Nola Tegel and Patricia Johnston are ‘just the two of us’

Time was short when I started putting together this story about a new Nola Tegel and Patricia Johnston art exhibition at the Cobbitty Gallery.

It was decided that email was the most efficient tool for this task, so I politely instructed the artists to open a new email addressed to me and start writing about themselves.

As is the case with female artists, they turned out to be very kind and generous, sending more than enough information about their art and their long friendship.

They even revealed their ages to me – because I asked, as a journalist must, even of women – but with the addendum: “is that important?’’

Well, I like to think I am an old school gentleman, so you won’t see their actual age numbers revealed in this story about Just the two of Us, as the exhibition is titled.

Let’s just say, so readers can get a ballpark idea, both artists have been around the block one or two times.

Both are also locals, Patricia around 65 years, while Nola is fourth generation Camden.

However, after discovering what a fascinating pair Nola and Patricia are, I was left with a conundrum.

Don’t worry, it was a good challenge: write a story encouraging readers to head to Cobbitty to enjoy the art works on display or the opportunity to meet two absolute Macarthur region legends?

Well, I will leave that to you, dear reader.

“Patricia and I have been close friends from the beginning of our art career and that seems like a lifetime,’’ says Nola, who explains how the friendship got off the ground, as it were.

“It all started when Alan Baker started a painting group at Camden 1970. He didn’t teach but directed and drew along with all.

“While that was a great start, we wanted more.’’

The pair went off to the Royal Art Society in North Sydney to formally learn about art.

“Firstly, after some time, we became exhibiting members, then associates,’’ says Nola.

“Then the final accolade of becoming Fellows of the Royal Art Society of NSW, so we are now Nola Tegel FRAS and Patricia Johnston FRAS.’’

After becoming a fellow, Nola held her first exhibition at the Maitland Art Gallery, followed by another closer to home, the Campbelltown Arts Centre.

She has won plenty of awards for her art, the most recent in the Fishers Ghost art prize in 2022.

This painting will be in the exhibition at the Tegel gallery in Cobbitty, which will have a formal opening tomorrow evening (Friday, October 18), then be open to the public from Saturday.

Her partner in crime Patricia Johnston has also won many art prizes over the years, with her most recent honour being overall winner at the 2024 Camden Art Prize.

“Nola and I have exhibited together for many years from our very first at Artisan Gallery in Mittagong in 1973 until this one in the beautiful Tegel gallery in Cobbitty,’’ says Patricia.

This new exhibition at Cobbitty contains works from here and overseas: these two like to travel, a lot, so there will be plenty of paintings done in their style, in the open air, or plein air as the French say it hanging on the gallery’s walls.

China, Burma, Morocco, France, Italy and others – yep, Nola and Patricia have been everywhere, man.

 “The exhibition theme is a celebration of friendship and a life long love of art,’’ is how Patricia describes it.

Please note the exhibition (October 19-27) will be closed on Monday and Tuesday of next week.