Local artists Sue Acheson and Russell Lilford explore the theme of love - but not as you might think - in their new collaborative exhibition "Love in Translation."
The exhibition will be on display at the Yarram Courthouse Gallery between Thursday February 6 and Tuesday March 4.
A mixed-media experience, "Love in Translation" will feature ceramic sculptures, paintings and poems that comment on popular culture, obsession, exploitation and manipulation under the guise of love.
Having collaborated for many years, Sue and Russell enjoy providing social commentary through their art.
"We both have strong feelings about what's happening in the world and sometimes we both just gel together," Sue said. "We want to comment on what's happening out there."
Alongside other local artists, the pair created a number of works under the banner of "#toomanywords" which developed into Sue and Russell's "Love in Translation" project in late 2023.
Sue and Russell have spent about 18 months creating collaborative and individual pieces for the exhibition.
"What we decided to do for this exhibition was to do some collaborative work and also do work on our own," Sue said.
"We're exploring themes of love in society and then we're coming together and expressing that in paintings. We're both working on the same piece of work at the same time."
Their first piece created for the project was a large rug they painted with graffiti paint.
"After the first painting was done, we decided to go back to the studios and reflect on it and make work from that," Russell said.
"I went into the studio thinking about the whole language of love and how it's very exploited and twisted." Russell said.
Using this thinking, Russell started painting with words. But instead of painting on shapes that would typically hold text, such as rectangles or squares, Russell wanted to "take the text out of the normal realm", choosing to work on hexagons, circles and triangles.
"The idea of taking (a word) out of its formal context and putting it in a totally different context, hopefully it helps open up people's minds to a different way of thinking about things," Russell said.
"The shapes and the words are really interesting, hopefully when people look at them, they'll be able to understand how we retranslate words," Sue said. "One word in one shape can mean something very different in another shape."
Sue and Russell said the artwork in the exhibition was designed to get people thinking, to spark a change in thinking about particular topics.
"What we're trying to do when we put work together on paper or in sculpture, is to help people think about what they're saying and what they're doing," Sue explained.
"To me, that's the idea of art, it comments on society and helps people understand what's gone wrong."
"We're trying to challenge the viewers a little bit," Russell added. "It's like a stratosphere of layers, you can keep peeling back layers and how far you want to go into (the meaning) is up to you."
Ahead of the official exhibition launch, Sue and Russell said they were excited to see all the pieces come together.
"I'm looking forward to the hanging of the exhibition because we've never put all of these (pieces) together before," Sue said.
"Also just hearing what people have to say about the work and getting some general feedback would be great," Russell added.
The "Love in Translation" exhibition will be held at the Yarram Courthouse Gallery, between Thursday February 6 and Tuesday March 4.
The gallery is open daily between 10am and 3pm. Entry is free.
An opening day function will be held on Saturday, February 8 between 2pm and 3:30pm and will include artist talks from Sue and Russell.
For more information visit www.yarramcourthousegallery.com