‘Evocation’ – an exhibition of the Queanbeyan River by artist Henry Smith

Henry fell in love with the Queanbeyan River when he first arrived a year ago from Alice Springs, a place where the sandy dry Todd River flows only very occasionally. He found the contrast was exciting. It became the subject matter for a series of paintings in which Henry explored the visual aspect of the river, and the feelings that it evoked in him. It seemed fitting that when he learned the original colonial name of the river. Quinbean, that it had been phonetically derived from an aboriginal word meaning ‘clear water.’ Henry paints in an impressionistic and slightly abstract style and named his exhibition ‘Evocation’ for its meaning – ‘The act of bringing or recalling a feeling, memory, or image to the conscious mind’.