Grahame Wilson

Mr GREG PIPER (Lake Macquarie)—I'd like to acknowledge the tremendous contribution Lake Macquarie artist Grahame Wilson has made to promote and celebrate visual arts across the Hunter Valley. Grahame is a well-known Lake Macquarie artist who, along with his wife and fellow artist Rebecca Murray, own and operate the Flying Spanners Gallery at Teralba. Recently, Grahame invested his entire life savings of $50,000 into organising and hosting the inaugural Sculptures at Scratchley exhibition. The exhibition took place over two weeks in May 2023 and was a huge success. A total of 34 artists from across the country and overseas came together to display an impressive 48 sculptures in the historic Fort Scratchley precinct, with around 20,000 people coming to view the exhibition. Grahame said the idea for Sculptures at Scratchley was born from a moment of madness five months ago when he had a vision to organise an exhibition along Newcastle's coastline. This is the first time an exhibition of this kind has been held in the area. I'd like to thank Grahame for his efforts and congratulate him on the exhibition's success.