the Five - June 21 to July 14, 2024 - painting and ceramics

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The FIVE exhibition brings together 5 women artists working in diverse genres, from en plein air beachscapes / landscapes to abstraction in painting, plus a vibrant collection of ceramic vessels and forms.

Jo Langley:   

I selected these nine abstracts from works I completed between 2022 and 2024. Each is a dialogue between myself, brush, paint and surface. They are exercises in both activity and introspection. While they communicate their own unique visual language, elements of my internal choreography also revealed themselves as the artworks evolved. 

My paintings are multi-layered in both substance and metaphysics. Organic shapes and gestural mark-making directly and indirectly reflect memory, landscape and biology. While elements were altered or covered up during their evolution, earlier decisions informed the rebuilding that followed. The consequences of this navigation are cohesive, lyrical compositions that assert their own intense, poetic personality.

Maree Azzopardi:  

Ceramics - In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, protectress of sailing. The sisters were Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. The Pleiades were sometimes said to be nymphs in the train of Artemis. These new ceramic vessels mirror the story of the seven sisters.

Works on paper -   "Rivers give us so much more than water, as they flow through our place they flow through our lives, they transport us both physically and emotionally through our memories".  On a recent excursion exploring the upper Hawkesbury River by boat, I was inspired to start this series of works.  The name "Gentlemans Halt" dates back to the exploration of the Hawkesbury River by Governor Arthur Phillip in June 1789, who camped “just south of Spencer on the opposite side of the river where a flat rock enabled the party to land and unload their tents and provisions”.

Catherine Garrod:

A contemporary Australian artist who lives and works in the mid-north coast of NSW. She creates artworks with a variety of mediums, such as acrylic, oil, watercolour, and resin. Her education in art has been self-directed, with the undeniable influences of fellow artists. She has sold artwork locally and internationally, fulfilled commissions and won awards in exhibitions.

Her artworks explore the concept of the earth’s surface in a nostalgic way, investigating the dynamics of our environment and manipulating its effects to create a sometimes altered meaning. She often references recognisable forms, such as landscapes, seascapes, and flowers, but also deconstructs them to the extent that meaning is shifted and interpretation becomes multifaceted. She invites viewers to engage with her artworks on an emotional and intellectual level, challenging them to question their perception and understanding of the natural world.

Jane Barrow:  

Jane Barrow has extensive training and research in ceramics and in the Japanese tarditions of throwing and firing. She is in numerous collections of major Art Galleries and institutions, including 

· National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra.

· Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA)

· Manly Regional Art Gallery, 
Newcastle City Art Gallery

· Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). These works are beautiful in their glaze treatments and superb in their execution. A delight.

Peta Dzubiel:   

My artworks explore quintessentially Australian environments and experiences, using figure/ field relationships as a conduit for expressing the visible and psychological aspects of landscape. Oil paint on canvas and board is the medium employed to render emotive and evocative images. Broad brushstrokes are laid down with an immediacy of observation to capture the subject matter before me. The ocean, beaches and its headlands currently dominate the studio wall at present. This series is a response to the transience of light and weather within a coastal landscape. I like to work en plein air, sketching outdoors with paint and blocking in the fleeting and changing colour and light. My practice is a race with time and with the changeability of nature and the elements. These smaller paintings offer the information and lived experience I find necessary to impart into larger works in the studio. Peta Dzubiel currently lives and works on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.