WHEN : 10th Sep – 5th October
WHERE : Jan Murphy Gallery
Hovering somewhere between abstraction and landscape, Marina Strocchi’s paintings are rich evocations of her experiences of living in the Central Australian desert. Melbourne- born Strocchi has lived in Central Australia for the past 20 years, working for a substantial period with the Aboriginal artists of the region. Her work is an affirmation of the environment of Central Australia, which she expresses with a flattened perspective of complex patterns. The work reflects the synthesis of nature’s repetition with the clutter of human habitation that one finds in the expanses of the desert. Her inspiration combines European, primitive and naive art, as well as an early association with the ROAR group in Melbourne. Strocchi employs bold design and rich colouration in her appealing and highly personal style.
Bold and colourful works are the result of Wayne Eager’s long and unerring commitment to personal expression using the vocabulary of abstraction. The early expressionism with which he rendered life in inner-city Melbourne has matured in a very different environment. Now a resident of Alice Springs, the desert landscape and its people have had an indelible influence on his work. Working with a linear abstraction that calls to mind the work of Ian Fairweather, Eager has developed a style that utilises and affirms both indigenous and modernist approaches. Neither narrative nor literal evocation, his art creates colour, tonal and structural relationships, to enact his personal response to his extraordinary environment.
Image : MARINA STROCCHI – THE NATURE OF THINGS II (2013)
