exhibitions

Nature & Culture- animal as object

2024- 2025 – Caloundra Regional Gallery QLD

This body of work includes some from the previous Animal as Object exhibition with the addition of many more, that investigate the objectification of animals in nature through taxidermy, and in culture through the souvenir. 

What is our uneasy relationship with animal objects, particularly taxidermy and the mass-produced souvenir? As a self-confessed collector, what is my responsibility in all this? Why do I tend to want to order and display, collect and own the natural world?

Through early scientific taxonomy charts and illustrations, museum taxidermy, pop culture and the mass-produced souvenir, this body of work is presented as a contemporary Wunderkammer (a cabinet of curiosity). It asks questions about artifice, collection, consumerism, mimicry, wonder and beauty.

A Sketchbook Practice

2024  – The Condensery, Toogoolawah QLD

Deb Mostert has used sketchbooks over the decades as a scaffold for her contemporary art practice. A Sketchbook Practice shares pages from over ninety sketchbooks dating back twenty years to prompt: ‘What does it mean to keep a sketchbook?’ and ‘How does your perception of the world change through keeping one?’. In the words of the artist: “Sketchbooks serve as a spare brain, a record of my personality and my growth and they are gleefully imperfect.”

Shown alongside Deb’s sketchbooks are those from artists local to the Somerset region. This collection of community sketchbooks displays both the depth and diversity of local artists, but also the day-to-day character of the region.

Download the catalogue essay by Louise Martin-Chew

Deb Mostert Exhibition Everday Sketchbooks

Everyday Sketchbooks

2023 – Ipswich Art Gallery

Decades of daily observations have been preserved through Ipswich-based artist Deb Mostert​’s sketchbook practice, and she showcases her collection for the first time in Everyday Sketchbooks.

Deb makes works spanning painting, sculpture and public art, and the learning ground for these artworks is her disciplined commitment to an everyday drawing routine. Her sketchbooks are not only where she researches, investigates, and stimulates her artistic practice, but where she records her daily life.

Almost scientific in her approach to documenting and recording, Deb blurs the lines between artist, historian, and scientist in creating her own archive.

By presenting these private sketchbooks usually reserved for an audience of one, Deb graciously invites us to peer behind-the-scenes of her artistic practice and to consider the sketchbook as a way any person, regardless of ability, can reflect upon and document their life.  

 

click to view interactive sketchbook

 

Animal as Object – nature and culture

2022 – Tweed Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah, N.S.W

Based on years of observation and research within the bird and mammal collections at the Queensland Museum, this body of work seeks to explore the paradoxical ‘objectness’ of animals in nature through taxidermy and in culture through the souvenir. This work seeks a redemptive lens to view this paradox towards a perspective of flourishing for all. We have and are creating facsimiles and profiting from these copies despite the real risk of losing the originals.

Through mashups of early scientific taxonomy charts and illustrations, museum taxidermy, pop culture and the mass-produced souvenir, questions are asked about artifice, collection, consumerism, mimicry, wonder and beauty. Can we embrace the original instead of accepting the poor copy?

click for exhibition catalogue

Drawing to Dis/Possess

2020 – Lorraine Pilgrim Gallery

An experiment into how I might be able to dis/possess myself of material belongings.

I am making drawings, sketches, and paintings of things I have, but no longer need, in the hope that through the act of making an ‘iconic transfer’ I can rid myself of possessions.

Alongside, must be the equally vital act of not seeking to possess any more things. So, I am making drawings, sketches, and paintings of objects I covet, stuff I’d love to acquire, things that are tempting me but maybe don’t really need to own.

How do I manage my own collecting habits and be more vigorously present in my enjoyment of the objects I own or wish to own?

Is the act of drawing them enough? Can I be content to have enjoyed them, spent time with them, observing their aesthetic or functional beauty or reveling in their nostalgic blast?

Can I draw to dis/possess?

click for exhibition catalogue

The Short Story

2019 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport

A bite sized exhibition

Australien Future – tales of migration 2018-2019

7th December 2018 – 20th January 2019 Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland Queensland 13th April 2019 – 25th May 2019 Gladstone Art Gallery & Museum, Queensland 8th June 2019 – 28th July 2019 Migration Museum, Adelaide, South Australia

click for exhibition catalogue

‘A beautiful, sensitive exploration of major social and environmental issues’  Douglas Jones

‘A cohesive body of work that expands the fears and anxieties
and hopes of migration.’ 
A Fleming

‘Have just spent a moving and emotional hour or so exploring
Australien Future. This thought provoking personal story of family
and migration is at once intensely private yet universal. Not to be missed.’ 
– Arthur Frame

‘They are deeply felt, poetically expressed, with their power discernible in the tension of these painted surfaces. It is in them that Deb’s empathy, her feelings about important environmental problems, is so powerful. I think what it shows us is that lyrical paintings and sculpture can take the temperature of our times with beauty and power. This exhibition has the capacity, and the urgency, to engage everyone.’ Louise Martin-Chew

‘Next level amazing! A tour de force from an already accomplished artist’ – Cultural Flanerie

 

Broome Sketchbook

2018 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport QLD

works from an artist in residency experience at the Broome Bird Observatory

funded by Arts Qld

click for exhibition catalogue

Rewind – A replay of the last decade

2018 – Lorraine Pilgrim Gallery, Southport

Vogels en Dingen

2015 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport QLD

 

works around bird and their collections

click for exhibition catalogue

 

 

Recent Works

2014 – Regional Arts House, Teneriffe QLD

Objects & Ornithology

2014 – Tweed Regional Art Gallery, Murwillumbah NSW

‘Objects and Ornithology’ has been born out of the artist’s love of studying both objects and bird life. Mostert is deeply interested in the notions of collecting. This body of work is a light-hearted, whimsical look at birds interacting with man made objects. By projecting the human foible of possession and collection onto birds, it may throw up questions about what we value and why.

click for exhibition catalogue

Recovery – the Flood Objects Project

2012-13
Ipswich Art Gallery, Ipswich, QLD, – Dogwood Crossing, Miles, QLD – Gympie Regional Gallery, Gympie, QLD. –  Rockhampton Art Gallery, Rockhampton, QLD – Vera Wade Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

click for exhibition catalogue

Collectie

2012 – Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Coffs Harbour, NSW

Honestly!

2011 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Broadbeach, QLD

Vroom

2010 – Albury Regional Gallery, NSW

Untold Stories

2010 – Lorraine Pilgrim + Nyst Gallery, Southport

Bugs on Toy Cars

2009 – Iain Dawson Gallery, Paddington, NSW

Small Wares and Trifles

2008 – Lorraine Pilgrim + Nyst Gallery, Southport

Sacred and Banal – the collection continues

2007 – Hardy Brothers, Brisbane

Interpreting the Collection – an artist’s view

2007 – Ipswich Art Gallery, Ipswich

 

exhibitions

A Sketchbook Practice- deb mostert & Somerset artists

2024  – The Condensery, Toogoolawah QLD

Everyday Sketchbooks

2023 – Ipswich Art Gallery

Animal as Object – nature and culture

2022 – Tweed Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah, N.S.W

Drawing to Dis/Possess

2020 – Lorraine Pilgrim Gallery

The Short Story

2019 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport

Australien Future – tales of migration

2018 Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland

2019 Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum

2019 Migration Museum, Adelaide

Broome Sketchbook

2018 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport QLD

Rewind – A replay of the last decade

2018 – Lorraine Pilgrim Gallery, Southport

Vogels en Dingen

2015 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Southport QLD

Recent Works

2014 – Regional Arts House, Teneriffe QLD

Objects & Ornithology

2014 – Tweed Regional Art Gallery, Murwillumbah NSW

Recovery – the Flood Objects Project

2012-13
Ipswich Art Gallery, Ipswich, QLD
Dogwood Crossing, Miles, QLD
Gympie Regional Gallery, Gympie, QLD
Rockhampton Art Gallery, Rockhampton, QLD
Vera Wade Gallery, Brisbane, QLD

Collectie

2012 – Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Coffs Harbour, NSW

Honestly!

2011 – Lorraine Pilgrim, Broadbeach, QLD

Vroom

2010 – Albury Regional Gallery, NSW

Untold Stories

2010 – Lorraine Pilgrim + Nyst Gallery, Southport

Bugs on Toy Cars

2009 – Iain Dawson Gallery, Paddington, NSW

Small Wares and Trifles

2008 – Lorraine Pilgrim + Nyst Gallery, Southport

Sacred and Banal – the collection continues

2007 – Hardy Brothers, Brisbane

Interpreting the Collection – an artist’s view

2007 – Ipswich Art Gallery, Ipswich