Out of the Blue | Latitude23 Arts
A collective of 14 artist from Latitude 23 Arts, with works across several different mediums, there is something for everyone!
ARTISTS FEATURED
ALANA READ is a passionate, award-winning, multi-skilled artist based in rural Central Queensland. Immersing herself in the region’s diverse landscapes ensures inspiration for her trademark watercolours is never far away. Alana enjoys painting the natural environment in a realistic way, but with flair. Her favourite subjects include flora and fauna and the Australian rural landscape, seascape and urban scape. By exploiting the drama and ephemeral qualities of light, Alana’s paintings capture everyday places, with a new evocative and atmospheric edge. Although she works primarily in Watercolours, Alana is also an expert in the art of Calligraphy and explores many other types of practical handcrafts, including Macramé and scaled miniatures.
Alana is currently preparing and producing works for her debut solo exhibition, “Art of the Book”, (May 2026) by drawing on her experience as a librarian. Alana also has a pleasant, inclusive and supportive teaching style, making her a well-loved and in demand artist educator.
ANN HINTON
I love nature and colour and when I come across something which attracts me, I am inspired to try and capture the light, colour and whatever else draws me to reproduce it on paper.
My style is fairly loose, and I love the transparency and subtleness of watercolour. The learning process continues with each new painting, and I find that experience exhilarating and very beneficial for my mind and well-being in general. Art is a part of me, and I am compelled to keep creating as long as I am able.
KATE LACY
Originally from New Zealand, Kate Lacy is a printmaker specialising in relief printing, particularly reduction printing, while also exploring photogravure and cyanotype techniques.
Having lived in Australia for seven years, Kate draws inspiration from the local wildlife, integrating her passion for bird photography into her printmaking. Her work captures the intricate details and personalities of birds, translating photographic moments into striking prints that balance texture, depth, and contrast. Constantly experimenting with new processes, Kate's art reflects a deep appreciation for nature and the evolving possibilities of printmaking.
LINDA WEEDON
After travelling and working around Australia, Linda was naturally drawn back to the beautiful Capricorn Coast in 2018. This move also concluded a long career in finance, when Linda chose to leave corporate life and pursue her long-time creative dream…creating art for others!
Since embarking on her art dream, Linda is on a continual learning journey, adding mediums, techniques, skills and subject matter to her repertoire. She now has hundreds of happy art owners across Australia and internationally.
Linda’s founding creative specialty was pet portraiture, from her passion for capturing living character and love of animals. Following the mantra “Variety is the spice of life”, Linda creates artworks of different mediums and styles. Her go-to mediums include acrylic, pastel, oils, and charcoal. She enjoys the freedom of not pigeonholing her art style, to allow her practice to evolve on each new creative whim. A universal concept for all Linda’s pieces is that she draws inspiration from perceived beauty, which is ever present around us. Linda works to convey this essence through her artworks.
Recent notable achievements include Summer in Capricorn exhibition Figtree Galleries People’s Choice winner 2024, The Bayton People’s Choice Award winner 2023 (joint), Livingstone Shire Council street flag contest winner 2024, and a successful joint exhibition at Fig Tree Galleries Yeppoon in June 2025.
LYNETTE HOWARD
I am very pleased to be exhibiting with the Latitude 23 Arts for the first time and hope that my work sings.
I had so many ideas for the theme ‘Out of the Blue’. It appealed to my sense of fun. I remember being told years ago that an artist should learn from the old Masters. The painting ‘The Blue Boy’ by Thomas Gainsborough came to mind. A surprise arrival in the blue birds’ nest eventuated. Mice popping ‘Out of Blue Cheese’ followed by the pondering ‘what happens to sunflowers when it’s a blue moon??’ And are their feet really blue…. Seeing is believing. Blue feet – blue beaks, hypnotic!
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.
MANDY DOLLERY
After finishing school at Yeppoon High, Mandy swapped a gentle life on the Capricorn Coast and moved south to explore the city life. Having completed an Advanced Diploma of Graphic Design and winning Student of the Year Mandy started a successful gallery in Victoria. But in 2023, tired of the city life and having to wear four layers of clothing whenever she went outside, Mandy made the big move back home to Yeppoon.
A big believer in supporting local business, Mandy is a member of the Emu Park Art Gallery, the Royal Queensland Art Society Rockhampton and of course Latitude 23 Arts. Having just completed a successful solo exhibition at Fig Tree Galleries in April/May, Mandy is now planning her next solo exhibition at Aspire Gallery Brisbane in September, whilst painting commissions and pieces for group exhibitions in-between. And although the plan was to semi-retire when she returned home, that didn’t quite happen. She works as a Graphic Designer, Artist and Muralist and co-owns Framed in Cooee with her partner and has never been happier.
www.mandydollery.com.au
www.instagram.com/mandydollery
www.facebook.com/mandydollery
NANETTE BALCHIN is a multidisciplinary collage and fibre artist, a collaborator and a proactive arts leader. Her works portrays the expressive power of colour, surface, and texture, manifested in collages, assemblages, printmaking, drawing and fibre art sculptures. Stimulating audience curiosity is at the heart of her practice. Nanette makes fibre arts sculptures with the intent of creating audience interaction with the art and engagement with its story. She poses questions as to each works narrative and creates delight for the audience to discover intriguing details. Furthermore, her collaged and stitched surfaces express her response to nature or to the feeling she experiences in that place. Bringing together 2 dimensional native media of paint, inks, and drawing media with cloth, papers, marine “flotsam” and stitch Nanette creates fibre art sculptural assemblages formed into “hybrid forests” and flora creating a distinctive visual language. Nanette also creates other “curiosities”- boxes, objects and “Wunderkammer” to encourage an inquisitive conversation between the viewer, the work and the artist.
For over 40 years, Nanette Balchin has lived in the coastal community of Yeppoon on Daruma country overlooking Woppaburra land and sea country. Nanette draws conceptual and visual inspiration from this place and the diverse creative community. Nanette has exhibited for over 20 years in touring, group and collaborative shows across Regional Qld, in Brisbane and Port Fairy and in her home communities of Yeppoon and Rockhampton. On her practice: “Feel empowered and proud to be your artist self. Be giving, collaborative, open to new ideas and always be respectful, supportive and generous hearted to fellow artists. Put your creative energy, curiosity and boldness into your work. Be authentic and the rewards of your creative talents and desires will flow.” Nanette Balchin
www.nanettebalchin.com
www.hybridgreening.art
www.instagram.com/nanettebalchinartist
www.facebook.com/nanettebalchinartist
PETA LLOYD is a visual artist incorporating printmaking, assemblage, encaustic, textiles, earth pigments, and collage, into her works. Born in Mildura Victoria, Peta grew up in Melbourne, moving to Central Victoria in the 1980’s. Peta has resided in Central Queensland since 1990.
Peta inspires others through teaching printmaking techniques, book art, assemblage, textile, mark making and encaustic art, locally, interstate and internationally. She is an active member of the Capricornia Printmakers, Latitude 23, and the Emu Park Art Gallery. Her artworks are held in collections of the State Library Qld, Mackay Regional Gallery, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton Art Gallery, and Benevolent Living Rockhampton.
Peta exhibits her works throughout Australia.
SALLY NORTH is a printmaker and photographer, and has been interested in art and photography since her school days, but not seriously taking up both practices until her late 50’s.
A collaborative exhibition with the Capricornia Printmakers and Rockhampton Photography group brought her full scale into the world of printmaking and revealing how this medium could enhance her photography practice. Sally mainly focuses on the mediums of photogravure, gum bichromate, collagraphs, monoprints and intaglio printmaking. Sally is acutely aware of the preciousness and precariousness of nature and the environment, and the urgency we all need to adopt to preserve it. Using artifacts from her natural surrounds, incorporating the textures, colours and soul from these items into her work, Sally endeavours to bring awareness to the natural world. In doing this she strives to find the light in her mind, her body and her heart, so she can share that light, and tell the story she needs to tell through her art practice.
Sally has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, Capricornia Printmakers Annual Exhibitions since 2018; Nature Plus Art I & II (four artists), Where Two Things Meet (three artists) at Fig Tree Galleries, Yeppoon; Double Exposure exhibitions since 2017, with the Print Exposed - Gold Street Studios in 2020, and with the Latitude 23 Arts group since 2020. In 2024, Sally's Photogravure work ‘Primal’, that was exhibited in the Collection Focus Exhibition at Rockhampton Museum of Art, was acquired by RMOA to go into their collection. Sally has several B&W contributions to the Photographic publication A Rocky Love Song - Coorooman Press. With a single entry, she achieved 2nd place in the Photographic Society of Qld Salon of Excellence and recently made the front cover of a worldwide group exhibition publication – Capturing Moments. Sally has been the Secretary for Capricornia Printmakers Inc. from 2018 to date.
email: sally9north@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/Imprinted365
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SANDY HOHMANN is an artist based in Yeppoon, Queensland, whose work captures the vibrancy and simplicity of everyday life through a lens of texture and colour.
Working primarily in acrylics and oils, Sandy’s paintings are characterised by their naive and loose style, often depicting scenes of people, places, and the rhythms of daily existence. Raised in an artistic household, Sandy’s creative journey was nurtured from a young age, fostering a deep appreciation for art. Today, she works from her modest garden studio, finding inspiration in the natural beauty surrounding her and the intimate moments of life. Sandy’s art invites viewers into a world where simplicity meets depth, offering a fresh perspective on the familiar and a celebration of the everyday.
SHARON KIRK completed a Bachelor of Fine Art through Curtin University in 2019 through external online study, has held three solo exhibitions and participated in art exhibitions and competitions across a range of communities in Central Queensland.
Sharon was the inaugural artist-in- residence at Rockhampton Museum of Art in March 2022 and, in 2023, had a work selected for the Mervyn Moriarty landscape touring exhibition in 2024.
Sharon’s practice often focusses on the intersect between the natural environment and any human interaction within this landscape. She reflects on memory and the traces humans intentionally/unintentionally leave behind as they travel through and across the landscape.
Sharon is a member of the Central Queensland Contemporary Artists in Rockhampton and Latitude 23 in Yeppoon and as well as exhibiting with these groups in 2024 she collaborated with other artists in exhibitions in Springsure and Emerald.
SYLVIA NICHOLSON is a self-taught artist working primarily with watercolour and soft pastels. Sylvia’s artwork covers a variety of subjects, from landscapes and animals to people and everyday objects. She also enjoys exploring acrylic painting, each medium offering a different way to bring her creative ideas to life.
Sylvia’s approach to art is guided by intuition, often painting what feels necessary in the moment—whether it’s the calm of a landscape, the energy of roller-skates, or the mysticism of tarot cards. Her work invites viewers to experience both the vibrant and the quieter sides of life through her unique perspective.
In addition to her personal practice, Sylvia teaches high school art, where she encourages young creatives to explore their own artistic journeys. She believes everyone has an artistic side and should get the opportunity to discover and develop their creative self.
TRACEY HEWITT
Tracey Hewitt's art practice explores the layered textures of everyday life, memory, and meaning. Working with mixed media, she weaves together symbols, ephemera and written fragments to create pieces that invite the viewer to slow down and look closer.
For Out of the Blue, Tracey’s work is shaped by the death of her mother-in-law, an unexpected event that opened a liminal space between worlds. These pieces hold the quiet, poignant moments of that time: the strangeness, the tenderness, and the surprising “out of the blue” experiences that arrived unbidden. Through her layered, intuitive process, Tracey transforms personal grief into universal reflection, offering viewers a chance to connect with the mysteries that touch all our lives.
YVONNE ELTON (MOLONEY-LAW)
As a multi-disciplinary, award-winning artist, Yvonne is passionate about Australia – it’s environment and culture. Her poetic images figuratively blend images of the natural environment, creating connections with our unique culture and environment. Whilst paying homage to the significance of water, life, flora, and fauna in our ecosystem, which stimulate thought and awareness of our environment and the landscapes of Australia. Her art evolves via observation and application of organic textures, colour, and natural light, uniting the natural world to her images.
Yvonne works predominantly in printmaking and oil painting to craft images through a unique print-making technique and style. Her unique multi-level contemporary approach replicates the interconnectivity between nature, life and the culture of Australia. It’s all about Australia’s ecological conservation, science and culture.