Like an echo across time and now through the eyes of an adult I revisit the theme of the home, along with other favourite themes and ideas inspired by everyday life and memories of the Australian countryside, city life, travel and literature.
Peter Smets’ new body of work again accents the consequences of progress and technological change upon the landscape and its inhabitants. Carefully researched source material has been meticulously reconstructed in the studio where significant imagery was lifted out of its original context and presented as aesthetic phenomena. The sense of actual place is ambiguous but we inevitably feel a familiarity. Although cultural, environmental and economic interests are implicit, the paintings have an extraordinary psychological presence and metaphorical relevance.
Jodie’s art makes no attempt to capture flora and fauna as a naturalist painter might do. An intense involvement with the materiality of her oil medium lifts her imagery beyond mere representation. The instinctual energy of Jodie’s luscious markings radiates a direct, sensory appeal. We encounter nature in all its textural vividness through the gestural freedom and quality of her palette knife technique. The vitality of Jodie’s tactile surfaces offers an alternative way to respond to our own environments – to experience the pleasure in just looking and feeling without recourse to analysis.
Sir Gawain and the Perilous Graveyard is the final book in Marilyn Peck’s Sir Gawain Trilogy. It is based on a chivalric romance written by an anonymous author in 13th century, the manuscript of which is preserved in the Musee Conde, Chantilly, France. As in Peck’s previous works the text was personally translated from Middle English diction and subsequently illuminated. Fifty-four sumptuous illustrations aspire to manifest the esoteric dimensions inherent in all Arthurian tales.
In cultures dominated by logic, intellect and linear thinking, life can become a problem to be solved rather than a mystery to be enjoyed. Sydney-based Sophie Gralton’s signature imagery animates a shift in consciousness back to a more intuitive realm – that of the vulnerable innocence, curiosity, spontaneity and unbounded potentiality which characterises childhood.
The Charles Blackman survey exhibition at Anthea Polson Art celebrates the ninetieth year of one of Australia’s greatest cultural icons. Charles passed away shortly after his birthday in August this year. A vital force in every sense, he kept working right up until his final days, bringing forth quite illuminated and spiritual images.
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.
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