Bruce, Liz & Sue Wearne - 'Into The Hills'

Exhibition Overview — Into The Hills (Wearne Family)

Into The Hills brings together three Gippsland artists—Bruce Wearne, Liz Wearne and Sue Wearne - across wood, ceramics and painting, united by a shared fascination with landscape as both place and metaphor. Moving between crafted object and painted horizon, the exhibition explores how land carries memory, belonging and the quiet sense of travelling “beyond what is visible or known.”

Bruce Wearne’s finely crafted “collection boxes” anchor the exhibition with strong geometric forms built from square and rectangular modules. Made primarily from Australian native timbers (with select exceptions such as camphor laurel and jacaranda), the works celebrate striking contrasts in colour, texture and grain. Traditional joinery and finishing methods sit alongside machine-led precision, while polished aluminium elements add both function and contemporary contrast—handles, lid grips and subtle fixtures. Each piece is further animated by hand-painted panoramas of the Australian landscape, rendered with fine brushes, washes and pens to define delicate details and invite close looking.

Liz Wearne presents a ceramic series titled Hinterland, exploring the word’s meaning—“an area lying beyond what is visible or known”—as an analogy for mid-life: the changing topography of body, mind and spirit as we prepare for the “wilder terrain” ahead. Her forms are deliberately corporeal, with restrained glaze themes that hint at vegetation, newly formed tracks and haze. Based on GunaiKurnai Country (Metung), Liz’s practice responds to fragments of thought gathered along the shorelines of the Gippsland Lakes, working mainly in stoneware (wheel-thrown and coil-built) and embracing the alchemy of wood-firing.

Sue Wearne’s contemporary landscapes—primarily acrylic on board—developed following travel through Ireland’s rolling countryside and hedge-rowed hills, prompting new ways of seeing land and perspective. Drawing connections between Ireland and Gippsland, she uses layered paint, tonal variation and subtle abstraction to evoke movement through place, while reflecting on landscapes shaped by human presence—paddocks, hedgerows and repeated contours—where distant forms can still feel strangely familiar.

Together, these three bodies of work form a rich conversation about craft, terrain and time: the hills we walk through, the objects we carry, and the places that continue to shape us.