Country Arts SA and Adelaide Festival Centre Open BREAKING GROUND Exhibition, June 30

An exhibition of works by Victor Harbor based visual artist Yvonne East will show in the Artspace Gallery from 30 June – 29 July, combining traditional drawing and painting techniques with multimedia installation to investigate the physical and psychological connection with the Australian landscape.

Acknowledged in folklore, fiction and film, the Australian landscape has an extraordinary influence on its inhabitants. Yvonne's work interrogates the psyche of land and the unique conflict created by the comparison of the urban and rural. Charcoal drawings of the human figure become a metaphor for the tension between the internal mind and how we relate to the 'outside' environment and community. Uniting old masters' techniques combined with 21st century technology, we are encouraged to see how the Australian environment correlates to our psychological state as an individual and as a society.

Yvonne East is a visual artist who works primarily in oil on canvas, works on paper and multimedia. She was a top 10 Finalist for the SALA Advertiser Business SA Contemporary Art Prize for both 2010 and 2011. Previously her work has been exhibited at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery and the South Coast Regional Art Centre in Goolwa.

Yvonne was a finalist in the 2008 and 2009 Dobell Drawing prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a finalist for the 2011 Portia Geach Memorial Award, and winner of the 2010 Advantage SA Regional Award for the Arts in the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island region. Yvonne won a place in the Fleurieu Art Prize Artist Research Project in November 2011, and the "Double Vision" Artists Exchange with the City of Onkaparinga in October 2011 and January 2012.

In addition to her studio work, Yvonne has been Artist in Residence for Secondary Schools and Councils, producing large murals and conducting workshops. Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art with a Visual Arts Degree (2000), Yvonne has had a number of solo shows in South Australia and been involved in many group exhibitions.

Breaking Ground is the inaugural Country Arts SA Visual Artist Professional Development Award. This award provides a practicing contemporary visual artist from country South Australia the opportunity to develop a body of work for exhibition in a major gallery space in metropolitan Adelaide, including a mentorship opportunity to further their career.

Extending the exhibition experience further, Yvonne will be conducting a life drawing workshop on June 30 from 10am – 1pm. The workshop will run over a 3 hour period and include an introduction to figure drawing, line and tonal studies and conclude with a longer pose for students to work on a finished piece.