Grafton Regional Gallery invites you to the Official Opening of:

BEYOND THE RIVER

KEN DONE IS MY DOLLY PARTON: Leona DeBolt

BIDHIINJA: restoring our oyster reefs

SPEAKING IN COLOUR: Ken Done

Saturday 27 September

2pm | Beyond the River Curator's Walk & Talk with Frances Belle Parker

3pm | Official Exhibition Opening

Featuring

Welcome to Country

Music by DJ RedBelly

Complementary refreshments & Friends of the Gallery pay bar

Entry by donation

Bookings via GRG Humanitix

Beyond the River

Beyond the River is a celebration of female First Nations artists from the Clarence Valley, who have dared to look beyond the river’s banks, drawing inspiration from its unseen depths and expansive reach. Their works transcend the physical landscape, capturing the essence of its influence—its rhythms, histories, and quiet whispers that echo across Country.

Through layered narratives and powerful artistic expressions, this exhibition invites audiences to explore the river not just as a place, but as a living presence that shapes identity, memory, and creation.

Guest curator: Frances Belle Parker

Artists: Bronwyn Bancroft (Bundjalung), Bianca Beetson (Kabi Kabi and Wiradjuri), Frances Belle Parker (Yaegl), Deb Breckenridge (Yaegl), Danielle Gorogo (Bundjalung), Kim Healey (Gumbaynggirr), Aneika Kapeen (Yaegl and Bundjalung), Bianca Monaghan (Bundjalung), Maddy Richey (Kamilaroi, lives on Gumbaynggirr country), Kristal Russ ((Jaru/Ngarinyin, lives on Bundjalung Country)), and Deborah Taylor (Gumbaynggirr).

A GRG project

KEN DONE IS MY DOLLY PARTON: Leona DeBolt

Ken Done Is My Dolly Parton is a solo exhibition of paintings by Northern Rivers-based contemporary artist, Leona DeBolt.

Leona DeBolt both admires and is inspired by Ken Done, the way many fans worship cultural icon Dolly Parton. While in residency at Grafton Regional Gallery, DeBolt studied the Ken Done works held in the Gallery’s collection, and went on to spend time with Done in his Sydney studio. Beginning as a love letter to her art idol, this exhibition quickly became an immersion in the complexities of influence and creative identity.

The paintings in Ken Done Is My Dolly Parton represent a turning point in DeBolt’s practice. They carry the tension between reverence and risk, and looking up to someone while standing on your own. What started in admiration has led to a clearer sense of direction, one that’s still unfolding but feels unmistakably the artist’s own.

A GRG project

SPEAKING IN COLOUR: Ken Done

An icon of Australian art, Ken Done is a name synonymous with colour, vibrancy, and originality. For the first time in years, this exhibition brings to light a selection of the many Ken Done prints held in the Grafton Regional Gallery Collection.

Ken Done spent a large part of his childhood in the Clarence Valley, with the streets, bushland and waterways of Maclean his playground, before leaving at the age of 10 and later going on to study at the National Art School, then known as East Sydney Tech..

Ken Done is proudly a patron of the Grafton Regional Gallery. In 2008 he generously donated 143 screen printed works on paper from his personal collection to the Grafton Regional Gallery forming a comprehensive record of the artist’s works.

A GRG project

BIDHIINJA: restoring our oyster reefs

Oyster reefs were once a dominant part of our seascape. More than 99% of natural oyster reefs are now considered ‘functionally extinct’ – decimated by a combination of historical overfishing, habitat destruction, catchment clearing and water-quality degradation, land reclamation and disease.

A new exhibition developed by the Australian National Maritime Museum in collaboration with NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Bidhiinja tells the forgotten history of oyster reefs in New South Wales and the work now underway to restore these important ecosystems. Bidhiinja invites audiences to learn about the past, present and future of Australia’s oyster reefs.

This exhibition combines First Nations knowledge, western science, and design, including illustrations by exhibition artist and Yaegl woman Frances Belle Parker.

Bidhiinja is presented by the Australian National Maritime Museum in collaboration with NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) NSW Oyster Reef Restoration Project.

Images: Kim Healy, Bloodlines, 2025 (details), oil based paint on Perspex. Courtesy of the artist. Photography: Simon Hughes Media.