Image: Extract 'Estuarine' pencil, ink, photo print, encaustic wax on board 2024, image courtesy of artist.

Care & Confluence is an exhibition by South Australian Artist, Rebecca McEwan.

In an ongoing project, Rebecca McEwan continues a journey of quiet discovery, blending the ethereal with the tangible. Her work revolves around the many waterways surrounding her that tell the tales of time—including the Ngangkipari/Onkaparinga River, Karrawirra pari/Torrens River and the Dhungala/Murray River, bodies of water, ancient and sacred, that have etched their stories into the land.

Through listening, walking, and paddling along their banks and currents, Rebecca seeks to understand them not just as geographical features, but as living entities. With each stride and each stroke of the paddle, rivers offer their secrets; they sing in the rustle of the vegetation on the banks, they speak in the ripple of water, they murmur in the twilight. This intimate dialogue between the rivers and the artist is sensitively documented, forming a visual catalogue that captures the essence of their interaction.

In knowing these rivers on a deeper level, Rebecca has come to appreciate the simple truth—one can only truly care for what one fully understands. This ongoing body of work is an ode to the rivers, a testament to their beauty and significance, and a call to others to look deeper, listen closer, and tread gently. For in understanding, we find the roots of our care, and in care, we find the essence of our connection.

In understanding, we find the roots of our care, and in care, we find the essence of our connection. An ode to the waterways that surround us, echoed in paper, wax and thread.

The Artist will be working in the Gallery on Thursday 2nd October and Thursday 9th October from 10am – 4pm during the Nature Festival, and invites the public to contribute to the development of a collaborative textile artwork. All welcome and no experience necessary.
Artist Talk in the Gallery on Thursday 9th October from 12.30 - 1pm.

This FREE exhibition is proudly brought to you by Conservation SA with support from the Adelaide Sustainability Centre as part of the 2025 Nature Festival Program.

For all enquiries, please email events@conservationsa.org.au

Please note that attendee information may be used for follow up evaluation (in the form of survey), in order to assess the longer term impacts of our events. Participation in any evaluation is optional.