University artists put portraits and ceramics on show 

 
 
Henry Smith inspects one the portraits that will go on exhibition this weekend.

Charles Darwin University lecturer Henry Smith has combined his passion for art and music in an exhibition of portraits that opens in Alice Springs this weekend.

Mr Smith, the Visual Arts lecturer at Alice Springs campus, has spent several months painting and drawing 38 members of the popular part-time community choir Asante Sana.

“They’re realist portraits of the choristers singing a note,” he said.

“Originally I was going to depict everyone with their eyes closed, but it didn’t work; I couldn’t have people looking like they were asleep.”

Mr Smith, who has been a tenor in the choir for the past four years, said the idea for the “Singing for Their Supper” series came to him last year during practice.
 
“For many of us, including me, the act of singing is such an uplifting experience. We sense elation, a bit like singing with the angels,” he said.

Fittingly, Asante Sana will perform at the exhibition opening in the Central Australian Art Society’s Art Shed in Crispe Street, this Saturday 25 August at 4pm. The exhibition will run until late September.

Meanwhile, artist-in-residence Miki Oka will put a collection of her ceramics works on display in a two-day exhibition at Alice Springs campus.

“Sunbeams” will feature about 50 works that Miki has made, mostly in the Japanese tradition, in the month that she has been in Alice Springs.

Miki has worked alongside several ceramics students, turning sake cups, rice bowls and vases on the electric wheel, as well as building a variety of non-utilitarian objects, such as a dog and a chicken, by hand.

The works will be on display in the foyer to the campus library all day Friday [24 August] and on Saturday from 10am – 1pm.

Works at both exhibitions will be for sale.