Creative conversations: Hoop Gallery (without walls)

Geelong Gallery partners with Hoop Gallery (without walls) to host a creative conversation with the artist, Mick Sowry, in conversation with Hoop Gallery President, Virginia Aldred. The conversation will explore Sowry’s unique journey, creative practice, and the importance of empowering local artist’s voices in this region.

Hoop Gallery is a not-for-profit art gallery located in Torquay on the Surf Coast of Victoria. The Gallery is managed by Surf Coast Art Space (SCAS) Inc, a community organisation that supports local artists by providing a platform for them to showcase and sell their work. The gallery promotes contemporary art and creates opportunities for emerging and established artists to connect with local and visiting audiences.

Mick Sowry is an award-winning writer, producer and director of two films, The Reef (2012), and The Reef Redux (2015), and the documentary Musica Surfica (2008). All were made in collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He is the creative director and co-publisher of Great Ocean Quarterly, a journal of art, ideas and the sea and his work has featured in The Surfer's Journal, Surfing World, Surfline, Great Ocean Quarterly, and Roaring Journals.

In 2022, Mick appeared as a spoken word artist at the Lorne Sculpture Biennale, and in the same year published a spark becomes an is — a limited-edition hardbound book of photography, poetry and prose, precipitated by the sudden death of his wife, Sue, in 2019.

Mick's large format photographic work featured in his 2023 solo exhibition Spark at Hoop Gallery and later that year in the group show South West at Boom Gallery. Just recently he featured in the Hoop Gallery final group show, Placemakers, just prior to the Gallery’s closure for renovations.

Image: Mick Sowry, I Keep Coming Back 2020

Host or Publisher Geelong Gallery