Botanica - Group exhibition of oil paintings at Despard Gallery 26 June until 21st July
Contact hobart@despard-gallery.com.au for enquiries
This body of work was conceived while hiking through the Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair alpine wilderness region of Tasmania. On a month long expedition that included trekking for days up massive mountains covered in wildflowers and camping beside moss carpeted creeks my love of this incredible landscape is captured in every stoke. The memory of wind roaring over the pass, the smell of thousands of tiny wetland plants and the tiny shape of primitive leaves of very old trees are all embedded in these paintings.
Through this process of observation and painting directly from nature I am able to retain a strong memory of place and emotional response to the landscape. This gritty wild essence of Tasmania's alpine environment particularly inspires me for the diversity of flora, colours, textures and forms and an underlying energy that only comes from a place relatively untouched by human intervention.
The colours, textures and simplified forms are all inspired by observation of nature, yet through the use of non-literal colour and non-literal perspective the paintings become not only a spiritual and emotional response but also an analytical response to colour relationships, surface textures and abstracting form. The layering of line and painterly surfaces also adds another degree of literal depth yet also references the thousands of years of layered plant growth.
Through this process of observation and painting directly from nature I am able to retain a strong memory of place and emotional response to the landscape. This gritty wild essence of Tasmania's alpine environment particularly inspires me for the diversity of flora, colours, textures and forms and an underlying energy that only comes from a place relatively untouched by human intervention.
The colours, textures and simplified forms are all inspired by observation of nature, yet through the use of non-literal colour and non-literal perspective the paintings become not only a spiritual and emotional response but also an analytical response to colour relationships, surface textures and abstracting form. The layering of line and painterly surfaces also adds another degree of literal depth yet also references the thousands of years of layered plant growth.
Group landscape exhibition of paintings opening in July 2019 at AK Bellinger gallery
Contact akbellinger@outlook.com or ph 0439180346 for enquiries.
Modern Love group exhibition at AKBellinger gallery 2019
Photography by Simon Kennedy