What's on in the Canberra arts scene, February 11, 2018

Hayne's paintings document aspects of the Northbourne Avenue Public Housing Precinct at a pivotal time in Canberra's urban history. Based on drawings done in-situ, that study the architectural patterns, natural flora and signs of human habitation, the works aim to communicate an emotional response to place. At the same time as creating these paintings, Hayne also started conversations with the local residents, showing them works in progress. These conversations have in turn influenced the direction of the paintings.

Similarly, Page's paintings investigate Canberra's urban architecture. Page's paintings look at Canberra as an urban palimpsest where the layers of its history have only been partly erased. Line acts as a form of sensorial documentation as well as a pictorial system, portraying the rhythm of urban activity. These meandering lines are paired with delicate washes of colour that are layered and soak into an absorbent ground, creating subtle textures and variations on the painting's surface.

Urban Instabilities is a timely exhibition as Canberra and other cities experience rapid and significant change to their urban landscape. With increasing high-density housing developments, an expanding suburban reach and the construction of Canberra's light rail, Canberra's urban landscape is altering.

As familiar buildings and landscapes are erased and replaced with new constructions, it is easy to sense traces of the past. The paintings of Page and Hayne capture the complexities of a tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar as our urban environments are in flux. Their paintings in this exhibition complement each other to provide a rich snapshot of Canberra's built environment past, present and perhaps future.

At ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson, until February 25.

Craft ACT launched its 2018 program with two standout exhibitions: Death of a Craft, a solo exhibition by textile artist Sharon Peoples, and Emerging Contemporaries, the annual Craft ACT National Award Exhibition for early career artists.

For the past two years, Peoples has been critically exploring lace, lace-making and lace-makers. In 2015 she travelled to Italy with a group of avid lace makers, for the first time contemplating what she terms the "death of a craft''. A new body of work utilises "lace" as a vehicle to approach the withered nexus between the craft of lace and its design in traditional lace-making, using motifs of poisonous plants such as oleander, angels trumpet and toadstools as a metaphor for the exploration of the necessary balance between crafting and designing.

A Craft ACT-curated exhibition, Emerging Contemporaries showcases the work of 2017's outstanding graduate students and selected national emerging craft practitioners and designer makers. These artists are driving the direction of contemporary Australian craft and design in the ACT and surrounding region, pushing conceptual boundaries and testing the limitations in both technique and their materials. Graduates have been selected from the Australian National University, University of Canberra, Canberra Institute of Technology, Canberra Potters Society, and Sturt Craft Centre, representing the breadth of contemporary craft and design practice with furniture, jewellery, textiles, ceramics, fashion, glass, industrial design, sculpture and installation.

At the Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre, Level 1 North Building, 180 London Circuit Canberra until March 17.

Dadang Christanto's life is as interesting as his work. Born and educated in Indonesia but living in Australia since 1999, Christanto has been a human rights activist and an artist of conscience since his early years at the College of Arts at Yogyakarta, working with organisations committed to social justice. In the 1980s he was associated with the Indonesian New Art Movement of young artists who, at great personal risk, challenged the existing political establishment. Through his painting, drawing, performance, sculpture and installation he explores the nexus between power and violence, speaking eloquently and empathetically for the victims of political repression and social injustice and those who have been persecuted because of political identity or ethnicity.

In this exhibition Lost, at the Nancy Sever Gallery, now at the Gorman Arts Centre, Christanto focuses on the issue of heritage and critical collective memory on traditional knowledge, called pawukon (wuku), that has been lost.

Until March 4.

And we're always supporters of the great work happening in the region. Sneak off down the coast before summer ends and catch the work of the Bega Valley Regional Gallery's first artist in residence when Julian Meagher's Inlet Outlet exhibition opens on February 23.

The residency represented another key step in the development of the arts in the region and provided the opportunity for visual artists to draw from the unique natural environment of the local region, connect with regional communities and expand their practice outside of metropolitan studios.

Meagher spent time at the beautiful Sir Roy Grounds-designed Myer House set on Bithry Inlet in the pristine Mimosa Rocks National Park and Inlet Outlet will showcase the artistic fruits of that stay.

Until March 10.