Glittering prize: Art NSW '09

The NSW art scene has weathered the financial storm; 10 leading lights pick the year’s top shows and predict the best for 2010.
Article by Steve Dow, 2009

Click here to read the full coverage. Excerpt below quoting the gallery manager, Robert Maconachie.

“The Nora Heysen exhibition that just finished at the S.H. Ervin Gallery was brilliant; beautiful portraits and delicately painted still lives.” The South Australian-born artist, who died in 2003, did her “more sophisticated” work as she grew older, says Maconachie. Meanwhile at Eva Breuer the first exhibition to pair works Judy Cassab and her son John Seed at Eva Breuer had buyers flocking, as did Doreen Gadsby’s show. His 2010 tip? Scottish-born, Sydney resident emerging artist Michael Muir, who’s showing in June 2010.

Press Release: Brenda Humble

Brenda Humble's December exhibition includes paintings and sculpture from 1988 to the present. Humble's body of jewel-like still life's, abstracted in varying degrees are painterly, boldly colourful and beautifully simple. Her continuing motif; the silhouette of vase and flowers against an open window, is distinct and distilled to essential elements and colour blocks. Her palette is high keyed like Mattisse and in some of the still lives, the flatness and bold outline of shapes is somewhat reminiscent of Picasso.

Her sculptures share a similar simplification of form; Humble pares back the image to its most elemental lines, creating crisp linea images of quirky teachers, laughing horses, squinting love hearts and little Alice figures.

Humble won the 1982 Portia Geach Prize for her portrait of Virginia Hall, the American world war II spy. In August this year her work was honoured with a retrospective which explored her painting of the 1970's and 80's. Brenda Humble: Art as Activism coincided with History Week 2009 and the Kings Cross Library 50th Anniversary. The exhibition explored Brenda's involvement in the activism in the Kings Cross area during that period, her work on the Green Bans and the disappearance of Juanita Nielsen.

Having graduated from the national art school in 1960 Brenda Humble has been a major part of the Sydney art world for more than 50 years. She has had over 16 solo exhibitions in Sydney and was a finalist in the 1974 Wynne Prize, the 1982 Waverley Art Prize and the 1981 Mornington peninsula Drawing prize amongst others.

Brenda Humble is represented in the Artbank Collection, Parliament House, Canberra the Reserve Bank of Australia, University of NSW, the IBM Collection, Sydney, Mackay City Library, Queensland as well as private and corporate collections in Australia, Canada, Japan, UK and USA.

Press: Humble - Sydney Morning Herald

Sneak Peek: Exhibition 2009 by Brenda Humble

Exhibition 2009 by Brenda Humble to be opened Saturday 19th December from 3-5PM.

Sneak Peek: Space, Time, and Memory by Christopher McVinish

Christopher McVinish's 2009 exhibition, Space, Time and Memory, will be opening tomorrow - Saturday December 5th- from 3 to 5PM.

Click the photograph to view the podcast.

Press Release: Christopher McVinish - Space, Time and Memory

Christopher McVinish (b.1952)
Exhibition: Space, Time and Memory
Opening Saturday 5 December 2009
Drinks with the artist 3 -5pm

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is proud to announce the opening of Christopher McVinish’s new exhibition Space, Time and Memory. McVinish is a realist painter concerned with the depiction of time and the moments of everyday life.

With Space, Time and Memory, McVinish focuses his attention on the figure in the landscape, using the atmospheric qualities of weather to establish a mood and suggest the protagonist’s thoughts. As with The Interrupted Journey No. 3 the darkening clouds and expansive landscape serve to isolate the figures and heighten the stillness of the composition. The collection of paintings range from gritty urbanscapes to soft rolling landscapes all with a centralised pathway – a road, stairway, or sidewalk – as the common thread uniting the receding figures. .

McVinish has an extensive exhibition history and is represented in a number of Australian collections including Griffith University, Redcliffe, Gold Coast, and Toowoomba City Councils.

Space, Time and Memory can be viewed from Friday 4 December until Tuesday 15 December and will have its official opening with the artist attending on Saturday 5 December from 3pm until 5pm.

Press: Cassab & Seed - Wentworth Courier

Press Release: Doreen Gadsby

Doreen Gadsby (b.1926) Travels 2009
Opening Wednesday 11 November 2009,6-8PM
To be opened by Professor Peter Pinson

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of Doreen Gadsby's Travels 2009.

Ms Gadsby has exhibited extensively both within Australia and internationally. After the passing of her late husband John Coburn in 2006 Ms Gadsby has dedicated herself to painting fulltime.

This recent body of work reflects Ms Gadsby's love of international travel, her passion for music and her love of nature. A number of paintings were developed from sketches drawn en plein-air recently in the south of France, Tuscany and from memories of her time living in Canada. Others celebrate Ms. Gadsby's love of the stunning views of Sydney Harbour from her North Shore studio such as Neon Lights 2009. Others are constructed from childhood memories and later memories of the loss of love. All have a vibrance and impressionist zeal which show a great love of the masters of 19th century painting and a joie de vivre which continues to burn brightly.

Ms Gadsby is represented in the Commonwealth Government Collection, ArtBank and private collections in the USA, Canada, Indonesia. She has been the recipient of numerous coveted awards including the 1961 Wentworth Art Prize, the 1962 WD&HO Wills Art Prize and was a finalist in the Wynne Prize in 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1964.

Press Release: Madeleine Winch

Madeleine Winch (b.1950)
Scenes from Life
Opening Saturday 24 October 2009,6-8PM
To be opened by Her Excellency Professor Marie Beshir AC CVO
Governor of New South Wales

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of Madeleine Winch’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Scenes from Life 2009, on Saturday 24 October. The exhibition will be officially opened by Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir, Governor of New South Wales.

Observing the unspoken emotions of everyday life remains the essence of Madeleine Winch's work. The figures in her current paintings, such as Thoughts Afar, Inner World and Soliloquy 2009 are portrayed in a more probing light, and are self questioning, contemplating new chapters in life. The "balancing act" has changed, from one of juggling the responsibilities of career, family, and motherhood, to the dilemmas of intimacy and solitude. The domestic interiors echo the inner world providing a sanctuary; a place to reflect on love and loss; to reassess and embrace the future.

Madeleine Winch has an extensive exhibition history both within Australia and internationally, in countries such as France, New Zealand and the United States of America. Madeleine Winch is represented in the following New South Wales collections: Wagga Wagga Regional Gallery, Orange Regional Gallery, New England Regional Gallery, Australia Post and Macquarie University, Sydney.

Press: Valadon - Sydney Morning Herald

Artist Statment: Christopher McVinish

Christopher McVinish
Re-imagining the world...

The writer Ian McEwan has said that novelists 'prowl along the borders between the invented and the actual'. The same could be said for the painter Christopher McVinish.

McVinish hunts for fragments of urban life out of which he conjures another reality.
While the genre of Contemporary Realism may sometimes distance the viewer with a cool lucidity, McVinish's work is inclusive, inviting us to speculate about the ambiguous situations he presents, at the same time reminding us of aspects of everyday life taken for granted. In doing so, he showcases the commonplace as special and suffused with potential.

Characteristic of these works is a certain stillness. These are elegant works even while they deal with the grit of our urban environment. McVinish's paintings can imply a vague feeling of disquiet, occasionally even a sense of loss - yet never a loss of hope. McVinish peoples his paintings with survivors, thinkers and observers. The suggestion of a separate reflective interior life appears to be as much the painter's intention as any relationship to 'place'. A fascination with weather assists with establishing the mood of a work, and this too often demands to be read as metaphor for a protagonist's thoughts.

But perhaps the most arresting feature common to these works is that time feels more than simply suspended - it's as if a fleeting abstract moment is continuing, like a musical note sustained.

Ideas and motifs are allowed to hover (sometimes for years) before their moment of coalescence seems 'right'. McVinish's painting methodology involves numerous time-consuming applications of paint and glazes which result not only in a substantial illusion of depth but appear to achieve the remarkable feat of painting what can't be seen, namely air itself: a palpable volume of space is created around things in the picture plane.

Intriguingly oblique, these are visual stories which linger in the mind and show us contemporary life as a kind of half-remembered dream.

Press Release: Rosemary Valadon

Rosemary Valadon (b.1947)
Euphoria; The Tea Party
Opening Saturday 17 October 2009, 3-5PM

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of exhibition of new paintings by Rosemary Valadon, Euphoria; The Tea Party. The lush works depict richly painted floral teacups, and centre around the pleasures, comfort and ceremony of drinking tea.

Valadon has taken her inspiration for these works from a source most would consider disheartening rather than uplifting – the recent economic downturn. The half full/half empty cups invite the viewer to discover if they view the world in an optimistic or pessimistic way, while in some of the works such as Gypsy Rose the cups themselves seem to jut out of the picture plane, suggesting that one could jump into them and drown their sorrows. The richness of the exteriors of cups of Euphoria, American Beauty and Arcadia, amongst others, provide an antidote to recessional thinking, a quiet moment of lush beauty and excess. And, as the economy picks up, and spring arrives, the lone piece of lemon (which sometimes appears in the cup) is being joined by various spring blossoms – pear, apple, and nectarine.

Valadon, herself an indulgent tea drinker, has included teacups in her paintings for years and has always loved beautiful china. After commencing this series Valadon has been loaned and given favourite cups from many of her friends and family.

Rosemary Valadon’s works are held in numerous public and corporate collections around the country including that of the National Portrait Gallery, Macquarie University, Muswellbrook Art Prize Collection and BHP Billiton. She has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize, Sulman Prize and Mosman Art Prize multiple times, and has won the Portia Geach Memorial Award and Blake Religious Art Prize.

Press Release: Sam Wade

Samuel Wade (b.1979)
New Paintings
Opening Saturday 17 October 2009, 3-5PM

Following three successful exhibitions and his award of the Brett Whiteley Scholarship in 2006, Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of Sam Wade's New Paintings 2009. This suite of recent paintings marks a return for the artist to the urban environment, the source of inspiration behind the artist’s first and second solo shows with Eva Breuer Art Dealer.

Wade explains his interest in the urban environment this way: “It interests me that the vast majority of Australians live in urban areas, yet historically we seem to have relatively few figurative painters of note who regularly reflect on this common experience.”

The works seek to recreate fleeting moments on station platforms or city parks. Wade uses the techniques learnt in his traditional art training to create these images, constructing a dialogue between commonplace existence and artistry. The iconic figures of mother and child or a figure exuding pre-Raphaelite beauty may appear on a station platform, for instance. Special care in the portrayal of atmosphere and time of day acknowledges the legacy of the impressionists, while the introspective possibilities offered by the tradition of portraiture are also explored.

Samuel Wade was the recipient of the Le Gay Brereton Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2001, the Alice Bale Traveling Scholarship in 2002, the Brett Whiteley Traveling Art Award in 2006 and was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and Mosman Art Prize in 2009. Wade has also taught at the Julian Ashton Art School since 1998 where he was the youngest ever teacher.

Press: Cassab & Seed - The Australian Jewish News

The Sydney Morning Herald: John Seed & Judy Cassab

Opening: Tony Irving

The Tony Irving show, Other places other views, opened last week and if you haven't made it to 83 Moncur street we would like to encourage you to pay a visit before the work comes down on the 25th. The exhibition has a new addition, a lovely gouache sketch of the larger (and very popular) canvas Motel. Please email the gallery for the current pricing and availability of works.

Motel (study) 2009
gouache on arches paper
20 x 27 cm (image size)
no.10874

Opening photographs, 12 September 2009

Click the image to view the podcast

Artist Spotlight: Christopher McVinish

Christopher McVinish's exhibition of new work will open on Saturday 5 December from 3-5PM. You can see a preview of this show by clicking here.

Who (or what) do you consider your artistic inspiration?

My artistic inspiration is the world around me. Every time I visit a city, be it New York or Melbourne there is some image that captures my imagination and points me towards a further exploration of my work.

Do you listen to music while you work, and if so, what is most often playing?

I listen to all sorts of music while I work from contemporary Jazz to Ambient to Post Rock. Usually whatever is my latest Amazon Purchase.

Who of your peers do you respect the most?

Of my peers I guess someone like Jeffery Smart but really it would be more International Artists and Photographers like Eric Fischel or Robert Polidori or Gerhard Richter.

Do you have any habits/rituals or strange superstitions when painting?

No rituals or superstitions. Once a painting is drawn up it is full steam ahead.

When did you decide to become an artist?

I started my first oil painting when I was about 12 years old so well before then.

What is your favourite colour?

My favourite colour would to cobalt blue.

Do you have a favourite painting or work of art? If so, what is it?

I don't have one painting that is a favourite but any Vermeer or Rembrandt would be up there and I would kill to own a Joseph Cornell Box.

Press Release: Judy Cassab & John Seed

Judy Cassab (b.1920) & John Seed (b.1945)
The Two of Us
To be opened by the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG
On Wednesday 30 September 2009, 6-8PM

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is proud to announce the opening of The Two of Us, the first exhibition to pair Judy Cassab with her son, John Seed. Within a few short years of arriving in post-war Sydney with her family in 1951, Judy Cassab became Australia's most celebrated portrait painter winning numerous prizes including the Archibald and the Australian Women’s Weekly Portrait Prize. John, a sculptor has carried on her great artistic legacy with exhibitions at the Bonython and Holdsworth galleries in the 1960s and 1970s as well as at the Centre Prize Gallery in London, at that time exhibiting under the name John Kampfner.

Judy has always been fascinated by personal narratives – from her own teeming journals made public in Judy Cassab Diaries (1995) to the portraits she sows with the stories of her sitters. In Lou Klepac’s monograph on Judy from 1998, she explains her artistic process;

'I am passionately interested in people’s childhood, why they choose the path they are on…In our age of the short attention span, the only other place where one could talk about these things is the psychiatrist’s couch.’

It is fitting then that The Two of Us will explore one of Judy’s most intimate relationships, that with her son. Today, at 89 years of age, Judy spends many of her days at John’s studio, sketching him at work with his welding tools and steel sculptures. John laments that he is not a more figurative artist as he cannot return the favour and sculpt his famed mother. Yet they share many wonderful likenesses in their work – from the exotic present in Cassab’s Sphinx with Girl 2008 and Seed’s Hindu Yantras to the abstracted Australian landscape which both mother and son explore with a shared fervour.

The Two of Us will be opened by the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG on Wednesday 30 September 2009. The exhibition will continue until Tuesday 13 October and will include many of Judy’s iconic paintings from 1955 until 2008, including Mother Holding Child 1995, a depiction of the unique and cherished relationship between mother and son.

Press: Victor Rubin - Sydney Morning Herald

Press: Victor Rubin - Daily Telegraph

{Exhibition Opening}