Image: Steve MARS
Ducks on Lake Benalla, 2026
pastel on paper
Gallery Shop
5—31 January 2027
In this exhibition, Steve Mars explores three water-based aspects of inland Australia. The first is a suite of A4 pastel works depicting Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre and the rugged Vulkathunha–Flinders Ranges during an exceptional high-water period. Based on a flight taken in June 2026, when water levels were near their highest in more than 50 years, these works observe the landscape from the air and transform its vast, shifting expanses into studies of colour, distance and place. A second group presents mixed-media, watercolour-based works originally featured in the 2027 calendar Broken River: Mansfield to Shepparton, marking Mars’s first exploration of the wider Benalla landscape. The third comprises intimate pastel studies of the shoreline of Lake Benalla. Together, the works invite viewers to encounter familiar and remote country through the attentive eye of an artist shaped by a lifelong interest in landscape, heritage and the built environment.
Artist Bio
Steve Mars moved to Benalla from Tasmania in late 2025, bringing with him a practice informed by art, place and more than 30 years as a town planner. After retiring from his professional career in 2008, he lived in Wentworth at the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers and devoted more time to making art. He later completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours at La Trobe University before returning to Tasmania in 2014.
Mars’s post-university work frequently explores landscapes, heritage and the built environment, reflecting the influence of his planning career. His practice is nevertheless wide-ranging and playful. Previous exhibitions have featured dogs, motorbikes, Kalgoorlie beasts, his own hands and glass sculpture.
His varied path includes a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tasmania, a Diploma in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New England, and a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours from La Trobe University. Alongside his work as a high school teacher in the 1970s and a town planner from the late 1970s until the late 2000s, Mars practised Viet Vo Dao at the University of Tasmania from 1980 to 2000 and has been a drummer since the 1960s.
Mars’s artistic journey is also closely connected to his recovery from a stroke in 2000. His Honours exegesis, The Art of My Stroke, examined that experience, and returning to university to study visual arts became an important part of his recovery. Now comfortably ambidextrous, Mars regards art as a powerful example of what may be possible following a serious medical event.
Benalla also holds a strong family connection for Mars. Both sides of his family descend from Victorian gold-rush migrants associated with Beechworth and Bendigo. His father was among the early graduates of Wangaratta Technical College in the 1930s, held his first substantial job with Benalla Council and played cricket with the Bushrangers. For Mars, settling in Benalla offers a meaningful base from which to explore this family heritage and the inland Australian environments that remain among his favourite places.
Works for sale in the Gallery Shop are available for purchase from Benalla Art Gallery, or by contacting the Gallery: T 03 5760 2619 or gallery@benalla.vic.gov.au
