Autumn & Spring

June 22 – November 7, 2021 Australian Galleries, Sydney

artist talk, Saturday November 6 at 2:00PM = please rsvp sydney@australiangalleries.com.au

For over a decade my principal subject has been nature, with an underlying concern to reflect its beauty and mystery in a manner that is evocative and atmospheric. Autumn & Spring is an exhibition that reflects colours and moods in nature that have been experienced over this last year.

During Autumn 2020, in the midst of covid when we were confined to our immediate neighbourhood, life slowed down. It was a quiet and transitional space in our lives and I often chose to walk from home to my studio. It was on these walks, looking down that I noticed an assortment of disintegrating leaves close to the footpaths. These small fragments held fascination and beauty with their variety of colours, shapes, textures and patterns. Each one quite different. At times, I thought their forms echoed our experiences as we too were weathering the early stage of the pandemic. These leaves became my subject as I returned to painting in oils, utilising a rich Autumnal palette.

After enduring Winter, the arrival of Spring felt uplifting and glorious. This literally drew out from me a jubilant response, commencing with Wattle 2020, a large-scale charcoal drawing on yellow prepared paper, that was selected for The Dobell Prize for drawing#22 exhibition in March 2021. Since then, I have continued to experience an overwhelming desire to paint images of wattle or acacia, our national floral emblem and native plant.

Yellow, its predominant colour has been a joy to use and express a sense of luminosity and celebration.

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