Lost Tales: Walking with Gods, which will open on Friday, July 7, is a collection of new paintings, stitched together in a wall-to-wall tapestry, with prose, sculptural and audio-visual elements.

It’s an opportunity to engage and experience aeons old stories in a completely new light, with works echoing the studies of Joseph Campbell or the worlds of Neil Gaiman. 

They will resonate deep in the heart of the Australian psyche through our connection to the myths and legends of the Indigenous people; gods, demons and creature that haunt us and the clash these ideas have with the more recent western mythologies to come to Australia.

“I’m creating new mythologies that grow and change all the time,” De Vries said.

“Presented as a whole; each painting is connected to all of the other and together they form a story set in the small town of Glen Innes in northern New South Wales. 

“You’ll see motifs from the local area and, in this exhibition, I explore the idea of gods from both western and Australian Indigenous pantheon mixing with each other and the local populace.

“This is a look inside the worlds that exist in my head, a sprawling place where all manner of creature from our psyche runs rampant. 

“It’s dark, a little disturbing but I love the play between the local mythology and the introduction of western mythologies – I love to see what happens when these things mix.”

The Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre’s Lost Tales: Walking with Gods exhibition takes place from July 8 to August 27.