Brother and sister act takes centre stage at Northern Rivers Community Gallery
Most sibling collaborations get no further than shared sketchbooks — or perhaps the family fridge in primary school.
For Jacqueline and Dane Scotcher, that early creative lineage has resurfaced decades later as a fully realised joint exhibition at Ballina’s Northern Rivers Community Gallery.
Their exhibition, Boundary Rider, occupies the gallery’s central space and anchors the venue’s first exhibition program of 2026, bringing together two distinct practices shaped by the same region, history and rhythms of place.
Although both artists have exhibited widely in their own right, this marks the first time they have worked together from the outset.
“We’ve done a few works here and there,” Dane Scotcher said, “but this is the first one where we decided to work together — in the making, start to finish.”
Shared origins, divergent practices
The Scotchers work in different mediums but return repeatedly to the same conceptual ground.
Jacqueline Scotcher’s abstract paintings are built from accumulated impressions rather than literal depictions of landscape.
“It’s not one epic vista or one clear view,” she said. “It’s lots of moments built into an atmosphere.”
Her work draws on repeated observations of the natural world — tides, moonrise, coastal light — layered to suggest place as something experienced over time.
Dane Scotcher approaches similar ideas through slow, looping digital animation. His works have no defined beginning or end, designed to mirror the continuous rhythms found in nature.
“It’s like a two-minute loop,” he said. “It just keeps going. There’s no start or finish.”
Despite the contrast between paint and projection, the siblings see their work as operating within a shared framework.
“We both have the same ingredients,” Jacqueline said. “Natural rhythm.”
Riding the boundary
The exhibition title reflects how the artists understand their role.
“As artists, you kind of ride the boundary between the real world — nature — and the imagined,” Jacqueline said. “The work shifts between things that are recognisable and then the imagination.”
That boundary is also present in material terms. Jacqueline’s practice emphasises touch and physicality, while Dane’s digital work explores calm and connection through technology.
“By making time to connect with nature, you’re being present in place,” Dane said. “Rather than distracted in an online space.”
A room that asks for time
Installed in the gallery’s central exhibition space, Boundary Rider carries a noticeably settled and cohesive energy.
There is no sense of two separate practices competing for attention. Instead, the room feels unified — shaped by shared sensibility, long familiarity, and a common engagement with landscape.
Whether this calm stems from familial connection, shared upbringing, or the earthiness of the works themselves, the effect is unmistakable. The space invites visitors to slow down, remain, and look closely.
Above: Proud former teacher Kathy Reid, standing before one of Dane Scotcher’s digital animations
Main Image: Dane and Jacqueline Scotcher with one of Jacqui’s wall of works
Teachers, roots and continuity
The sense of continuity was reinforced on opening night by the presence of their former Lismore High School art teacher Kathy Reid, who taught both siblings during their senior years and was impressed by their early talent.
“With Dane, he was really inside his culture,” Ms Reid said. “His major works were painted on skateboards. It was fresh and authentic.”
Of Jacqueline, she recalled an instinctive way of seeing and was unsurprised when her HSC major work was selected to tour NSW as a key part of the annual ArtExpress exhibition.
“She was photographing everything,” Ms Reid said. “Anything at all. And I remember thinking, there it is — there’s your artwork.”
Ms Reid described both artists as having an authentic engagement with place that has carried through into their professional lives.
“They were lovely kids then,” she said, “and they’re doing really lovely things now.”
A darker counterpoint next door
Alongside the Scotchers’ exhibition is Temporal Collapse by Ballina-based artist Linsey Gosper, offering a more ritual-driven and introspective counterpoint.
Gosper works exclusively with analogue photography, producing images in her home darkroom and creating fabric works developed outdoors using sunlight, stencils and found objects.
Linsey Gosper
“I think of my practice as an intersection between art and magic,” Gosper said. “My art making is a sort of devotional tool.”
Central to the exhibition is the altar, presented as a site of ritual, offering and inner experience.
While Gosper describes the work as niche, she says it has developed a loyal commercial following.
Four exhibitions, now through to March
The January program also includes Into the Forest by Karyn Fendley and A Light Hold by Eliza Adam, both exploring landscape and place through different lenses.
All four exhibitions opened on Thursday, January 8, and continue until Sunday, March 1.
At its centre, Boundary Rider stands as a rare and considered sibling collaboration — one that traces a shared creative origin, then allows two mature practices to meet on equal terms.
