The Harvest Biennial is an exhibition series held every two years at The Condensery – Somerset Regional Art Gallery. The series is devoted to themes of the environment and place.
The Harvest Biennial was launched with its inaugural exhibition in 2025, ‘Volatile Terrain’, with a hyper-local focus responsive to the Somerset region. The project was underpinned by substantial artist development opportunities and an extensive community engagement program. Five Somerset artists participated in Volatile Terrain: Jim Filmer, Shirley Gregor, Cassandra Hodgins, Sandi Hook, and Naomi McKenzie.
The biennial is guest curated, with the selected curator rotated in each iteration. Toowoomba artist, educator and art consultant Cara-Ann Simpson was invited to curate the inaugural event. As part of the project, Simpson undertook research connected to the exhibition’s themes, while also hosting curatorial discussions with the Somerset artists who created new works for the exhibition.
In addition, Simpson selected a complement of artists from across Australia for inclusion which met the aims and objectives of the exhibition and enriched the work of the Somerset artists.
A suite of programs including artist talks, workshops and activities led by artists featured in the exhibition was hosted at The Condensery, extending and enhancing audience engagement. Offsite programs such as local studio tours and trails also formed part of this offering.
The Harvest Biennial will return to The Condensery in 2027.
ARTISTS
Jim Filmer
SHIRLEY GREGOR
Jim Filmer is a visual artist and photographer whose work is deeply rooted in researching and narrating social issues close to his heart, resulting in compelling storytelling imagery.
Filmer’s multiple photographic prints on vinyl with acrylic overlays, Mairwar: Altered, Impacted, Contained, unveils the profound transformation of Mairwar, known colonially as the Brisbane River, in the wake of Wivenhoe Dam’s construction. By interweaving contemporary ground-level photographs with archival aerial imagery, the artwork presents a layered and multifaceted perspective of a landscape, which through government intervention has irrevocably changed.
Shirley Gregor is an artist and computer scientist, whose studies include subjects such as human-computer interaction and how images evoke emotional responses from viewers. Gregor brings a unique perspective to her work and has developed a creative process combining both mainstream art practices and the use of artificial intelligence.
Her series, Balance, consists of four works in pigment, watercolour and ink on paper, and explores the balance between our natural environment on the one hand and human needs, activities and technologies on the other. Humans and their technologies can be seen as a threat, but technologies can also aid survival in a volatile terrain.
Cassandra Hodgins
Sandi Hook
Cassandra Hodgins is a botanical and nature illustrator with a passion for conservation of biodiversity. Through realistic representation in her art, she hopes to evoke a sense of awe and awareness to inspire change in environmental maintenance and protection. Hodgins’ work seeks to encourage active participation in conservating the natural world.
Symbiosis includes four works which are created on scraperboard with a fine layer of black carbon ink over a thin layer of white clay. Scratching away the carbon surface to reveal clay from the earth is like scratching away the soil to reveal the mycelium of fungi or scratching the volatile terrain of the climate crisis.
Sandi Hook, President of Somerset Art Society Inc, is a Queensland printmaker, painter and sculptor, whose work is underpinned by drawing expertise.
Archaeological Dig – Layers of Meaning uncovers stories of strength, faith and resilience found in the 1905 diary of Mary McConnel, a significant woman in the colonial settlement of the Somerset region. Hook uses a variety of materials and techniques including lithograph, embroidery, human hair and ink on paper to create layered strata, making connections between the stories, an archaeological dig and human existence in an unforgiving terrain.
Naomi McKenzie
Naomi McKenzie is a photographic artist working primarily with medium and large format film. Her practice, anchored in both traditional and alternative darkroom processes, represents over two decades of dedicated exploration into the many possibilities of analogue photography.
McKenzie’s Elemental Reciprocity are large works which consist of film photographs printed on silk, with vinyl on board. These works capture a scar tree on Dungibara Country, and merge new film photographs and pictures from the Traditional Owners (family’s) personal archive, into a landscape that captures the entwined stories of this important scar tree. Using a solution derived from eucalyptus leaves, McKenzie developed the resulting photographs, creating a technical process entangled with the tree itself.
This project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia, administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance.
IMAGE TOP: NAOMI MCKENZIE, ELEMENTAL RECIPROCITY, 2025, Film printed on silk with vinyl and board. Photo by LOUIS LIM.