Alexandra’s paintings narrate an intimacy with urban landscape as it transitions and transforms with light, natural and artificial.
During the day, the sun dictates light and shadows, delineating Queensland architecture. But at night streetlights and light switches take control. Gilded and shaped by electricity, there is an intensity to the night. An eerie hush has fallen over suburbs lately as we shelter, but the glowing windows and neon aura of the CBD push back the night and add their magic.
Having moved into her Red Hill ‘Renovator’s Delight’ 36 years ago, she deciphers the language of early Queensland architecture. Painted in a hybrid of illustrative and realism, the detail is achieved through revisiting a view multiple times on neighbourhood walks.
Image: CommonWealth Iconic | Alexandra Matthews, Oil on canvas | 64 x 95cm
