Presented with Perth Festival.

“I was worried about revisiting my old home and going inside the house, but I had no real connection at all. Everything that was in my mind had gone and I felt a strange relief. On my way out of town that evening I thought of how many people had left and never returned, just left for good. I’d never thought about that before” – Brad Rimmer 

Loom of the Land brings together three interconnected bodies of work from artist Brad Rimmer’s wheatbelt trilogy in a major survey exhibition. Silence (2009), Nature Boy (2019), and Nowhere Near (2023) have been created over two decades during Rimmer’s return journeys to the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, the landscape of his youth.  Working in documentary photography, Rimmer’s work captures the Wheatbelt’s landscapes and communities with sensitivity and depth, as he brings a sense of drama and cinematic attention to scenes that might otherwise go unnoticed.  

The emotional register of these photographs is amplified by two newly commissioned and site responsive works that breathe life into abandoned Wheatbelt town halls – once vibrant social hubs, the Tinder of their communities now stand as silent relics of another era. The video works capture evocative musical compositions, composed and performed by Emily Barker and Mark Holdsworth and reinvigorate these spaces of memory, connection and change. 

This exhibition surveys Rimmer’s celebrated artistic enquiry over the last twenty years and boldly develops a new direction in his accomplished practice.  

Presented by Perth Festival and Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre 

Brad Rimmer is represented by Art Collective WA