St John of God Hospital foyer was packed with indigenous art and art connoisseurs for the opening of Barbara Merritt’s first solo exhibition. The renowned Yamaji artist unveiled the show last Friday, with a collection of traditional dot paintings and more modern collages.

Ms Merritt has exhibited internationally before, but she said the amount of effort required to put together the 16 pieces for the solo exhibition was far beyond anything she had done previously.

 “Luckily, I began some of the pieces last year, but the whole show took around two years,” she said. “A lot of these are dot paintings, but we’re trying to move away from the dots now and more into collages. “We started the collages in a workshop with artists from Sydney last year, and we’re hopefully going to do an exhibition for more collages very soon.”

St John of God director of mission Alison Dawson said the art was very helpful for the healing process.