PANOPLY and Soul Driver are the new exhibitions at Nexus Gallery at the Butter Factory in Bellingen.

Opening on 26 February and running until 24 March, the exhibitions feature four female artists.

The opening for both exhibitions is 3pm on Sunday 26 February.

In the Main Gallery, Panoply exhibits the works of painters Chris Wilson and Chris Hundt and ceramicist Sally Hook, showing together for the first time.

In an interesting mix of talents and ideas, the artists have curated an impressive and engrossing exhibition.

Each woman has done her own thing, hence the title ‘Panoply’, and with skills at their peak the women have produced works of humour, pathos, strength and beauty.

The three have numerous prizes and awards to their credit, and have been selected to exhibit in various regional galleries.

“We’ve travelled and exhibited overseas and tutored muchly in art,” painter Chris Hundt told News Of The Area.

Chris Wilson’s paintings have explored the patterns and rhythms she sees in native flora using a technique designed to emphasise drawing, as well as playing with abstraction and landscape.

Sally Hook’s ceramic figures are “her own unique and utterly original take on the human condition”, said Chris.

“She has many keen observations of our foibles and is masterful in their execution, yet presented with compassion.

“Many are poetic, some humorous and others just wonderful”.

Chris Hundt’s paintings of rural life in Dorrigo are down to earth; farm animals painted with a subtle sense of humour, rural buildings with attendant washing lines, and landscapes.

Her showground pavilion is quite ethereal with a dramatic use of light.

Exhibiting in the Studio Gallery is artist and musician Freedom Summer with her Soul Diver show.

“The mermaid symbolises the truth seeker of my inner-self; I call her the Soul Diver,” Freedom told NOTA.

“She dives deep into the darkness of the inner world to find her limits and truth.

“She carries only one eye; this is the eye of awareness.

“What she finds is an eternal and unlimited consciousness, as vast as the universe.”

For Freedom, the mermaid has been a recurring theme over the years.

“I have been drawing her repeatedly lately as a kind of meditation.

“I liken it to the repetitive discipline of Japanese calligraphy or Chi Gong.

“The Zen is in the broad focus of continuous flow which calms the anxious mind into presence.”

A multi-disciplined artist, much of Freedom’s recent work has been assemblages and photographs.

She is a singer songwriter, guitarist, her own recording engineer and a performer of her own songs in cafes, festivals and markets.

“I consider life as a spiritual journey.

“My art and music practices that I use to sew my inner world and outer world into a form of clarity.

“It brings that which is hidden and vague into sight and is a reminder on how to see with the eye of awareness,” she said.

By Andrea FERRARI