barbara romalis

Born in 1933 , Barbara grew up in Kensington, Sydney .

After completing the Leaving certificate in 1950, Barbara went on the study art at national Art School at East Sydney Tech. She completed a five year diploma in painting as well as many part time night classes including sculpture, life modelling, pottery, hotel and restaurant cookery, fabrics and paper printmaking. She was elected as the president of the student union and evolved ideas to create scholarships for less fortunate students. The art student ball was also re-arranged to make it more accessable for all students.

She married Nick Romalis in 1956 and moved to Wedderburn, a small orcharding district near Campbelltown NSW. After several years and 2 sons she began teaching and having small exhibitions at this place called "Wombat". These exhibitions grew to major proportions over the next 25 years and many well known artists were among the invited exhibitors. During this time she also exhibited in regional galleries in Orange and Bathurst and in small private galleries.

With the arrival of the third son she found that the time had come to make a break from painting and embraced many fields of craft, which fitted in more easily with a young family. She taught adults in her two studios at this time as well as developing her interests in pottery, which included digging and processing the clay bodies, building and firing wood kilns and attending master classes in Wollongong.

Jewellery making, including master classes in Sydney, with an accent on silversmithing developed of metal working skills in general.. This led to larger metal sculpture and the series - Australian Insect Collection - which was her topic for the invited exhibition by the Australian Craft Council at Centrepoint in Sydney, and then at the inaugaural Australian Craft show where she won the best display award. She was then invited show the insects in a one man show at the Australian Museum. This was followed by an exhibition of the life size copper black cockatoos at the same venue. The insects and the cockatoos were also the theme of the work taken to Yulara and exhibited in the gallery there where she was artist in residence for a month in both1987 and 1988 .. This medium remains one of her main interests to this day.

While in Wedderburn she and Nick established a community of artists on a ten acre block of their bushland. This gift of land allowed some very important artists to build their studios without the expense of buying land. The involvement on the building of the Campbelltown Regional Art Gallery while she was president of "The Friends" and Local Council representative on the Regional galleries Association was followed by membership of the Bi Centennial Committee where $1,000.000 was raised to build the gallery which was completed on time and on budget. These two activities were the criteria for Barbara being awarded an OAM in 2001 for services to the art community of Campbelltown.

In 1988 she and Nick moved permanently to the South Coast and then to the property they had bought, The Priory in Bingie, where they still live.

Two galleries in the region played an important part in showing her work at this time The Hidden Valley gallery at Bodalla where Barbara was an inuagural exhibitor and where she curated two exhibitions including one with her colleagues from Wedderburn. The second gallery was the delightful Nelligen gallery who showed her jewellery and cockatoos for several years.

Barbara designed the house and gardens at The Priory, and slowly evolved the gallery spaces from small beginnings. Exhibitions have been held at The Priory at Bingie since 2000.There have been annual exhibitions there until 2005 when 4 shows a year were commenced with open weekends.

One of the Wedderburn painters and old friend Elisabeth Cummings has collaborated with Barbara over the last 35 years in decorating her pots with her wonderful whimsical drawings, and this collaboration is ongoing today.

Sculptor Richard Moffatt and jeweller Virginia Aland are the resident artists with Barbara at the gallery, supported by invited artists

Barbara is now involved in the forward planning for a gallery on the south coast and hopes her previous experience will be of help in this project.

Website: www.bingie.com