Warrnambool Redux, Victoria

25/9/2023

We last visited Warrnambool in November 2018 and loved it so much we wanted to stay permanently. It was lovely to return and still have the same feeling for this rugged seaside town oozing with maritime history and a vibrant gourmet food and artistic scene, which reminds us very much of Albany in Western Australia. We met new local James, at the Grape and Barley, a craft beer aficionado now living in Warrnambool with his Mum after being priced out of the competitive rental market in Melbourne, and Simone and Richard also from Melbourne who had stopped over in Warrnambool on their way to see family near Robe in South Australia.

Enjoying a craft beer at Grape and Barley

Enjoying an ice cream at Frost Bites Ice Creamery

Patiently waiting for coffee at the Kiosk cafe on the waterfront

Warrnambool Art Gallery (WAG)

Exhibition: "There's no place like home" curated by Serena Wong "looks at both the good and the bad as equal threads in the story of this nation."

"Untitled" 2007-2010 by Vicki Couzens, Gunditmara Keerray Woorroong people, born in Warrnambool in 1960

Screenprints 1987 by Sally Morgan, Palyku people, born in 1951

"Descendents" 1987 by Byron Pickett, Nyoongar people, born in 1955

"Tower Hill" 1855 by Eugene von Guerard, born in Vienna in 1811

Exhibition: Local artist Rachel Robb uses oil to create slow, small-scale paintings that merge the mundane with the sublime in a traditional still-life format

Exhibition: "Structures of Feelings" aligns the work of two ground-breaking Australian artists from different generations, Paul Yore (1987-) and Albert Tucker (1914-1999) to interrogate the response by each artist to their socio-political surroundings. "By aligning the practices of Tucker and Yore, the exhibition draws attention to the incredible power that cultural regimes wield in shaping belief systems."