Ben Waters ‘A Place to Breathe’

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.