Landscapes - New Trends, 3 to 25 feb 2024

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Landscapes - New Trends

The exhibition of Landscapes, New Trends through February 2024, features 5 distinctively different visual artists working in the genre of Landscape.  From the hyper-real to the naive, the semi-abstract to the hard edge,  I have selected these artists to allow the audience to experience many different ways of seeing landscape, often a preoccupation with Australian artists, which seems part of our DNA. We travel through many varied geographies, from coastal plains to rain forests to deserts to thick bush, and the sheer size in land mass and isolation demand us to journey through dynamic changes in what we see and experience across Australia. These 5 artists approach the genre with a unique aesthetic, capturing elements of landscape that help to fuel our travels and influence our life experiences. 

Steve Singline:

"It is important for me to create works that draw the viewer into the painting and create a space for stillness and reflection, to provide a moment of recalling a sense of wonder in the landscape - 'the present great beyond'. The horizon is often a prominent feature in my works, whether clean and sharp or shrouded in mist. It serves as a visual metaphor for calling me and the viewer of the work into what lays before and beyond us." 

Nick Stathopoulos:   

"Landscapes afford a freedom not shared in any other genre painting. Unlike say – portraiture – trees and clouds don’t complain about their likeness. 

One summer night the sky had an astonishing, swirling, orange and teal sky. I dashed to Cahill’s Lookout, and discovered I wasn’t the only one taken by the vista. The crowd stared in awe of the spectacle. The moon was out and I had never seen the gloaming sky that colour. 

I painted that sky as an enormous triptych, Cahill’s Lookout trompe l’oeil, 2023, but it troubled one of my studio buddies. She asked, ‘Where’s the magic trick?’ and went on to explain there’s always some magic trick in my work. I knew what she meant. A few days later I went ‘abracadabra’, I had painted in the magic trick, much to her delight."  

Nick Stahopoulos has been a finalist in numerous prestigious artprizes over his 30 odd years as a profesional career artist, including numerous entries in the Archibald Prize, The Doug Moran Portarit Prize and a finalist in the BP Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery London, Scotland and Belfast.  

Michael Conquest:

"The 'Chi' within martial arts is a discipline that I practice and translate into my art work - incorporating the combined elements  with a steady hand, the flow of brush and controlled movement.

My studies in art and design, and my love of nature influence my work. I'm looking for harmony and balance in my compositions. I take motifs from different cultures creating a pathway that leads to the final composition. I'm often influenced by Asian characters and imagery related to religion and myth and combine this in a semi-surrealist landscape. Western icons often appear in the paintings -  juxtaposed with a Buddha image, a lotus flower and  asian style clouds.

These works are really pathways to a different world, reflecting the subconscious thought processes, dreamscapes and elements of fantasy we encounter in life."

David Robert Hill is a well established painter who lives and works in the upper Blue Mountains NSW. He graduated from the Julian Ashton Art School in 1972 (Dip Fine Art – Painting, Drawing, Design).

His has been a voyage of discovery with many twists and turns over the years, experimenting with technique and approach.

He is known for his celebratory use of colour and varied subject matter and is never happier than when working at the easel. For him, painting is a lifelong calling.

Anastassia Balachova:

 "This was the third time I visited Townsville. Tropics. Warm air breeze meets you from the airport. Castle Hill stands in the middle of the city surrounded by little white Queenslander houses. Wide roads. Booming sun. Birds. Warm breeze. Ocean so vast. And the island, Magnetic Island shines in the middle of it. Seems like I can get lost in this landscape. 

I had an acrylic set with me and the paintings appeared in one breath of the ecstasy of my surroundings.