The Artist and the Blacksmith: Ohlsen and Trimming warm up Katanning’s new gallery space

The Katanning Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition of works created by local artists Angela Ohlsen and Morris Trimming. Titled The Artist and the Blacksmith, the show features the sculptural steel art of Trimming and a range of paintings by Ohlsen. “They’re local artists, very well known, and the quality of the work in this exhibition is extraordinary, it’s spectacular,” Gallery co-ordinator James Wood said. Trimming’s sculptures are abstract and primitive, a product of the steel that they are wrought from. They also have a surreal quality that is shared by the composition of Ohlsen’s intimate depictions of country life and the partially obscured faces of the figures in them. While the subject matter of both artists can be found in the everyday, the ordinary is transformed in a playful and whimsical way. Seventy-two of the exhibition’s 76 pieces have sold since it opened on April 15. “It’s an extraordinary vote of confidence in art in Katanning that almost all of the art pieces have sold,” Mr Wood said. “The previous record for pieces sold at an exhibition here was three. I’m extraordinarily pleased for and proud of Ohlsen and Trimming.” It is the first exhibition that Katanning Art Gallery has hosted since receiving significant refurbishment earlier in the year thanks to the Regional Exhibition Touring Boosts Venue Improvement Fund. “We’ve got new flooring, a new humidifier and a new air-conditioning system and lighting,” Mr Wood said “There is a way of changing the lighting so that it dims and produces a wave of light and shadow through the exhibition which transforms the way it looks.” The exhibition is open to the public until May 13.