Sunshine. It drenches our weekends, and punctuates our seasons. We live in infinite anticipation of it. We chase it.

This collection is the embodiment of summer, celebrating our obsession from ten inspired artistic perspectives. The sparkle of an afternoon aperitif, nostalgic scents of its onset, and hypnotic glitter of our coastline – the Australian summer is laced with limbic moments.

In the middle of winter, our yearning for summer is at its strongest so we invite you to escape and dream of the warmer months ahead.

Curated by Amy Woolley, Gallery Manager – Michael Reid Northern Beaches.

“Dusk is a favourite time of day for Dolby. The bulk of the day is done, the light is softer and the transition between day and night seems to invite pause and contemplation. The muted moody blues of the crepuscular sky, an irresistible pull, encapsulating everything that is mysterious, liminal and quiet.” Nadine Abensur, text excerpt from BAM issue 19.

My interest in painting the landscape began when I became a mother. During the domestic routine, long hours of looking out into the landscape through a window, stirred sensations of curiosity and longing. In a way, having to slow down and become still has led to a heightened desire to observe; to see the detail in the hills, the movement of the trees, the seasonal shifts in colour, and to feel the full effect of light shifting from day to night.

During the bedtime routine, before I turn on my daughter’s blue Night Light, I notice the sun pull the light below the horizon, softening and obscuring the landscape into simplified shapes and shadows and for a few moments what we are left with is a room and window of blue.

The window has since become charged with personal and universal associations as a space between the interior and exterior, the emotional and the physical, the contained and the uncontained.

Each painting for Night Light pays homage to this experience of slowing down and searches for the quiet, the transitional and the poetic. Through minimal, spacious compositions, reductive, monochromatic palettes and the slight personification of trees, each piece reflects a shared experience of viewing the landscape with my daughter and also celebrates her playful and inquisitive influence.

PART 1:

Week one of our Winter Salon is a showcase of three talented artists that unrelentingly pursue their subject. For Kate Broadfoot and Julz Beresford it entails enduring all-weather to capture the changing moods of the landscape and for Alix Hunter it is a desire to capture light and balance of composition in her still life scapes. All three have a marked determination in their pursuit that results in beautifully resolved works.

In this new series of work, Julz Beresford steps off her usual dingy on Pittwater to explore the mountainous region of Hill End and Tasmania. The marked shift in palette and soft rendering of light perfectly captures the most beautiful aspects of these hilly scapes.

Kate Broadfoot draws inspiration from the diverse and spectacular region in her locality. Particularly known for her ability to capture the moody coastline or render beautifully the backstreets of the coastal towns that surround her, Kate is a devoted en plein air painter giving her works an inspiring depth.

Alix Hunter uses the genre of still life to examine the technicalities of form, composition and light. Moody shadows interplay with objects in her observations which are then rendered in considered mark making. These are careful compositions that one imagines have been observed slowly and in changing lights to achieve just the right balance.

PART 2:

In the second week of our salon, we will explore 3 artists of a different nature.

Nicole Nelius is a Sydney-based painter exploring colour and playful compositions based on her own still life photographs of uniquely balanced objects. Nicole eschews trickery to align her items. Rather she uses the objects’ natural qualities to create arrangements and harmony in new forms in a Totem-esque fashion, and in the pursuit of a feeling of universality and authentic equilibrium. What starts with a meditative playfulness and curiosity in her photographs is then progressed in an instinctive exploration of colour and unique interactions of colour.

Sydney artist Gemma Rasdall breathes new life into old sails and the vibrant seascapes she produces tell the story of a life well lived by the sea. Growing up in the beautiful bay of Pittwater was an ideal location to instil a love for the water. Weekends were spent racing out of the local sailing club, whilst at home (with an art teacher for a mother) creativity was the primary focus

Nick Olsen is a Brisbane based painter who is interested in the built environment and how our living spaces reflect our cultural sensibilities through different times in our history. He uses a focus on light, tone and colour to elicit an emotional response and a sense of “place” in his work.

Jade Sibinovski is a Sydney artist who graduated with honours in painting from the National Art School in 2016. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions across Sydney.

For Jade, form and colour are inseparable modes of expression in her works. A background in advertising and graphic design, and now a dedicated painting practice, underpins her passion for playful imagery that communicates in unexpected ways.

In her paintings Sibinovski compiles dense layers of pigment to provoke unusual relationships between pure material colour and abstract forms. Using a process that references the chance and deliberation of collage, she renders abstracted imagined worlds out of flat planes of colour.

“As Francis Bacon said, “I always think of myself not so much as a painter but as a medium for accident and change”. My paintings would not be possible without my process of collage where I make visible the unseen. It’s a process of discovery rather than invention.

My hands are the obedient instruments of a remote will. In its execution I’m endlessly hunting, gathering and collecting fragments of imagery from disparate sources which are then assembled almost in a meditative state. Everything is filtered in the unconscious.

I bar from my mind all remembrance of what I have seen, always on the lookout for the unfamiliar and unexpected, to reveal that which already pre-exists. Forms and figures coalesce in spaces where past, present, and future converge to manifest images from another realm.

Through the act of painting my interest in the expressive potential of colour and form are further explored from the resulting compositions”.

Art Prizes

2020 – Finalist in Waverley Art Prize
2018 – Finalist in Mosman Art Prize
2018 – Finalist in Waverley Art Prize

Lucy Roleff’s practice explores notions of beauty, purpose and the nature of desire. Her paintings are essentially about the act of looking – the internal processes that begin when we look at something we aspire to, or in which we recognise ourselves.

Lucy is particularly interested in the space between domestic familiarity and a sense of grandeur, or otherworldliness. Here there is both escapism and a meditation on daily, accessible pleasures. These ideas stem from the historical purpose of paintings as portals for daydreaming and fantasy, even when depicting the most ordinary of spaces.

Lucy’s work is held in a number of private collections across Australia and overseas. She has been a finalist for multiple art prizes including The Blake Prize, the A.M.E. Bale Art Prize and the Muswellbrook Art Prize.

For Narrm-based contemporary artist Katie Eraser, emotion is at the core of how art conveys our experience of being in the world.

Working predominantly in abstract figuration, Eraser rebels against the idea of perfection, and instead invites an exploration of raw humanness. Her practice examines our most intimate moments, by bringing into focus, the sticky and the strange. The forms are challenging and cryptic, leaving parts of the plane exposed to initiate dialogue with the viewer. Eraser’s paintings pulsate with intuitive mark making, that portray investigations into how we truly feel.

In ‘Can you really feel it,’ Eraser continues her exploration into painting as a means to initiate dialogue. In Eraser’s new work, faces collide with motifs from nature, composed through intuitive and deliberate mark making. Flat acrylic layers float under the energetic pulsation of oil stick, creating a complex and interwoven play of mediums on paper. Drawing and painting is always a process of self-discovery for Eraser, each stroke in the process draws her closer to knowing herself better. This body of work is about the flow of energy, desire, meanings and people that permeate the complicated subjectivity of life. Eraser intends to transport the viewer into co-presence with the figures depicted in the works, to encourage the viewer to be with their own experience of the feeling being articulated. These recent works break down the distinction between public and private spaces, and invite the viewer into the intimate. The titles of works, offer propositions to communicate, unraveling the desire to transpose feeling into the visual narrative.

Eraser is currently studying her Masters of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has previously completed her Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice from the Miecat Institute, and holds a Bachelor of Design from Billy Blue College of Design. Since 2017 she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Australia. Eraser was awarded the Fortyfive Downstairs Emerging Artist Award in 2018.

John Hockings’ most recent work blends abstraction and figuration. The subject matter draws from the Northern Australian coastal landscape and the people and objects which populate and re-form it. Through an often awkward juxtaposition of these seemingly ordinary aspects of the world around us, his paintings explore what leads to a sense of place and the way the act of painting can move us to reconsider our understanding of the familiar world.

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Just as Italian master Georgio Morandi devoted a lifetime to painting the same assortment of pewter jugs, cups and vases, John Hockings is motivated by this same quest; to render, in his words, the “laboratory of a view”. This is John’s pursuit to register the endless variability with which the landscape meets his naked eye.

For Hockings, the landscape — specifically the Great Sandy Straight — is his idée fixe. Painted from land or on water, our artist returns again and again to this notch of Queensland; responding to the mood and temperature of the “same shed, same patch of water, same islands”.

When Hockings points his brush inland, toward the rolling country of Wide Bay-Burnett, the roadways of Gympie and, with elegance, the intricate gardens of Kyoto, it is the play of wind on branches that beguiles him. Bushland and garden scapes mightn’t share the frothy volatility of the coast – but their environments deliver an equally inexhaustible bank of views and impressions.

The story of Australian landscape art is propelled by one open secret … nature (it’s movement and mayhem) lends itself most faithfully to abstract painting.

Joanna Gambotto is a Sydney-based artist whose abstraction of everyday familiarities evokes memories of the home with playfulness and vibrancy. Encapsulating the fine line between reality and fantasy, Gambotto’s series of vividly layered painted works contain various fragmented elements of places visited.

Gambotto contorts our perception through inversion, layering, unfolding and fragmenting the objects we have come to know. This fresh twist on still life allows a liveliness in the memories of the home, personalising ornaments of life. Memories of Gambotto’s process are embedded in the canvas, with the techniques of painting, scraping and carving resulting in rich textures. “The laborious process of adding paint, scraping and carving results in a sensuous surface, rich in texture, pattern and layers and becomes a metaphor of how a place can be filled with emotions, memories and history.”

Joanna studied at the National Art School and has been the winner of various art prizes including the Northbridge Art Prize and the Hornsby Art Prize.

REGISTER: northernbeaches@michaelreid.com.au

To coincide with the release of our Program Director’s latest book on the legendary Ken Done, Amber Creswell Bell has curated an exhibition of Ken’s works opening Thursday 18th March at Michael Reid Northern Beaches gallery. The show includes artworks from the 1980s right through to 2021, and Amber has selected many works that are smaller and more accessible – including works on paper.

On Saturday 20th March we will be hosting a champagne book signing from 11am – 3pm at the gallery with both Ken and Amber.

Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Ken Done has become one of Australia’s most famous artists. His work has been described as the most original style to come out of Australia, and his paintings are in collections throughout the world.

Born 29 June, 1940, in Sydney, Ken left school at 14 to enter the National Art School in East Sydney. After 5 years study, he commenced a highly successful career as an art director and designer in New York, London and Sydney.

At the age of 40, after painting for many years, he gave up his advertising career to become a painter full-time. Since then, he has held over 100 one-man shows, including major exhibitions in Australia, Europe, Japan and the USA. His works have been shown in the Archibald, Sulman, Wynne, Blake, and Dobell Prizes.

In 1991, a major touring exhibition in Japan attracted over 200,000 visitors. The artist’s first European exhibition was held in Paris in 1996, to great acclaim, and in 2000 the art of Ken Done was successfully premiered in both Los Angeles and London.

Raised in Oakland California, Emily first moved to Australia in 2005 and now splits her time between downtown Sydney and Gunning NSW. Her limited-release cityscapes explore Sydney’s historic urban surrounds, documenting both grand and small episodes of striking pattern, light and form.

‘Harbour City’ follows her sold out releases in 2020 with Studio Direct and Michael Reid Berlin. Emily is also a former Mosman Art Prize finalist for her painting of Sydney’s iconic harbourscape.

“The Harbour is the magnetic centre in this group of works – even when it is not visible in the composition, I can feel that it sits just behind, out of sight. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to continue my practice through large parts of 2020 – the act of painting brought structure and stability in uncertain times, and I was drawn especially to moments of great beauty and peace in my urban environment on the Harbour’s edge. I hope the works in this series bring joy to others as well – I found emotional solace in living with art during lockdown and beyond”.

NERIDAH STOCKLEY distils landscape into simple forms. Within her paintings we see a vernacular articulation of space and shape, creating a recognisable short-hand that is both brief and resolved. For Stockley, there is a persistent fascination with Australian towns and moments in suburbia. Rooflines, churches, pot-plants and chimneys; all forged with an apparent inelegance. But it is precisely this inelegance in which we find an enduring and satisfying complexity. Unlikely harmonies are found in both composition and colour.

Stockley has developed a unique pictorial language that is driven by intuition. This is an approach to painting unshackled from the expectations of technical and academic methodologies, instead the resulting compositions take up residence somewhere in our subconscious.

This offering of new works are informed by Neridah’s response to Hermannsburg, a locally and internationally recognised chapter of inland Australia history. Hermannsburg is also the site of Lutheran Mission activity and the Hermannsburg School of watercolour painting made famous by Albert Namatjira. It is a unique cross-cultural heritage site characterised by local landscape, early pioneer architecture, working histories, domestic, industrial and religious structures.

She is represented in national and international collections including the Araluen Collection and the Parliament of Australia Art Collection, Canberra.

Originally from Sydney, Stockley now lives and works in Alice Springs.

EXPLORE NERIDAH STOCKLEY CERAMICS HERE

Emily Besser is an Australian artist living in London, UK, working from her studio in Wimbledon. Emily completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours in Painting and then studied law, working in Native Title and Environmental law. After 10 years she returned to her painting practice and has been exhibiting regularly since then, as well as running art and jewellery workshops. Before leaving for London Emily worked as an Artist-Educator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, facilitating interactions with contemporary art for people of all ages and abilities. Emily is raising her two boys, with her partner, a journalist.

ARTIST STATEMENT

“These paintings were completed after the first London lockdown ended in 2020. After a few months of intense home-life, where work and play were intensely forged together, I was lucky to secure a studio space in Wimbledon to work in. With the kids back at school, I painted frenetically for the following few months, processing the intense experiences, fragmentation and uncertainty of that period. On constant repeat was Michael Kiwanuka’s self-titled album and some beautiful Dylan and Sprinsteen-sounding albums by The War on Drugs. I was thrilled to have my alone-time again, and I felt joyous and grateful. There was dancing, and I painted and painted, enjoying the layering and erasure I couldn’t achieve with my coloured pencils at home in lockdown. I finished each painting only when I could ‘see’ a feeling.

For me, painting isn’t a statement but it can be poetry, with its very own language, a secret way of speaking in colour and shape about the things of life: sex, death, flowers, day, night, joy and pain. I don’t know how else, other than through painting, to come at all the strangeness, suffering and beauty in the world. Abstract painting can be notoriously inaccessible and difficult for an audience to ‘read’, but being a painter is a blissful experience, much of the time. I hope some of that rubs off on the viewer”.

‘One feeling at a time’ is a calming mantra, something I say to myself and my sons when too many feelings come at once. As I write this, I’m back in the ‘forge’, our third lockdown. It’s different this time around, we are weary of the isolation, it’s colder and there is much less light. We’re in the thick of it, counting the days, one at a time, even counting the parts of the day. But I am so happy that my paintings are able to be exhibited in Sydney. I can still feel the warmth and energy I felt when I painted them and the memories and feelings in me that nourished them into existence. I hope you enjoy them and that you too can find your own feelings, one at a time, in these works.”

VIEW FULL CATALOGUE

Emerging Canberra-based artist Bethany Saab started painting only recently, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020.

Bethany has no formal training in painting and having been painting for less than a year, her style is swiftly evolving. Bethany was exposed to art early, watching her late mother, Anne, paint landscapes in oils in her home studio in central Australia. Anne’s brushes and palette knives form part of Bethany’s tools for work. Originally training as a psychologist, Bethany has worked in mental health for over a decade as well as having a few years as a self-taught floral designer as one half of Wagga Wagga-based micro flower farm and studio florist Little Triffids Flowers.

Bethany’s style is tight, detailed and hard-edged and despite the frequent inclusion of high-contrast elements or punchy colour palettes, the work is harmonious with a sense of calm. Predominantly still life, Bethany’s paintings have a strong sense of time and place.

“This collection was made during a brief period of 10 weeks and are the product of intensive engagement in the act of producing. These works depict inviting scenes of domestic life and capture snapshots in time with playful light, shadow and perspective. Collected, common or personal objects are rendered life-size to invite the viewer into the moment, with cultural and brand references lending a sense of familiarity and nostalgia. Patterned and graphic elements are presented alongside areas of space and room to rest. These works speak to the slowing down and nesting in of recent times, domestication, and to the directness of objects and shadows”.

VIEW FULL CATALOGUE HERE.