Peter Solness

Peter Solness – Holtermann Projections, Hill End

Henry Beaufoy Merlin impersonator (Peter Solness) and assistant, Charles Bayliss (Jane Collins) will be participating in the Henry Lawson Heritage Festival this year. Opening on Saturday 10th June 2023 is an exhibition featuring photographs by Peter Solness.

It was Henry Beaufoy Merlin who took most of the earlier landscape views in the Holtermann Collection and who, over an incredible ten years between 1863 and 1873, transformed himself from a theatrical showman into a landscape photographer, acknowledged by his contemporaries as one of the most important in Australia.

Peter is a multi-award winning photographer, artist, educator and writer who specialises in the photographic method of Light Painting.

Our museum will host an exhibition of photographs by award-winning photographer Peter Solness. The exhibition features a series of works Peter created in Hill End featuring photographs from the Holtermann Collection.

To create these works Peter set out night after night with a projector powered by a car battery, camera, tripod and torch, projecting images from the collection onto a range of sites in the town. Some of the projections relate directly to the locations themselves whilst others are chosen for their artistic value.

The Hill End Projection work will be exhibited in the theatrette of our museum, sharing a contemporary use of Hill End images from the Holtermann Collection.

Holtermann Projection #3, Royal Hotel, Hill End 2016

At night a moving projection walking tour featuring Holtermann photos taken in Gulgong during 1872. This one-off night event is not to be missed and will feature photographs taken during the Goldrush era of Gulgong.

The exhibition of Holtermann Projection series at Hill End will launch on Saturday 10 June 2023 at 4pm until 6pm.

Open daily from 10am until 3pm.