The Still Life genre emerged in Italy around the 16th century, it has since been well popularised right across the globe, with each era and geographical area developing its own particular patois. You’d now be hard pressed to find a home, hospital, head office or homewares shop today that does not have at least one painting or print depicting a ‘still life’, of varying levels of merit!

While contemporary art is often seen as conceptual and difficult, the still life genre is instead uncomplicated and beautiful. It is so because it is familiar, relatable, and accessible to almost any viewer – often seen to hero the food, flowers, and man-made objects of our everyday lives.

For the viewer, the visual language employed by a still life artist might evoke a jolting memory – an object acting as a trigger or portal to another place or time. It might allow a beautiful still moment to rest one’s eyes on amid an otherwise frenzied life devoid of enough beauty. It might be the unidentifiable atmosphere suggested in its rendering of a subject, less as object and more as mood or feeling.

Whatever the grounds might be, still life offers to us a subjective glimpse into our very human life. Our routines and the impermanence of life are brought to light by the possessions we acquire, and those we leave behind.

Still life communicates grand gestures despite its modesty.

This exhibition curated by Amber Creswell Bell brings together a selection of artists featured in her 2021 book ‘Still Life’ (Thames & Hudson).

Part III

In its 2nd year, the annual Michael Reid Northern Beaches ‘Summer Salon’ is upon us! A time to put aside formality, and to genuinely celebrate the joy of art and artists.

This year, the Summer Salon will be staged in 3 parts evolving over December and January. It is a time when Annual Leave is taken, and beaches are visited – it is our hope that visitors from right across Sydney (and across the globe via the website) will engage and enjoy our gallery space in the beautiful suburb of Newport, a stone’s throw from the beach.

With 13 painters and 3 ceramicists, the line-up is diverse, working across genres and mediums – with a particular emphasis on still life and landscape. As always, we celebrate the practices of diverse Australian ceramic artists as part of our Clay program.

Part 3 includes: Alix Hunter, Ben Waters, Ella Holme, Fiona Andrews Kostidis + ceramics by Naoko Rodgers

PART II

In its 2nd year, the annual Michael Reid Northern Beaches ‘Summer Salon’ is upon us! A time to put aside formality, and to genuinely celebrate the joy of art and artists.

This year, the Summer Salon will be staged in 3 parts evolving over December and January. It is a time when Annual Leave is taken, and beaches are visited – it is our hope that visitors from right across Sydney (and across the globe via the website) will engage and enjoy our gallery space in the beautiful suburb of Newport, a stone’s throw from the beach.

With 13 painters and 3 ceramicists, the line-up is diverse, working across genres and mediums – with a particular emphasis on still life and landscape. As always, we celebrate the practices of diverse Australian ceramic artists as part of our Clay program.

Part 2 includes: Nicola Woodcock, Sally Browne, Cosima Scales, and Lauren Jones + ceramics by Jane McKenzie and Kristy Hussey.

In its 2nd year, the annual Michael Reid Northern Beaches ‘Summer Salon’ is upon us! A time to put aside formality, and to genuinely celebrate the joy of art and artists.

This year, the Summer Salon will be staged in 3 parts evolving over December and January. It is a time when Annual Leave is taken, and beaches are visited – it is our hope that visitors from right across Sydney (and globally via the website) will engage with and enjoy our gallery space in the beautiful suburb of Newport, a stone’s throw from the beach.

With 13 painters and 3 ceramicists, the line-up is diverse, working across genres and mediums – with a particular emphasis on still life and landscape. As always, we celebrate the practices of diverse Australian ceramic artists as part of our Clay program.

Across the 3 parts you can look forward to strong work from the following artists:

Alix Hunter – Ben Waters – Cosima Scales – Ella Holmes – Fiona Andrews Kostidis – Jane McKenzie – Joanna Gambotto – Kristy Hussey – Lauren Jones – Naoko Rodgers – Nicola Woodcock – Nicole Nelius – Peta Dzubiel – Pia Murphy – Sally Browne – Suzie Riley

“In contemporary art education, simple still life arrangements have long been used as a relatively neutral basis for formal technical
experiment, and for some it remains a learning device, while for others it has become their primary metier. Those who devote their
careers to refining i t do so for a multitude of reasons; i t might be a desire to distil the simple beauty from the everyday, or to convey a
human narrative by the marked absence of a figure. Or it might be to perpetuate their belief in the contemporary validity of the genre,
and their love for the subject.” Amber Creswell Bell , Still Life, Thames & Hudson, 2021.

This collaboration between painter Sarah Hassett and ceramicist Penelope Duke is a celebration of the process of still life and the
beautiful objects that inspire it . In each of Sarah’s works, she features her personal collection of Penelope Duke ceramics, the angular
forms in striking black offering countless possibilities with shadow and light . These vessels were designed to contribute to the beauty
of the installation whether it be an abundance of foliage or a minimalistic ikebana display without distracting the viewer but rather
becoming a complimentary element. Sarah beautifully illustrates this ability in all seven of her works.

Since the inception of Michael Reid ‘Studio Direct’ in 2019 – originally a purely online offering, to the bricks & mortar gallery we are today on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, we have placed 1500 paintings and 500 ceramic works by emerging artists with collectors right across the globe.

This November marks the first birthday of our gallery space in Newport, and to celebrate we will be showcasing 30 artists in 30 days!

For the entire month of November, we will be releasing one artwork per day from an artist who has shown with us over the last 12 months. The order will be a surprise, but will include the following line up of artists:

Keep an eye on our website and social media at 8am each morning in November to find out who is up! Or visit the gallery to see the evolving salon on the walls.

Meg Walters is an emerging artist who uses painting as a tool to explore her identity and reality. Incorporating themes of memory, escapism and psychological narratives into her work, her paintings are alive with stories and mysticism. She originally hails from the small sub-tropical island of Bermuda in the Atlantic Ocean, studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London before making her way to Australia where completed a BA of Illustration at Newcastle University. After a decade working in the music industry in Sydney, Walters moved to Northern NSW where she completed a three-year Visual Arts Course at Byron School of Art. She has recently returned to Newcastle where she lives in a 60’s beach house with a studio on the property.

Achieving sold out solo exhibitions in Bermuda, Sydney and Melbourne Meg has exhibited in group shows in Berlin, Bermuda, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Byron Bay. Her paintings are held in private collections throughout Australia and Europe.

Inertia is the sudden change in motion in our day to day lives. When the momentum which propels us forward suddenly ceases to exist, we’re left with an inexplicable void. An abyss between movement and stillness which is rife with vulnerability and tenderness. The tension between push and pull – this is the space from which this body of work originates. “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” – Henry David Thoreau

Walters focused on the landscape of Bald Rock in Western NSW for this series; its’ atmosphere strangely foreshadowed her own mood that was to eventuate in 2021 – that of longing and stillness. The giant monolithic rock emerges out of the flatness of the land like an island of colour and shape against the charred forest below. The landscape is heavy with burned tree trunks and new growth, a perfect mixture of death and birth, light and hope, against a backdrop of destruction. This place spoke to Walters of isolation and renewal, motifs that would inform her painting in an instinctually lyrical way.

Eva Beltran is a Sydney based artist with an expressionist approach to subjects, aiming to depict an emotional experience more than a physical reality. Her work connects with the mood and rhythm of the landscape through abstract figurations where intricate perspective is conveyed by linework variations and layers of paint.

Eva’s works have been selected as finalists in several art prizes, including prestigious art awards such as the Glover Art Prize (Evandale, TAS); the Paddington Art Prize (Sydney, NSW); the Mosman Art Prize (Sydney, NSW); the Kilgour Art Award (Newcastle, NSW), the Lethbridge Landscape Art Prize (Brisbane, QLD), the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (Sydney, NSW) or the Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize (McLauren Vale, SA).

Eva attended art school whilst growing up in Spain and trained in classical drawing and painting with a well-known Spanish figurative artist. After finishing University, she spent 15 years working in journalism and corporate communications. Painting took front stage in her life in 2014.

“Nature has a voice, a rhythm, and a beating tempo that we can tap into at an emotional level. The natural flow of the seasons in the landscape resembles every musical tempo, from a winter adagio to a summer allegro.

Like the musician waiting for the orchestra conductor to open a concert, I walk in nature mindfully, blending in, and let the music begin.

“Into the Beat” is a collection of paintings exploring the rhythm of my surrounding landscape, the natural parks where I walk daily. Most of the works reference lush landscapes where everything is interconnected. A ‘hum” of tree trunks, branches, overgrown leaves, water, rocks, moss and even fungus talking to each other, singing to us, dancing to the rhythm of a particular scene. This is I guess my type of landscape, my beat, a celebration of life.”

Kate Vella is a painter whose work is focused on capturing the essence of homegrown flowers, fruit and vintage crockery. Based in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, in Vella began pursuing her passion to paint full time in 2018 and has continued to learn practical skills and develop her own unique style. Largely self-taught Vella works predominantly in acrylics and draws inspiration from nature’s beauty. Her home and studio are nestled in a small village with the backdrop of beautiful farmland and the South Coast escarpment. Since her first solo show ‘Antidote’ in Sydney 2019, Vella continued to have more shows and collaborations, her work has been selected in various art prizes, most recently was a finalist in Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize 2020, Kangaroo Valley Art Prize 2020 and Meroogal Women’s Art Prize 2020. Vella’s work has attracted many private collectors across Australia and internationally.

“Nostalgia is an embodiment of work reflecting a deep connection to the still life genre. My priority and intention is to bring the viewer joy, and some comfort during these uncertain times. This is a collection of new works forming a narrative and to showcase many captured moments during different seasons throughout the year.

My ritual involves depicting anything I feel emotionally drawn to, my subjects are often objects that are interesting or functional, sometimes whimsy, then combining them with flowers and fruit. I particularly love seeds in cut fruit or the detail on petals and buds. I love the freedom to work loosely and explore with a rich palette, applying many textured layers and focusing on the correct light, with an emphasis on the exaggerated shadows.

Guided by my instinct my work continues to evolve and unfold, sometimes growing through moments of clarity, or through moments of doubt and challenges, which can be more rewarding”.

Originally from the UK, Nicola Woodcock is now a Sydney based artist. Largely self-taught artist, Nicola works from her Terrey Hills studio drawing inspiration from the surrounding bush landscape. She finds the bold forms and colours of Australia’s native flora fascinating. The relatively crude nature of oil pastels encourages the focus on simple line and colour and promotes a use of decisive, gestural marks.

Nicola has been a finalist in the Northern Beaches Art Prize, the Little Things Art Prize and the York Botanic Art Prize.

“Working through the late Autumn and Winter to produce this body of work I began with collecting the best examples of native flora that I could get my hands on. Winter produces such a bounty of heart-stopping dramatic native flora and I excitedly set up still life arrangements in my studio to showcase these extraordinary flowers. Working directly from life I pare back the arrangement to just the natives, the vessel and their shadows, to shine the spotlight on the extraordinary shapes and colours in front of me. Growing up in the UK I had never seen anything like the Australian native flora until I moved here and I was immediately fascinated by the strong graphic forms and unique hues.”

Dylan Jones’ artworks vary in subject matter from show to show, but regardless of what he chooses to depict there always remains an interest in colour, composition and the simplification of form. The images and objects Dylan creates have a relationship to the history of art but more so to everyday life. Working ‘en plein air’ and with models in the studio, Dylan’s practice is inspired by a variety of people and places, all rendered with gestural and energetic marks.

“The humble shoe has been used as a vehicle of expression in my ongoing obsession with mark making and a simplified aesthetic. Painted and sculpted from life, these works reimagine footwear outside of a traditional perception. The shoes appear to have been tossed aside into a barren landscape. Some have banded together, whereas others have found comfort in isolation. They remind us of our own tribulations and triumphs as we navigate through our morphing existence, desired, loved, rejected and yet forever unique”.

Lauren Jones is a visual artist based on the Sunshine Coast. Working primarily in oils, her feminine portraits and still life scenes speak of moments captured in time. Lauren’s works, executed with bold and immediate brushstrokes, are evocative and impressionistic. Her art exquisitely showcases the materiality of paint and celebrates the process of painting.

Born in 1989 in Queensland, Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts (Creative Literature) from the Sunshine Coast University in 2009, and in 2012 a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from Monash University.

Currently Jones works from her home studio in the Noosa Hinterland, Queensland.

“KEEPSAKE: Something kept, or to be kept, for the sake of, or in memory of.

This series of paintings was inspired by a collection of personal domestic objects, grown or collected over time.

In my practice I predominantly paint Still Life images, as I’m drawn to objects, both ceramic and everyday items. I like capturing a household item and giving it a moment to shine. It’s an act of appreciating the vessels and objects that surround us every day. Objects themselves lean towards ideas of history, memory and identity. And can be a sort of self-portrait of the owner.

This series is particularly personal, featuring items I use often and that have been collected over time. I’m sentimental about the moment in time these objects came to be mine and how we use them in our home.

The imagery is photographed in natural light then painted in a single sitting using the Alla Prima technique. I like the immediacy of Alla Prima oil painting, there’s something so raw and honest about it, that gives movement and life to the piece. I love the whole process of painting and enjoy seeing the paint strokes and workings behind the artwork. ‘there is no softening … no slurring. Each touch is put on knowingly, clean and separate, with a definite and foreseen function.’ Walter Sickert”

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.