The gallery and its surrounds, particularly the outdoor sculpture park, provide a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a free day out with friends and family.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery sculpture park, the gallery is presenting Your Collection: Off the Wall, an exhibition of drawings, photographs and archival documents that will provide insights into the history and development of the sculpture park and a window into the working processes of the artists represented in the gallery’s collection.

Launched with the installation of Richard Tipping’s Hear the Art and Ted Prior’s Love Boat, the sculpture park has continued to develop and strengthen with the subsequent inclusion of significant works by artists including Nigel Helyer, Janet Laurence and John Turier.

Curated by Rob Cleworth, Your Collection: Off the Wall will celebrate these works, as well as additional sculptures from the gallery’s collection, including recent acquisitions of works by Ian Burns and Janet Laurence and new works on loan from artists Jamie North, Braddon Snape and John Turier.

Please join us at the gallery on Sunday, August 21, for an official celebration which will start at 11.30am with a performance of traditional Aboriginal dancing by Mimaga Wajaar.

From midday to 1pm there will be free art activities for children. And from 12.30pm to 1.30pm see a solo performance by Tantrum’s Trajectory Ensemble.

The official opening of the exhibition by gallery director Debbie Abraham will be at 1.30pm, with talks from sculptures about their works in the park from 2pm to 3.30pm.

For more information about events at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, visit artgallery.lakemac.com.au.

This month, you’ll also see council staff out and about with a pop-up Ideas Wall to give residents and visitors an opportunity to tell us what they value about the city and how they want it to look, feel and function in the future. 

We would like as many local people as possible to share their ideas about the future of Lake Macquarie City, because it will guide what council does now and into the future.