014 to the COFA Galleries at the University of NSW, Paddington. The exhibition was a resounding success with extensive critical appraisal in both the Weekend Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Jason Benjamin: Everyone Is Here
Touring NSW September 2013 – January 2015
As Edmund Capon pointed out: ‘For all the attention and detail in these paintings the one outstanding condition they evoke is scale; those horizons seem to herald an infinity of time and space. This is nature revealed to us with a daunting authority and an almost nostalgic timelessness’.
View his works here
Picturing the Great Divide: Visions from Australia’s Blue Mountains
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre November 2012 – February 2013
The inaugural exhibition at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre demonstrated the powerful impact the Blue Mountains region has had on the cultural life of the nation. The diverse works displayed identified and celebrated the extraordinary nature of this world heritage landscape. Further to this, the exhibition traced the constant hold the Blue Mountains catchment has had on the imagination of visual artists since the early days of European settlement.
Listen to the ABC review here
Elemental Reckoning: The art of Tim Storrier 1981-2011
S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney November – December 2011.
Image: The wave (garland) 1998 (detail)
Love on Mount Pleasant: Garry Shead Toasts Maurice O’Shea
Australian Galleries Sydney 2010
Exhibition opened by Her Excellency Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales seen here in front of Bush bacchanal Pokolbin 2010 with curator Gavin Wilson. The opening was a resounding success attended by over 300 people celebrating a creative arc that stretches back 57 years to the gentle slopes of Mount Pleasant in Pokolbin.
Surface Tension: the works of Euan Macleod 1991-2009
Touring 2010
Tweed River Art Gallery had been awarded a grant by Visions of Australia to develop a touring exhibition of works by the artist Euan Macleod. The exhibition opened at the SH Ervin Gallery 11 November 2010 before travelling to the Tweed River Art Gallery Murwillumbah, Brisbane, Mornington Victoria, Newcastle and Orange in NSW. This exhibition was originallly conceived by Gavin Wilson.
Out of Hill End: recent works from the central west
Damien Minton Gallery June 2009
David Marr author and journalist opened the show to an enthusiastic crowd of over 300. 17 artists from Hill End are exhibiting ceramics, photography, painting, installation, drawing and sculpture.
Cuisine & Country: a gastronomic venture in Australian art
Orange Regional Gallery April 2007
In 2006 he was commissioned by Orange Regional Gallery to develop and curate his original concept relating to food and art. Cuisine & Country: a gastronomic venture in Australian art which was launched in April 2007 at Orange Regional Gallery by renowned chef Tony Bilson. Attendences at the show were the highest on record.
Article – Artistic feast on FOOD week menu – Central Western Daily
2005 Harbourlights: the art & times of Peter Kingston
Craftsman House, 186 pp 120 colour plates.
Encounters with country: landscapes of Ray Crooke
Tourings 2005-2007
Cairns Regional Gallery toured metropolitan and regional centres throughout the country in 2005-2007.
Fireworks: tracing the incendiary in Australian art
Artspace Mackay 2005
The exhibition Fireworks traces Australia’s experience of the destructive and creative nature of fire. Summer in Australia is known across the country as the bushfire season. Yet fire has been an integral part of national life well before the arrival of European settlers. Indigenous inhabitants have used fire as a land-management tool for tens of thousands of years. By tracing the interplay between humans and landscape in relation to fire, the exhibition illuminates the character of both, and encourages us to consider our country’s fragile resources and landscape system.
Fireworks comprises over 50 works by historic and contemporary artists, including Eugene von Guerard, Arthur Streeton, Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams, Claudine Marzik, Ronnie Tjampijinpa, John Firth Smith and Wendy Sharpe, with images incorporating the bush, the suburbs and the cities.
2004 Undercurrents
Maitland Regional Gallery.
Beneath the Monsoon: Visions North of Capricorn
Touring 2003
In 2002, he was commissioned to curate Beneath the Monsoon: Visions North of Capricorn the inaugural exhibition for Artspace Mackay launched in February 2003.
The Big River Show: Murrumbidgee Riverine
Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery October 2002
In 2000, he was commissioned by Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery to research and curate the gallery’s first major exhibition
Rivers + Rocks: select works of Arthur Boyd and Brett Whiteley
Touring 2001
The exhibition was conceived and curated as a regional touring exhibition for the Bundanon Trust.
2001 Donald Friend, An Inventive Magic
National Library of Australia Conference,
February, unpublished paper, Donald Friend at Hill End: A Living Legacy.
2000 John Firth-Smith, A Voyage that Never Ends
Craftsman House, 235 pages, 122 colour plates.
1999 Hill End Artists in Residency Program website
Visit www.hillendart.com produced with assistance from the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts.
David Moore and Sydney Harbour: 50 years of photography
Touring Internationally 1999
As part of Sydney’s 1999 cultural Olympiad, he curated and organised the acclaimed photographic tour.
Escape Artists: Modernists in the Tropics
Touring 1998
In 1998 he curated the successful touring exhibition, Escape Artists: Modernists in the Tropics, for the Cairns Regional Gallery.
The Artists of Hill End : art, life & landscape
The Art Gallery of New South Wales July – September 1995
In 1993, Gavin Wilson was commissioned by The Art Gallery of New South Wales to research and curate The Artists of Hill End an exhibition that focused on the post-war shift in landscape perceptions and people’s relationship to place. In 1996 he was presented with the National Award in Research and Communication by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects for the project.