The Crossing | Works by Deborah Perrow, Pete Smith and John Pratt

This exhibition, 'The Crossing' has been created by Deborah Perrow and John Pratt, however it is essentially a collaboration between three visual artists who have found a mutual respect and fascination for the unique qualities of Lake George in NSW.

The concept for this body of work came from a gift. In 2017, Deborah was given 12 sketches of Lake George by Canberra artist Pete Smith and invited to use them by his partner in ‘whatever way you wish’. Pete had died in 2015 and after much thought Deborah decided that the works should be honoured in some way and not just archived and become invisible. She pinned them up in her studio and began creating responses to them albeit in a very different medium.

The idea of creating triptychs in a landscape format began to develop and eventually she thought that inviting another artist to contribute would create more visually balanced works. After seeing John's exhibition ‘Street’ at Beaver Galleries, Deborah thought that his collages could directly respond to the spacious landscape quality of Pete’s sketches as well as her own print based works. When approached by Deborah, John was particularly enthusiastic about the collaborative possibilities involved in the project and the focus on Lake George, a site for which he has an enduring fascination.

Images courtesy of the artists: