June 2019
Flock | Rachel Coad
“There can be no transforming of darkness into light, of apathy into movement without emotion.”1
Flock is an ambitious series of figurative paintings by Rachel Coad which revisit the warm, muted palette that dominated her early practice.
The subjects of these works are French backpackers who passed through Margaret River on their Australian travels. In exchange for board and lodging, Coad retained them as sitters in the studio, where she sketched, photographed and painted them....
Find out more »May 2019
The Divine Paradox | Charmaine Pike
The Divine Paradox draws upon elements of the Australian landscape to examine the fragility and strength of the human condition. Working both en plein air and in the studio, Charmaine Pike employs landforms as a vehicle for a dialogue on emotional states through personified rock-like formations which lean inwards and out, often precariously placed within bold compositions to create visual tension between space and form.
Pike’s brushstrokes and layers overlap in unorthodox combinations, in defiance of the accepted canon of the landscape genre which delineates fore/mid and background. Despite, or perhaps because of this, her works are assertive and robust. With confident mark-making at the core of her practice, Pike’s works have be likened to ‘drawings with paint’, and are driven by influences from the New York School and the late-career works of artists such as Philip Guston.
April 2019
The Peony Portrait Collection | Sam Michelle
The Peony Portrait Collection will be Sam Michelle's second solo exhibition at Gallerysmith. A VIP preview will take place on Saturday, April 6th in Melbourne. Places can be booked by emailing jess@gallerysmith.com.au. Those who sign up will be notified of the event details this week.
Find out more »February 2019
Passive Aggressive Power | Clinton Naina (formerly Nain)
In his first exhibition since joining Gallerysmith in 2018, Clinton Nain reveals a new series of paintings exploring the impact of power structures imposed since colonisation.
Find out more »January 2019
Minang Boodjar | Christopher Pease
In 1834, English explorer and artist, Robert Dale, produced a series of drawings of Australia's south west coast that are widely regarded as the most ambitious attempt to document the Australian landscape in the 19th century. Produced as a series of etchings totaling 3m long, Dale's work depicts rolling hills in a vast panorama and is dotted with depictions of harmonious relations between English settlers and the Nyoongar.
The six paintings which are collectively titled Minang Boodjar re-examine Dale's 19th century imagery at an epic scale in an attempt to focus our attention on the troubled notion of a romanticised account of colonisation.
October 2018
Navigate | Tim Allen
Tim Allen is a painter in the landscape tradition who works from a studio in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. His painting career spans more than 20 years and he has been awarded several prestigious awards such as the Paddington Art Prize in 2017. Navigate is his first solo exhibition at Gallerysmith.
Find out more »Recess | Martin King
Using William Strutt's epic Black Thursday as a starting point, Martin King has developed a new series of artworks and art objects which explore the somewhat mythical aspects of land, flora and fauna.
Find out more »September 2018
The Getty Collection | Sam Michelle
This online exhibition by Sam Michelle takes the J. Paul Getty Collection in LA as a starting point. Inspired by the gardens which surround the museum and objects within, Sam Michelle has developed a fresh body of work using seasonal fruit and flora in a range of compositions.
Find out more »Bloom | Lori Pensini
Lori Pensini explores her heritage and that of her family in her solo exhibition, Bloom. This body of work contains four large scale paintings which examine familial relationships and the personal and cultural connections which exist in pastoral Australia.
Find out more »Lure | Dena Kahan
Using museum collections as subject matter for still life painting, Dena Kahan plays with ambiguities of scale, space and reflection to undermine the clear containment of the museum case. In her exhibition, Lure, insects are drawn to these artificial replicas of the plant world. This imagery references the tradition of 17th century Dutch still life, in which plants and insects take on symbolic meanings and flowers of different seasons bloom together...
Find out more »July 2018
Blue Silence | Ian Friend
Ian Friend’s work reflects a rich engagement with jazz and classical music, poetry and architecture. Blue Silence pays homage to poets and artists, composers and musicians including those as diverse as Elena Kats-Chernin, Edward Elgar, Sol Gabetta and Piet Mondrian.
Find out more »Pedestal | Belinda Fox
Belinda Fox's exhibition, Pedestal, considers the notion that ideas which can be held as a beacon of hope can sometimes be flawed. It explores the imperfection which lies in the seemingly perfect. These works focus on this idea of a ‘fall from grace’ or the dismay that follows our naivety...
Find out more »June 2018
Woodland | Fiona Hiscock
Fiona Hiscock’s oversized ceramic vessels exist within a broader concept of functionalism, as a means to examine her interest in early colonial domestic objects such as water pitchers, basins and bowls. Taking these ideas as a starting point for her practice, her works have evolved to create their own language of decorated utilitarian objects which express her interest in native flora and fauna.
Hiscock’s works are hand-built using the coiling technique, then painted, glazed and fired. The painted images are derived from watercolour studies on paper, developed during intense periods in different landscape environments, most recently around Bundanon in NSW. Other works in this series look at the coastal banksia forests in far eastern Gippsland. Each work then considers the biodiversity of these environments. The result is a series of pitchers, vases, cassoulets and plates which together form an open-ended narrative of Australia’s unique biodiversity.
Limen | Adriane Strampp
Adriane Strampp’s process begins with a collection of photographs, obscure and obscured source material, a compilation of information gathered from places once visited which continue to have some pull or gravitas.
In her studio, fragments of reference material are rearranged, merged and edited to create a new ambiguous reality and a sense of discord; a response painted from the artist’s personal experiences and broader response to the current global climate.
May 2018
2018 BAYSIDE ACQUISITIVE ART AWARD
Bayside acquisitive art prize 18 May - 8 July, 2018The Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize (BAAP) is an annual prize and exhibition in Brighton, Melbourne. It is judged by industry professionals who award total prize monies and acquisitive funds of $19,000.
Find out more »April 2018
New Prismatics | Lyndal Hargrave
Complexity and repetition are key elements in this new series of paintings by Lyndal Hargrave. By modulating simple geometric shapes, the artist allows endless investigations of the subtle shifts of pattern, texture, colour and form.
Find out more »The Memory of Water | Sue Lovegrove
Using traditional techniques of Persian miniature illustration, Sue Lovegrove's new works are intimate works which chart quiet observations of moments in time. Each pairing of 8x4cm paintings present like pages in an open book that might rest in the palm of one’s hands.
Find out more »March 2018
Every NoThing | Catherine Nelson
An infinite video loop of disappearing flora is central to this photo-media exhibition. Catherine Nelson once again captures our imagination with dramatic imagery and haunting inferences in this unique and captivating exhibition.
Find out more »My Brother and the Beast | Eric Bridgeman
A large series of hand painted shields coupled with photographs, paintings and installation will feature in this expansive exhibition which explores Bridgeman's Papua New Guinean heritage.
The shield has always been associated with conflict, used in times of battle as personal armour and as potent symbol of power to attackers. In PNG culture, battles between tribes are a common means of dealing with disputes and maintaining social order. Here, the shield plays an important role in displaying status and power.
February 2018
Heartland | Ngaio Lenz
In an inadvertent nod to the slow-art movement, Heartland reveals paintings which express the memory of time, reflecting upon the flaws which appear along life’s long journey.
Find out more »January 2018
This Wild Song
An exhibition and fundraiser to enable This Wild Song to travel to Singapore in March.
Find out more »November 2017
Angel Song | Ian Friend
With a career spanning four decades, Ian Friend's new paintings on paper encapsulate many of the artist's longstanding concerns. Friend's work conjures his current thinking on political and social issues while also being developed in response to music, poetry and literature.
Find out more »The Long Wait for the Angel | Jennifer Goodman
The Long Wait for the Angel is Jennifer Goodman's 8th solo exhibition in her career and her third with Gallerysmith. Her work explores the complexities of colour and the subtleties of abstraction, resulting in a range of delicate, large scale oil on linen compositions. This exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by writer and curator, Chloe Wolifon.
Find out more »October 2017
The Cloth Collection | Sam Michelle
Sam Michelle is a Melbourne painter whose intimate paintings make a strong impact. Her new series, The Cloth Collection, is inspired by the gathering of flowers, ceramics and her growing collection of textiles.
Sam Michelle is among a younger generation of artists whose works engage both emerging and established collectors.
Memento | Kirrily Hammond
Memento is an exhibition of paintings inspired by my recent experiences living for a year in Belgium, soaking up Flemish art, the landscape and the northern light. Some of the paintings are based European urban environments, connecting directly to other works that depict my suburban environment here in Melbourne.
Whilst there is a transitory nature to the imagery, caught in the midst of busy family life, my detailed oil paintings on linen and copper are about capturing and cherishing these small, quiet moments of beauty in our everyday lives.
August 2017
The Mystery of Balance | Isobel Clement
Beauty is to be found in the mystery of balance.
Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci
- Alex Kerr, Lost Japan
Find out more »Restoration | Rachel Coad
Restoration is an ambitious series of portraits which capture the expressions that occur in the moment before a response to an idea or a question is articulated. In a return to the themes which dominated Coad’s 2014 series, Juncture, the artist endeavours to describe another unguarded moment in human interaction. Her figures engage with a series of situations which are not apparent to the viewer in a bid to examine the role of the spectator. She says, “We all find ourselves in conversations where, in a moment, we are observing rather that participating. I seek to recreate the dynamics in the observed moment.”
Find out more »July 2017
Shift/Split | a solo exhibition by guest artist Joe Scerri
Through intense conflagrations of explosive black markings, Joe Scerri imagines invisible worlds which occupy physical spaces that are blemished and tainted by repetitive human presence. The ink drawings on paper in Split / Shift are dynamic and in a constant…
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