Jeff Makin | snippetsandsnaps

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Davida Allen, Elizabeth Cummings, Jeff Makin, Jun Chen, Lisa Adams, Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery

This gallery suits my attention span beautifully. About 20 paintings, sparsely displayed, means I can pay due attention to each one without feeling overwhelmed. There are two current exhibitions: landscapes that have won the Tattersall Art Prize over the years, liberated from the Tattersall's club house in Brisbane as a travelling exhibition: and photographs from the Granite Belt Wine Country Photography Competition. There are also glass cases showcasing the works of local artists. All this in a spacious, low-ceilinged main room, and a smaller upstairs section.

The painting that spoke most to my own experience was the man painting the mountains, a tiny insignificant figure attempting to capture immensity: no image and no attribution because my photo was too blurry. Lisa Adams' tree swan appealed because fantasy was located very close to reality in a very real landscape, and I liked Davida Allen's improbable palette in Cattle in fog at sunrise and the luminosity of Jeff Makin's Rubicon Valley.

I'm attracted to the macro in paintings as I am in nature, so I've taken the liberty of segmenting a few paintings where the paint-work was particularly viscous, the brush strokes visible, and the colours rich as I savour the part as well as the whole: Elizabeth Cummings' Stradbroke noon and Jun Chen's Brisbane River.

The photos didn't hold as much interest because I can take photos, not as good as the ones exhibited, but in the zone. I cannot wield a paintbrush.