Braemar Gallery

The annual Braemar Gallery Volunteer Exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for our dedicated volunteer team to showcase their artistic talents. The exhibition is a celebration of their invaluable role at the gallery and within the cultural community. A wide range of mediums will be exhibited, and unlike previous years, there is no specific theme the volunteers are responding to, with the only requirement being that their work is created this year. Congratulations to everyone involved and we extend our gratitude again to all the individuals who volunteer and keep Braemar Gallery open.

Illustration by Susan Ruming.

This exhibition celebrates and encourages Certificate III Visual Arts and Certificate II & III Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Cultural arts students from the Katoomba campus of TAFE NSW. The student works were selected by the Braemar Gallery Committee at the Katoomba TAFE student exhibition. The student body includes a diverse range of learners from school leavers to mature age, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, neurodivergent and people with disabilities.

LEANNE JONES Don’t go near the policeman in black cars 2025, drawing on paper, 60 x 57 cm
ANNE HURNI Pulpit Rock 2024, acrylic on canvas board, 35.7 x 45.8 cm

Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 20 September.

Bron has endeavoured in this exhibition to follow in the footsteps of the Margarets, Preston and Olley, to capture a particularly Australian flavour in a wide interpretation of the still-life genre. She has employed a diversity of processes and techniques including printmaking, collage, mixed media, drawing, watercolour and mixed media. Inspired in part by the reconstruction of Margaret Olley’s house, some interiors have been included using the same items and subject matter used by Margaret, to create her own compositions and style.

BRON NEWMAN Old Wares (detail) 2024, acrylic on canvas, 92 x 78 cm

Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 20 September.

This work explores the reiteration of reductive, elemental motifs in bas relief, using flat planes of colour to depict landscape and geomorphological processes; not in any conventional realistic manner, but to apply the visual language of hard edge abstraction based on organic and geometric forms and stylised patterning (developed in the artist’s previous work). Its aim is to gaze inwards to a world beyond appearances – where the physical and structural are realised by shifts in perspective via a Neo Brutalist aesthetic.

HELEN SHIELDS Cairn (detail) 2025, acrylic on carved ply and acacia board, 35cm x 26cm x 8cm 

Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 25 October.

Right Here, Right Now is an exhibition exploring concepts around being in the present and thinking about where we all are—at this time on Earth. Acknowledging that what’s here now is the result of everything that has come before, 5 artists take inspiration from the world around them, whilst combining materiality with the act of being present and constantly making.

Image detail (L to R) Adrienne Richards, Peta Hinton, Louise Kerr, Luba Bosch, Kate Robinson

Our Public Sculpture Garden is always open on the lawns of Braemar House for everyone to enjoy!

Guarding the main path to the gallery are two steel sculptures by Laurent Rivory - "Tumbling Eagle" and "The Defiant". "Tumbling Eagle" represents an eagle capturing prey in mid-flight, at the moment where it loses its flight attitude and looks like it might crash – but doesn’t.  "The Defiant", with its bold stance, celebrates those who stand firm and defy the odds. These highly abstracted works are made in Rivory's Springwood studio from salvaged steel in line with his sustainability ethos.

LAURENT RIVORY Tumbling Eagle 2023, scavenged mild and stainless steels, silver solder, citrine, approximately 1.8m x 0.6m x 0.4m 

27 Nov - 21 Dec 2025
Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 29 November

Blue Mountains Mosaic Collective - Grounded
Byron Kinnaird - Poems for Independence

SUMMER CLOSURE: 22 Dec 2025 - 8 Jan 2026

8 Jan - 8 Feb 2026
Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 10 January

Mounted ARI - Let the part tell the whole
Sandi Lucock - There and not there

12 Feb - 15 Mar 2026
Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 14 February

Susie Summers, Katrina Bodey & Anita White - cotton, clay & canvas

19 Mar - 12 Apr 2026
Official opening event at 2pm on Saturday 21 March

Judy Thistleton-Martin, Jeannie McInnes, Christine Hyde, Robyn Cook - Inspired by Birdwood Gully
Jennifer Gardiner with Louise Fox - Intangible Legacies