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.
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.
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