In September, FireWorks Gallery presents solo exhibitions by two highly anticipated artists, Joe Furlonger and Jennifer Herd.

On the ground level, and fresh from her mini survey show at Caloundra Regional Gallery, Mbararrum artist Jennifer Herd presents Mother’s Country including 20 new works that feature her signature pin-holing technique and geometric shield patterning on both paper and canvas. In the mezzanine gallery, FireWorks has partnered with Bruce Heiser Projects to showcase new landscape paintings by renowned painter Joe Furlonger, who is also currently the subject of a major retrospective at Queensland Art Gallery.

Furlonger’s textured, serene, almost naive painting style displayed upstairs is in stark contrast to the graphic, politically charged works of Jennifer Herd, whose practice over several decades has consistently contributed to a truth-telling discourse, still gaining momentum.

Herd tells her stories of displacement and fortitude not with aggression or vengeance but with the objective of connecting sophisticated imagery and design back to her mother’s country in North Queensland and sites of historical massacres. The artist herself grew up in foster homes and orphanages and the inherent stories within her practice echo these solemn facts.

A new major work in this exhibition Armor, weapon, cover discusses the Irvinebank Massacre and builds on decades of research into frontier conflict and Indigenous resistance. Artworks in the exhibition utilise several recurring motifs; camouflage, targets and bullet casings, shield designs, and silhouetted warriors interwoven with her delicate pinholes for which she is most celebrated. The repetition of these images amplifies what Adj. Professor Margo Ngawa Neale (National Museum of Australia) describes as a “singular voice, infused with a disarming aesthetic… delivered like an iron fist in a velvet glove”.

The images artist Joe Furlonger pursues in his practice weave between representation and abstraction. His painterly, expressive landscapes originate from the artist’s engagement with, and curiosity of, the country around him.

Recently, Furlonger has made several painting trips across the NSW/QLD border to the town of Moree, painting in and around its surrounding district. This distinctive suite of pictures features the landscape as it's worked and altered by the farming process.

Accompanying the Moree works are studies of the country lying outside of Dalby towards the edge of the Bunya Mountains, Shoalwater Bay, Central and North Queensland and Brisbane’s Moreton Bay as well as Samford Valley, where the artist currently lives and works. Speaking of his tendency to immortalise the expansive qualities of the Australian landscape, Furlonger has said “I find parallels with the sea. I feel comfortable in big, flat areas”.

FireWorks director Michael Eather comments, "The combination of these two important Queensland artists is incredibly exciting as a pairing within our gallery! Both artists are warm and generous souls, urging us always to take a mature look at our surrounding country and its history, but also to consider a beautiful presence. It’s also wonderful to collaborate with Bruce Heiser, a long-time friend of FireWorks Gallery."