Bank Manager Hour by Courtney Young debuts at Murray Art Museum Albury

Is it time to relax, reflect, and take in the idyllic landscape?

No, it's bank manager hour - the time to reduce the brilliant work of nature and human toil into a monetary value.

Murray Art Museum Albury's latest exhibition, Bank Manager Hour, by Rutherglen artist and regenerative farmer Courtney Young, explores the corporatisation of agriculture through an environmental and cultural lens.

"Bank manager hour refers to the late afternoon when the farm is looking its best, and I think it's quite funny that we refer to this beautiful time of day in an economic framework," Young said.

"Farming can be really beautiful in terms of its social and environmental potential, but it's also dominated by this pretty messed up economic system, and I think that's something that needs to change."

Young studied art history at university before moving to a Rutherglen property in 2021, and started painting full-time six years ago following the birth of her daughter.

Her work, characterised by vibrant colours, layers and textures, weaves together memories and stories from her childhood and those of her children.

"When I first started working on these paintings, I was interested in looking at the lack of diversity in the farming community around here," she said.

"But in doing that, I ended up focusing on my own family and experience.

"So I've drawn on many memories of my own, and I think people will connect with those memories of farms, like bottle feeding a pet lamb or going yabbying."

Beyond art, Young is a passionate environmentalist.

She has long seen a divide between farming and conservation, but now she believes in the potential of producing food in an environmentally and socially positive manner - a theme central to her exhibition.

"It's really sad that a lot of farmers aren't eating the food they're producing," she said.

"I think there's huge potential to address community health and community welfare through farming if we can address our food systems and make them not so centralised.

"We need to re-localise our food systems in some way."

The exhibition will run until January 21, 2024, and Young will give a free artist talk at MAMA on Saturday, November 25, from 10.30am to 11.30am.

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