Jan Murphy is proud to present Adam Pyett’s latest solo exhibition, ‘New Paintings’.
“Art is not found in the subject but in the interpretation. Realism is not as interesting as poetry; poetry is art. I am trying to interpret the subject of the Australian landscape with poetry of colour and paint. Whilst I always aim to make a painting of a gum tree recognisable I am really only trying to stimulate a memory in the viewer. Once the memory is there, the tree is there. In this group of paintings I have been concentrating on colour relationships and deliberate areas of abstraction. Not because this will give a more accurate illustration of a landscape but because it is more interesting to look at. Given enough information, you will see a tree. Anything more than enough is too much.” (Adam Pyett, 2022)
Adam’s work is an entirely fresh reimagining of a familiar landscape, tapping into the viewer’s own memory of reminiscent scenes. The paintings are based on scenery from around his home in the Macedon Ranges (Victoria) and resemble many quintessential features of the Australian landscape. Pyett’s work has been recognised with a solo survey, ‘Still Life Painting’ at Geelong Gallery (2017), inclusion in Ballarat Art Gallery’s Romancing the Skull (2017) and Painting More Painting at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2016). He has been a finalist in the Len Fox Painting Prize, John Leslie Art Prize, and the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Monash University Museum of Art, Geelong Gallery, Art Gallery of Ballarat and Artbank, in addition to private collections in Australia and the USA.
Image credit: Adam Pyett, ‘Eucalypts and Mount Macedon’, 2022, oil on linen, 163.0 x 148.0 cm
