Airlie Beach Foreshore Comes Alive With Art

The 2022 Whitsundays Arts Festival artists-in-residence will create a magnificent outdoor art exhibition in Fairy Tree Park on Saturday 24 September. You are invited to watch the spectacle unfold as our artists in residence bring their installations, created in collaboration in the week before with local community, to the festival site with the help of the festival team. Once the decorations are up, please join us for the Opening Ceremony of the Festival on Saturday 24 September at 5pm.

Renowned Townsville artists Marion Gaemers and Lynnette Griffiths will spearhead the “Soaring Stingrays” creation. Large and small stingrays made from recycled marine materials supplied by Eco Barge will be suspended among the trees on site. These rays take hours of work and 30 local collaborators began in a June workshop to create the larger of the stingrays.

Marion and Lynette have created large installations in major exhibitions nationally and internationally including in GOMA in Brisbane, and recently were commissioned to create a 7-metre woven coral garden landscape now held in a private museum in Majorca. 

Reflect, reminisce, and remember with Amanda Sadler. The “Pursuit of Happiness” art installation at the Festival is an invitation to explore your memories and experiences and reflects the theme “Memories.” Memories are important to us all as storytellers and vital to the strength and longevity of our culture. Amanda will lead three days of workshops as we gather with her to talk about our own memories while creating a beautiful installation of painted memory boards. 

At sunset on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 September the majestic fig tree of Fairy Tree Park comes alive! An artist of many talents and genres, Michael Pope will be one of the guest resident artists at this year’s Whitsundays Arts Festival. Michael, along with artist and collaborator Aaron Ashley, will be recreating their sculpture which won the People’s Choice award at the 2021 Ephemera in Townsville, “Scarewood,” personalising the experience for Airlie Beach by adding new elements. Through recordings and projections audiences will experience an audio-visual feast as the tree talks.

So come along on Saturday 24 September to Fairy Tree Park on the Airlie Beach foreshore and marvel as stingrays soar, memory boards flutter in the wind, and nature comes alive. These visually mesmerising installations explore our connection to our region, celebrating our reef, oceans, and trees, highlighting the beauty of our home and our culture through art that evokes memories.