Send us a text Gary first met Wayne and Marina through artist and previous podcast guest Tony Mighell. We spoke to them over zoom a few weeks ago from their home in Melbourne. Thanks for speaking to us about your artwork and time in the art centres near Alice Springs. Wayne Eager is represented by Australian Galleries - 'Wayne Eager is a gestural artist, absorbed with form, colour and texture. His method is based on the accretion of subsequent layers from which his paintings find their form. He was a founding member of the dynamic artist-run-exhibiting space, Roar Studios, in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the first such venture in Australia. His early works were exhibited there in 1982. Eager has spent much of his career living and working in the remote Central Australian Desert. His experience of the light and unique features of the Northern Territory landscape have been the fundamental foundation to his oeuvre over the last 30 years. In 2021, Eager relocated back to semi-rural life in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. In the same year, the artist was honored by a 30-year survey exhibition, ‘Bitumen and Dirt’, which opened at the Charles Darwin University Gallery, Darwin, and then travelled to the Araluen Art Centre in Alice Springs.' Marina Strocchi is also represented by Australian Galleries - 'In 2021 Marina Strocchi returned to her home town Melbourne after a twenty-nine year sojourn in the Northern Territory. Strocchi was closely involved in supporting the development of a number of First Nations artists, initially through establishing the Ikuntji Art Centre in 1992 and then working with the Kintore women to catalyse their painting which led to a vigorous output through Papunya Tula. During these decades she developed her painting responses to the remote landscapes and narratives that are unique to the Central Desert. Strocchi has held over forty solo exhibitions including a Northern Territory touring survey exhibition with an accompanying catalogue. Awarded an ARTS NT Fellowship in 2019 Strocchi had a three month residency in New York City. Now settled in the Yarra Valley Strocchi is responding to memories of that experience and absorbing her new environment.
