Robert Ryan has always immersed himself in the process of life, his paintings interpreting and distilling experience. His new body of work documents recent wayfaring through landscapes of place, time and consciousness. Although embodying two distinct painting styles, the underlying theme remains the individual’s relationship to one’s surroundings and situation. Ryan explains that the show’s title, Moving Backwards, refers not to any sense of reversion or a hankering for bygone circumstances, but the convoluting aspects encountered in relocating home and studio to a faraway region of ancestral significance.
The term ‘rabbit hole’ is a metaphor for an entry into the unknown. Stemming from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it refers to a journey through nonsensical situations that become increasingly surreal and disorienting. To view Sunshine Coast-based Veronica Cay’s new series of works is to plummet into such a realm. Cay describes…
Howson’s paintings have never been literal representations. Although triangular-roofed houses inform the imagery, they exist as a visual language. His concern lies more in using them as vehicles for abstract investigations into colour value and pictorial structure. Every geometrical shape and motif has been carefully composed to produce aesthetic outcomes. The utilisation of a…
One cannot help but respond to the sense of joie de vivre expressed in Martin Edge’s brightly coloured paintings. It is a quality that earned his work a placement in Canberra’s Parliament House Collection and Artbank, as well as being a finalist in the prestigious Salon des Refuses for three years running. Innately optimistic, Martin paints that which delights him.
Rather than being realistic representations, Quinn’s paintings seek to convey the experience of an immersion in landscape and the joy of special times shared with family and friends. She recounts how everyday concerns evaporate when looking into the expanse above and beyond; her skin brushed by a gentle breeze carrying the clean, salty smell of the sea; the air alive with a chorus of insects.
Acclaimed photographer Samantha Everton will this year present Indochine, a dynamic new exhibition series which explores the intersection of Western influences and Eastern traditions. Indochine depicts a woman navigating the conflicting cultural pressures of the East and the West. Exuding visual luxury and vivid sensuality, the artworks plunge the viewer into a colour-saturated dreamscape. The series explores the encroachment of Western fashion within Asian cultures and the struggle for authenticity amidst contemporary influences.
Sunshine generally connotes warmth, vitality and a sense of contentment. In many world traditions it is synonymous with the radiance of spiritual enlightenment. Although philosophical and ecological musings inform the imagery in Seabastion Toast’s new body of work, her intention is more to do with sunshine’s power to illuminate and educe form. The title of the exhibition really describes what we do as painters, explains Toast. Everything we see is a reflection of light. My subjects operate to map the beams of light as they bounce off form. I am searching for the visual rhythms.
Huge skies vault over brown-grassed plains that stretch to distant horizons. A single house stands seemingly mute in the absence of human habitation. The sense of quietude is profound, but look more closely at Melitta Perry’s landscapes, something is astir – the quickening.
Autumnal harvest festivals throughout the ages have celebrated the forces of nature, bringing the community together to share the joy of abundance and listen to bardic ruminations. The art of storytelling was highly valued for it was the means by which a culture’s traditions and values were kept alive through tales both entertaining and instructive. Aptly titled and timed, Melissa Egan’s latest exhibition presents as a visual cornucopia harvested from the fertile depths of an imagination that ‘garlands’ personal experience and historical vignettes.
Robyn Sweaney is renowned for her images of houses that signify something beyond their often unremarkable facades. A distillation of observed and remembered phenomena, her paintings conjure a sense of introspective quietude. She has always been interested in architectonic precepts, particularly those pertaining to post-war Modernism. Her new body of work however, has been subtly infused with ideas fostered as a consequence of reading the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius’ theories. He believed that architecture affected the everyday life of citizens and therefore should emulate the universal laws of nature.
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