Afterimage is a contemplative exhibition by Brisbane-based artist Simon Cutler, exploring the fluid and shifting nature of memory. Working across painting and drawing, Cutler reflects on how images transform over time—reshaped by perception, recollection, and representation.
Responding to quiet, transitional moments—late afternoon and early morning light—Cutler constructs works that resist the speed of contemporary image culture. Instead, he invites viewers to slow down, allowing subtle “afterimages” of memory to emerge through sustained looking.
The exhibition unfolds in two interconnected parts, with material and process central to the work. Cutler begins by translating observed scenes into paintings, already distanced from their original source through memory. These painted images are then redrawn onto paper, away from the viewer’s gaze, as an intimate act of recollection. What remains is not precise detail, but an emotional residue—an impression shaped by time.
Returning to painting, Cutler reinterprets these drawings onto canvas, often rendered with soft, dappled light. Here, paper becomes both subject and surface—simultaneously holding and representing the image. This layered process mirrors the workings of memory itself: fragmentary, adaptive, and continually reforming.
Simon Cutler is a Magandjin/Brisbane-based artist and a graduate of the Queensland College of Art and Design (2024). His practice centres on creating spaces of calm and reflection, offering a quiet counterpoint to the overstimulation of daily life.
Opening Event:
8 May 2026, 4–7pm
