Ballarat's Backspace Gallery hosts debut solo exhibition for Lisa Gervasoni

Lisa Gervasoni drew on both her experience as a council planner and themes from Austrian-born colonial landscape painter Eugene von Guérard for her exhibition.

"It's about challenging the normal perception of things, but still seeing the places," she said.

Gervasoni had spent about two years putting together the exhibition, which includes almost 20 individual pieces.

"Two years of work, but a lot of work over the last 12 months," she said.

"Once the exhibition was confirmed, it was a real sort of work program to make sure that we delivered them."

Using shape and colour, Gervasoni depicts parts of the landscape from a town planning point of view.

Sometimes the colours depict different planning zones, while sometimes the shapes can differentiate between urban, farming and plantation land.

Other work, including a piece entitled Kooroocheang from Mt Franklin takes inspiration from von Guérard's work but moves the subjects around.

"It's actually changing the focal point and looking at the patterns in the landscape," Gervasoni said.

"It's looking for meaningful connections through time, but it's reinterpreting the classic views that we knew."

Gervasoni describes her introduction to art as a "lifelong education through family".

Her older sister was a museum curator and then went on to become an art teacher.

Gervasoni said she has plenty of memories spending time in art galleries with her family.

Her planning background had a strong influence on her more formal art practice.

"Back in the day when I did planning, you also had to do a bit of surveying and cartography," Gervasoni said.

"You didn't have computer-aided design systems, you actually drew things."

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Gervasoni experienced working in the heritage space has also influenced her work.

"Where you look at the significance, you look at what makes fabric, what makes a place," she said.

"I think it's all come forward [into the art]."

Gervasoni said her art practice could go through phases, including photography. This exhibition largely focuses on painting, with a few embroidered pieces.

Gervasoni said her sister described the embroidery as "strictly ballroom embroidery. "There's no rules," she said.

"It is a little bit different; a similar style, just a different medium."

Reimaging our Cultural Landscapes can be viewed in the Backspace at the Ballarat Art Gallery.

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