Belinda Howden

A few years ago when struggling to breastfeed, I posted a suite of artworks on Instagram.

Almost Here, Almost Now is a portrait of Mount Gambier via images of elsewhere, as its glancing title might suggest. Staged at The Riddoch and curated by Chris Clements, the exhibition considers the genius loci of a regional centre with a shifting demographic and cultural identity. To this end, it draws on numerous entry-points through the wide angle of landscape.

‘I hate painting.’ Richard Lewer’s opening gambit at Adelaide Central School of Art’s (ACSA) Painting Symposium was the kind of healthy disavowal yet vulnerable admission that many painters share. It is a contradiction perhaps relevant to any artist chasing the train of media specificity in the twenty-first century.