Rilka Oakley: upcoming artist-in-residence

Close to Home, 2013, group exhibition curated by Rilka Oakley at Blue Moutains Cultural Centre
Gallery view with work by Ben Denham and Joan Ross

www.bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au/blue-mountains-art-gallery/past-exhibitions 

Rilka Oakley is a Blue Mountains based curator working within contemporary practice. She has been working in arts administration and curatorial positions since finishing her arts degree in the mid 1990s. Rilka has worked at the Biennale of Sydney on the 1998 and 2000 editions, Ivan Dougherty Gallery as curator from 2000 until early 2009 and most recently at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Katoomba, as Curator since October 2012. Recent exhibitions include Close to Home (2013), Making Ground: Blue Mountains as Material (2013), Keepsake (2013) and most recently Desire (2014) featuring work by Joyce Hinterding and David Haines, Sarah Breen Lovett, Mike Parr, Joan Ross, and Ken and Julia Yonetani. Previous exhibitions of note include Intimacy (2007) Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Face Value (2005) Ivan Dougherty Gallery and touring to New Zealand in 2007, Crimson Threads (2003) VCA Gallery, Melbourne & touring in 2004 to Gosford Regional Art Gallery and Tamworth City Gallery.

Making Ground, 2013, group exhibition curated by Rilka Oakley at Blue Moutains Cultural Centre
Gallery view with work by Tony Lennon in the foreground
www.bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au/blue-mountains-art-gallery/past-exhibitions 

My curatorial practice comes from the excitement I feel when I encounter excellent art. From early experiences at the 1986 Biennale of Sydney I have been fascinated with, and engaged by, artists’ imagination and their creative output. I will use the Gunyah residency to allow curatorial ideas to form. To read and contemplate and let the impossible ideas take hold - see if they have any validity. I would write and test ideas and see what evolves with some space and time.

Rilka Oakley