Southern Art and Craft Trail returns for 2022 with stacked program featuring more than 300 artists

The Great Southern will become an art-lover’s paradise this month when the Southern Art and Craft Trail returns for 2022, with more than 55 opportunities to enjoy the work of local artists, schools and community groups.

From September 24 to October 9, the talents of local artists will be on display from Nannup to Lake Grace and everywhere in between as part of the annual event’s 19th year.

The 16-day program will include exhibitions, open studios and workshops all featuring the works of local artists.

More than 300 artists are included in the trail, from professional photographer Meleah Farrell to the works of students from 16 Great Southern schools and art created by disability service providers.

Art South WA chairwoman and organiser Merry Robertson said the trail, which usually attracts about 10,000 visitors from local towns and further afield, was a chance for artists to promote their work to a larger audience.

“The Southern Art and Craft Trail presents a once-in-a-year opportunity for them to receive massive promotion for who they are what they do,” Ms Robertson said.

“A lot of the artists and groups, they can do exhibitions in their own hometown ... but the art trail is promoted so heavily and so far and wide, that a lot of artists tap into a really substantial piece of promotion that would be difficult to generate themselves.”

Ms Robertson pointed to two workshops held throughout the trail as two of her personal highlights.

Artist Karlee Bertola will hold free drop-in workshops, titled “Under the Microscope”, from September 26-29 at the Museum of the Great Southern.

Bertola’s workshops will give participants the chance to view the museum’s specimen collection under microscopes and create artworks.

They will have the choice to work with a variety of mediums, with their pieces collated into a large community artwork in the style of a patchwork quilt that will become part of the museum’s collection.

A workshop for artists who want to learn to paint murals will take place in Mt Barker on October 1, with former police sergeant and passionate sign painter Dave Johnson sharing his expertise in the style of international art group the Walldogs.

Johnson will teach participants the Walldogs’ style of painting, before they set out to paint a mural on a wall of Mt Barker’s Old Police Station and Folk Museum on October 2.

This year’s trail will also include the return of the Southern Art and Craft Trail Exhibition Award, which was presented for the first time last year to Meleah Farrell and Narelle Clark’s joint exhibition “Wist”.

The award, sponsored by Regional Development Australia Great Southern, gives $2000 to the artist or art group voted by the public as the best exhibition or event.

For the full program, visit artsouthwa.com.au.