Joanne Stead
2024 Exhibitions
A touch of gold
Weswal Gallery, Tamworth
Friday 8 May - Sunday 26 May 2024
Body of Work
Touring to
* Ceramic Break Sculpture Park, Warialda
* 20 April to 2 June
“Body of Work” provided shop mannequin torsos to 14 artists from across the New England North West to work with “in their own style”. The artists have been selected for their diversity, working across acrylic, oils, illustration, textiles, weaving, digital arts, projection, paper sculpture and metal fabrication. Among the 14 artists are 5 Aboriginal artists representing the Gamilaroi, Anaiwan, Ngarrabul, Yuwaalaraay and Kooma nations.
Linked by the use of the mannequin forms as a common base, the exhibition will invite the viewer to consider how many ways there are to approach a single object by focusing attention on the varied translations of the artists’ concerns, style and vision.
2021 Exhibitions
Blindspot
Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth NSW 2340
Saturday 13 February - Sunday 28 March 2021
Ceramic Break Sculpture Park, Warialda NSW 2402
Sunday 18 April - Sunday 30 May 2021
Blindspot is a collaboration by six regional women artists concerned with issues of environment, sustainability and humanity. The exhibition explores a number of contemporary issues examining the factors that shape our core habits and beliefs and how these impact on our collective consciousness and the world around us. Incorporating a range of lenses and mediums, the collective of artists hopes that the exhibition will both confront and motivate the viewer to examine their own potential blindspots more deeply.
2019 Exhibitions
Tethered: Embodying the Mother-Artist Model
USQ Artworx, West Street, Toowoomba QLD 4350
Tuesday 5 February - Wednesday 27 February 2019
This exhibition brings together six contemporary female visual artists who have made work from motherhood as part of a practice-led research project by USQ Doctor of Creative Arts candidate Linda Clark.
The artists have responded to their own authentic mother-artist experience within their shifting and complex mother-child interrelationships as a sustainable approach to contemporary art practice. Exposing the complexity of being tethered to another through motherhood, the artist’s work creates an alternate narrative around birth, caring, communication and child agency.
2018 Exhibitions
Threads and Brushes
Gunnedah Bicentennial Creative Arts Gallery
Friday 20 April 2018 - Monday 28 May 2018
Threads and Brushes is the first joint exhibition of the Tamworth Regional Art Collective - Joanne Stead, Emma Stilts, Jody Blackwell, Jodie Herden, Leah Dryden and Karen Balsar.
The exhibition explores the joy, freedom and energy of working in the company of other artists. Threads and Brushes reflects the various mediums of choice, but is also a comment on what binds these artists, and what transfers through the experience of a collective. As regional women, as mothers, and as community change makers these ladies come together as individuals sharing common stories and experiences. The viewer is invited into the shared space to form their own impressions of those prevailing threads, discovering the unique essence of each artist.
2017 Exhibitions
Unmeasured Moments
Friday 17 November 2017 - Thursday 7 December 2017
Drawing on principles of mindfulness, appreciation and gratitude, this unique collection celebrates and probes the time we have and how we use it. Visitors are invited to consciously slow down and explore the layers of meaning contained in each artwork to find a personal message and discover a deeper significance.
Painting Bondi - My Sea Wall Mural
Monday 4 September - Friday 8 September 2017
In early September I painted a panel of the mural along the Bondi Beach Sea Wall. Just in time for the first warm breezesS ydney put on some beautiful balmy Spring weather for me to get me in a sea, sand and surf mood as I painted the week away.
You can see my mural among the many others on the official Bondi Beach Graffiti page.
Ngaya-gal Gimubi-li: OUR MOB CREATES
24 January - 24 February 2017
I felt very lucky to be featured as part of this joint exhibition alongside local Aboriginal artists from Tamworth and the Northern Tablelands. There is something very special about Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists coming together to celebrate the richness of cultural expression and depth of talent in the Aboriginal community.
Five of my portraits of members of the local Aboriginal community, as well as one local landscape, sat alongside some absolutely stunning Aboriginal art, telling stories of identity, nationhood, connection and Country.
The exhibition was opened by Aboriginal Elder Bob Faulkner and Cr Russell Webb on Tuesday 24 January as part of the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
2016 Exhibitions
Choosing to Fly
Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
22 August - 30 September 2016
My exhibition at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital filled the hospital's ArtSpace, a major thoroughfare of the busy hospital, with over 50 recent works of art and 40 poems, completed over 2015 and 2016.
Spending time in the ArtSpace hanging the exhibition and then for the Opening event on 22 August was really special, as I saw how patients use and interact with it. One lady, an out-patient who was having cancer treatment, told me that she always looks at all of the art on the left wall on her way in, and leaves the art on the right side as her "reward", something to look forward to on her way out. It still gives me tingles. It is such a special feeling to be able to provide a boost to people, when they need it most.
Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
22 August - 30 September 2016
My exhibition at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital filled the hospital's ArtSpace, a major thoroughfare of the busy hospital, with over 50 recent works of art and 40 poems, completed over 2015 and 2016.
Spending time in the ArtSpace hanging the exhibition and then for the Opening event on 22 August was really special, as I saw how patients use and interact with it. One lady, an out-patient who was having cancer treatment, told me that she always looks at all of the art on the left wall on her way in, and leaves the art on the right side as her "reward", something to look forward to on her way out. It still gives me tingles. It is such a special feeling to be able to provide a boost to people, when they need it most.
Scraperboard and other amusements
Cafe2340 Gallery, Tamworth
13 February - 13 March 2016
My very first solo exhibition opened on the 13 February 2016, which just happened to be my 40th birthday. And what a way to celebrate a new direction in life. If life begins at 40 then what better way to start that new era of living that with a dream come true, something I would never have believed could happen just one short year ago.
I would like to sincerely thank Samantha and Jo, owners at cafe2340 for giving me this very first opportunity, and for family, friends, acquaintances and strangers who came out to make my opening night and my birthday something to remember.
