ON EXHIBITION @ The Centre Beaudesert

The work presented in Two Films has been made, almost wholly, within the geographical confines of the Scenic Rim area. Known as both an area of significant artistic activity, as well as a crucial location for the film industry, cinema rarely responds to the region’s specifics. You are more likely to see the rainforest of Tamborine recast as a distant jungle, than the habitat from which much local history springs forth from, whether this be indigenous histories, the legacy of timber getting, or contemporary conservation activity.

Initially training as a studio artist, Two Films represents the self-taught filmmaking process Felix has developed in recent years. The subtropical rainforests of Tamborine Mountain, or the temperate forests further west in the range, feature heavily in both works presented.

Hilda is one of the films featured in this exhibition, and depicts a feminine friendship in the early decades of the previous century. The film is set against a backdrop of the already diminishing Australian rainforest. As the day progresses we see the pair venture deeper into the vegetation, the more familiar of the two wielding an ageing plate camera.

Loosely drawn from the pioneering, though largely unknown, work of amateur naturalist Hilda Geissmann-Curtis (1890-1988), the ensuing images are reproductions of her studies of wild orchids.

Hilda explores the remoteness of the women’s new home in relation to their pursuit of creative acts. 

In the Wilderness, a Fragment is a short film shot in 2021 between Tamborine and the Main Range National Park area of Scenic Rim. This two-part film incorporates both anthropogenic and natural imagery.