Ekka art: All the fun of the fair
When Brisbane art dealer Jan Murphy asked two artists to cover the Ekka for her gallery, she was delighted with the result – and you will be too.
Going to the Ekka this year? I’m not because, well, been there and done that. Although I must confess, I wouldn’t mind popping into the CWA tea rooms for a scone and a cuppa.
We served our time at the Royal Queensland Show, the Ekka, when our son was young. But don’t let me put you off. It’s lots of fun with the family. The closest I will get to the Ekka this year is Jan Murphy Gallery in Fortitude Valley. How so?
I’ll tell you. Murphy is currently showing a double exhibition featuring the most amazing artworks based on the Ekka.
She enlisted two artists – Lucy Culliton and Archer Davies – to record the Ekka in their work. They attended last year and this year we get to see the fruits of their labour. It was a great idea, but where did it come from?
“The idea for this exhibition came from a conversation with Lucy about her love of agricultural shows,” recalls Murphy.
“She has been the official artist-in-residence at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney for the last few years, but hadn’t yet had the chance to visit our famous Ekka. We thought it would be a great opportunity to pair one of our more experienced artists, Lucy, with one of our younger emerging artists, Archer Davies.
“They had met previously, and there is a shared thread in the subject matter they’re drawn to, as well as the way they both paint from life. Lucy is a fantastic teacher and, by all accounts, they both benefited from the experience in different ways.”
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Lucy Culliton rarely travels, partly because she is in the studio every day, but also because she has a lot of animals requiring her attention at home.
She makes an exception for her annual trip to be the artist-in-residence at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show and, in August 2024, she made the trip further north to experience Brisbane’s famous Ekka.
“As far as I can remember I’ve always loved going to agricultural shows,” Culliton says. “As a horse-mad small kid, the shows have the most beautiful, spectacular horses. Then there was the need for show bags – not rides – far too scary for me.
“Nowadays, I love the local shows to me on the Monaro (NSW), and for three years running I’ve been the artist-in-residence at the Royal Easter Show, Sydney. I spend days admiring and drawing all the animals, and it fuels my interest in crafts. I crochet, not spectacularly, but love to admire the achievements of others.
“Last year I took myself, inviting my artist friend Archer Davies to join me, to the Ekka Royal Queensland Show and we simply had the best time. We met friendly, interested people. There was an abundance of animals, crafts, cooking … all my favourite subjects for painting.
“I could get up nice and close for drawing or painting with my gouache. Thank you, Brisbane, for putting on such a great show.”
Culliton’s works are stunning and engaging – there are dogs and cows and ducks, chooks, a knitted bunny, a painting of lady woodchoppers (that’s a ripper!), horses, goats, strawberry ice-creams, scones and other Ekka subjects. What fun!
And her pal Archer Davies was up for it too.
“In August last year Jan Murphy Gallery invited Lucy Culliton and I to travel to Brisbane to spend three days at the Ekka,” Davies says.
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“From morning until sundown we spent each day drawing and painting, with occasional breaks for strawberry ice-cream, coffee and doughnuts. We explored the whole fair, however it was the animals that captured our attention the most.
“Two parallel worlds exist at the Ekka – so intimately and inextricably linked, yet impossibly irreconcilable – the artificial and the natural, the human and the animal.
“The neon spectacle of carnival attractions and novel thrills noisily jostle for attention while the animals quietly bear witness – tolerant, patient or perhaps inhabiting a consciousness altogether elsewhere.
“Back in my studio in Brunswick, Melbourne, I looked closely at three artists who painted performance, the carnival, the animal and the theatre – Degas, Lautrec and Watteau.
“Working on oil paintings inspired by my Ekka sketches, photographs and with the help of friends modelling from life I created paintings that depict the imaginative realm of performance, spectacle and its opposite – the quotidian, the familiar and the animal.”
Across his series of works, references to European art history recur – embedded within scenes of spectacle: Ferris wheel lights, equestrian pageantry, teeming crowds and the distinctly Australian setting of the Brisbane Ekka.
It’s a subject that has long interested artists. Even the great William Robinson turned his attention to it with a series of Ekka works that were utterly charming and a lot of fun.
Much like this amazing double exhibition.
Lucy Culliton’s Ekka and Archer Davies’ Arenas continue at Jan Murphy Gallery, Fortitude Valley, until August 23.
The Ekka unfolds at the Brisbane Showgrounds, Bowen Hills, August 9-17.