Field Work presents a new body of abstract paintings by Natalie Lavelle that explores perception, ambiguity, and the sensorial encounter between viewer and artwork.
Lavelle’s work embraces shimmering surfaces and subtle material shifts, inviting viewers into a dreamlike perceptual space where feeling precedes understanding. With no fixed representational imagery, the works prompt close looking and bodily engagement. Each painting reveals delicate variations in line, colour, and texture, unfolding as immersive visual fields rather than static images.
In the sienna-toned works, layers of earthy pigment evoke sediment and ground. In contrast, the silver paintings on linen introduce an optical tension, their reflective surfaces shifting with the viewer’s movement. Stitched works offer intimate tactile elements, as thread weaves across metallic grounds like skin—fragile, shimmering, and responsive.
Lavelle draws from colour field painting and is informed by feminist and post-minimalist practices that privilege touch, intuition, and instability. Her work engages with the philosophy of embodied perception, aligning with thinkers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty and continuing the legacy of abstraction by women artists featured in The Field Revisited (NGV, 2018).
This exhibition is accompanied by a thoughtful exhibition text, Soft edges, shimmering planes, written by Isabella Baker.
Image: Untitled (Iridescent Stainless Steel Coarse, Iridescent Pearl Fine and Iridescent Silver Fine), 2025, acrylic on Italian linen, 84cm x 106.5cm.
Photo: Louis Lim
