Visitors to NERAM may have noticed that Margaret Olley’s wonderful Yellow Room triptych is not on the walls. So where is it? It has in fact gone to aestivate at the reconstruction of its original inspiration at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah.
The original yellow room in Olley’s Paddington home provided the setting for numerous interior and still life paintings created over a 40 year period. It has been recreated in Murwillumbah as the centrepiece of the Margaret Olley Art Centre at the Tweed Regional Gallery. A new exhibition at Murwillumbah that will run until 15 March centres on the yellow room with NERAM’s masterpiece at its centre.
Comparing the paintings in this exhibition to the Gallery’s re-creation of the yellow room gives unique insights into Olley’s vision. The small, unassuming, pale yellow room, via the alchemy of Olley’s poetic and immensely subjective vision becomes, before our very eyes, the sanctuary that she imagined it to be.
So while we may miss it we can be sure that the Yellow Room is enjoying renewing its connections with its source and NERAM is delighted that sharing the work can help create a frisson between art and reality in Murwillumbah. And of course it will be back!
