The Bent Art Exhibition is held on the Kings birthday (which was called the Queens Birthday while she was alive) weekend and is an established annual event.
How is it that Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of NSW have such an exhibition? How did this came about?
The first Bent Art exhibition was 20 years ago. I know, I was part of the small group who started it. That small group consisted of Jocelyn William, Jocelyn Street, Anne McKenzie, Tracey Allen, Ruth le Cheminant. Each gathered to the group as they had skills to offer. Each brought their own strengths to the group.
One evening in late 2004 I got a call from Anne. She had a friend Max who wanted to exhibit and was finding it difficult to find somewhere. Anne (always a go getter!) thought the answer was to hold our own exhibition and that way Max could get to exhibit. Anne asked me was it possible? I said yes. My thinking being – you don’t know unless you give it a go!
We flew by the seat of our pants working things out and solving the innumerable problems we confronted as we went. We had amazing help and community support from such a variety of people, it fed our conviction to keep going. At one stage we realised we needed a kitty to fund this wonderful mad idea so we each put in money to a fund the venture realising we may not have the money returned. By the time we made the decision to do this we were all invested and come what may, wanted to see it through to completion.
We met many times, drank numerous cups of tea/coffee together, talked through issues and on the Queens birthday weekend in June of 2005 on the Friday night had the opening to the inaugural exhibition. The work prior had been a lot! But the work for the actual event was massive – to advertise, promote, collect artwork, hang, curate, organise an MC, judges, prizes, sitters of the exhibition for 3 days, organize bump in and bump out and then hope beyond hope people would come to the exhibition. They did. We were exhausted but elated. And then we realized. People were asking us is it going to be ’same time next year?’. We believed the final confirmation came from the woman tasked with the bookings for the hall we had used. As we were bumping out the exhibition she said ‘I’ve booked you in the same weekend next year so no one else gets that weekend. It’s yours, you lot can run it next year!’.
Who would have thought! Twenty years this year! Bent Art has continued through the work of many dedicated volunteers over those 20 years. A huge group of dedicated volunteers over those 20 years. My thanks to past committee members and to the present committee for the 2025 Bent Art.
If you’re in the Blue Mountains over the Kings Birthday weekend there’s plenty going on. One of them is the 20th exhibition of Bent Art held at the Rex Livingston Art Gallery Katoomba. I hope to catch up with you there.
And as I always I have entered Bent Art.
I have used an image of Bent Art by Anne Mackenzie.
Hope you’re able to check the exhibition out at Rex Livingston Art Gallery, Katoomba. On till 15 June, 2025
Cheers
Ruth
