‘HORIZONS PRESENT AND UNSEEN’ BY HAYLEY MEGAN FRENCH
Hayley French was in residence to exhibit her exhibition "Horizons Present and Unseen" at the Broken Hill Regional Gallery 24 March – 7 May 2017. French's exhibition displayed a collection of paintings and photographs from two years of research and travel in Australia supported by the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. The photographs document movement through the landscape and the paintings construct and inhabit landscapes speculatively from her Sydney based studio. French says "These processes are a challenge to the artist(s) to think differently - about place-making, about how we are shaped by the landscape, and about how we respond to the spoken and unspoken influences of the places, people and culture that surround and inform us in Australia". During French's exhibition, she hosted a Q&A workshop and local high school visits. She also explored the Broken Hill area to make new work relating to the theme of "Earth", grappling with ideas of landscape, as a place where nature and culture contend and combined in our history.