Flying Arts Alliance Inc Launch of the 2015 Queensland Regional Art Awards Exhibition: Cream of the Crop

Speech delivered by His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC as Administrator of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia:

Minister Bailey representing the Premier, Mr Michael Bryce, representatives of Flying Arts and their wonderful supporters, ladies and gentlemen. Kaye and I are delighted to join you this afternoon at “the Judy” for the launch of this marvellous exhibition, in this, Flying Arts’ significant 45^th anniversary year.  

The Flying Arts Alliance has been compared in the past, including by me, with the Flying Doctor Service – and for good reason.

Our State is huge. And more Queenslanders live further from their capital city than in any other Australian State or Territory. 

That is why the Flying Arts Alliance, like the Flying Doctor, follows the simple strategy of taking services out to communities rather than asking communities to come to them.

That is why Flying Arts takes exhibitions “on the road”, and also supports creativity in regional and remote areas through workshops, residencies, events and projects.  

The latest exhibition, Cream of the Crop, gives audiences in Brisbane and regional centres the opportunity to encounter works of art that are moving, startling, whimsical, powerful, topical and mysterious – sometimes several at once. 

Not surprisingly, there are references to the drought and to ANZACs.  Many works respond to our State’s beautiful and fragile natural environments.  

These art works will lift the spirits of our fellow Queenslanders at a time when that need remains great in many places.

More broadly, the exhibition highlights creative responses to the experience of living in our State in the 21^st century that are both distinctive to regional Queensland, yet strike a universal chord.

It is vital to both artists and audiences that these distinctive regional talents and perspectives continue to enrich our State’s visual arts landscape.     

The idea of a travelling art exhibition may be simple, but its logistics are not, particularly when the starting point is a major competition.   

As Patron, and currently as Administrator of the Commonwealth while our Governor-General is in France, I, along with Kaye, thank, on behalf of all Australians, the Board, the staff of the Flying Arts Alliance, the competition judges and curator, and many others across the State, for their tremendous efforts in getting this show “on the road”.

I thank all of the artists who participated in the competition, however they fared, for generously sharing their creative spirit with us.

And it now gives me very great pleasure to launch the 2015 Queensland Regional Art Awards Exhibition, and to wish the exhibition every success.

Thank you.