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Sneak Peek: Beijing Girl by Zhong Chen

Eva Breuer Art Dealer would like to offer you a sneak peek of our new show Beijing Girl by Zhong Chen. The canvases were hung today in preparation for the opening on Wednesday August 5th from 6-8PM. Both change and continuity are evident in this new work – while Chen’s approach has evolved to bold, gestural canvases, beyond the pixel paintings that brought him his earliest recognition, he has continued to work in the portrait and landscape genres and to explore historical and contemporary aspects of Chinese culture.

View our podcast below for more information on the exhibition.

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Opening Wednesday 5 August 2009, drinks with the artist 6-8 PM.

Zai Kuang - Children's World

Opening Saturday 25 July 2009, drinks with the artist 3-5 PM.

Artist's Statement:

"Most of my paintings are about children, toys and their surroundings. The reason I choose children as my subject is that: simplicity, purity and harmony, they are my attentions during the process of making painting. I think children match the thought perfectly.

In this exhibition, I painted children in the interior and exterior. In the interior, I want to explore the relationships between children and toys. The space often dominates the works, there is a tranquil atmosphere around the children, the toys and the room. In the exterior, I look for the relationships between children and the environment, usually the space is more open."

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Press Release: Don Rankin - Dead Calm

Opening Saturday 11 July 2009, drinks with the artist 3-5 PM.

Don Rankin brings a keen awareness of the historical achievements in painting to his work. He is intent on reuniting with tradition while taking modernism into account. As with his 2007 exhibition at Eva Breuer Art Dealer, this new series of paintings focuses on the genre of still-life but there is a new emphasis on flower paintings.

The flower paintings use devices borrowed from the history of still-life painting, particularly the theme of the transience of life. However, Rankin is more subtle – there are no skulls or clocks in his work. Instead, the flowers are often depicted as they near decay, retaining the essence of their former beauty even as they droop and contract, providing satisfaction and hope.

Consider “Iris (late afternoon)” for example: the fading rays of light through a Venetian blind illuminate a single iris whose petals are just beginning to wrinkle. The painting becomes a metaphor for the mortality of all living things, but in its faded beauty it presents as a positive, forward-looking image.

Other paintings in the exhibition depict fruit and objects often viewed from above resulting in a shallow pictorial space. It’s a bit like Mondrian meets Morandi.

Dead Calm is accompanied by a 16 page catalogue with 24 illustrations. The exhibition can be viewed from Wednesday 8 July until 21 July with an opening on Saturday 11 July from 3 - 5 pm.

(top left) Poppies (Baroque) #5, 2008, oil on canvas, 90 x 120cm
(top right) Still life with Persimmon, 2008, oil on canvas, 55 x 56cm
(bottom left) Oriental bowl with plums #2, 2008, oil on canvas, 45 x 60cm
(bottom right) Poppies (line-up), 2009, oil on canvas, 85 x 120cm

The composition is balanced and a common theme found throughout the collection is the exploration of texture. Wrinkled tablecloths to crinkled plastic bags produce stunning examples of his mastery of tone and colour.

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Press Release: Adriane Strampp - Mimesis

Adriane Strampp (born USA, education UK) is a Melbourne based artist presently completing a MFA by Research at Monash University. Her current body of work explores earlier concerns, pruned down to core elements both in subject and colour, examining the subtleties and nuances of memory and experience through poetic imagery and personal mythology. It is as much about what is left out as what is said. Current influences range from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space to the writings and photography of Patti Smith.

A romantic and figurative painter working through series over long periods, Strampp tends to focus on a central image as a vehicle only for the underlying message. It is not about the subject, but rather that which it conveys. The figure is often felt, but remains in absentia. In early work (mid to late 1980’s) the subject was the horse, sometimes heroic, sometimes damaged, but always passionate. This work was largely influenced by both the new German Neo-Expressionists of the time, and by English artist John Walker, who was highly influential during his residency in Melbourne art schools at that time. From the late 1980’s the horse was slowly replaced by the dress, often set in similar backgrounds and landscapes, and this successful series continued until the late 1990’s. After a studio residency in Italy in 1998, and the final series of Renaissance inspired dress paintings, Strampp began to deconstruct earlier work, often reworking a smaller detail into a larger work in its own right, such as a textile detail from the dress, or a background detail into a major landscape.

Today Strampp’s new work takes another look at the horse and the landscape, in a quieter and more contemplative manner, together with the use of a limited palette. Her work continues to explore the intangible and evocative, that communicates before it is understood, and the importance of and relationship between scale, surface and the poetic image through a method of layering and reduction that reflects the experience of connection, through history on either a personal or broader level. Subject and shadow are indeterminate, and the viewer is drawn into the work to decide between what is ‘real’ and what is not. More importantly, it is hoped that the viewer will experience a connection of experience through the work.This new body of work will be exhibited later in the year as part of her Master’s degree submission.

Click here to view the exhibtion.

Images (left): Stags, 2009, oil on linen, 101.5 x 101.5 cm

(right): Winter, 2009, oil on linen, 152 x 152 cm

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Press Release: Carl Plate - Paintings and Collage from the 1970's

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is very proud to present Carl Plate collages and painting from the 1970's. This show is the first commercial showing of these late collages of Carl Plate. Although Plate worked prolifically in the medium of collage for over thirty years he never showed these works publicly, and for several decades after his death in 1977 they remained hidden from view. It was only by happy circumstance that the collages were rediscovered recently by his family.

Plate's collages can be read as an encapsulation of time spent. He crafted many of his collages whilst aboard ships travelling between countries (Plate preferred to travel to and from Australia by sea rather than by air.) Works like Dance with Boat (1975) perfectly exemplify the intense process of repetitious cutting and pasting which would have taken place in the confined cabins of these long distance vessels.

These collages come directly to the gallery from the estate of Carl Plate and have been recently exhibited at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery as part of the first retrospective of Plate's collages.


The collages, fascinating works in their own right, are also an interesting window into Plate's creative process. The clear interplay between the collages and the other areas of Plate's creative practice is particularly self evident in paintings such as Homage to Dr C (1975) in which Plate composes the image to look like one of his 'strip collages.'

The show will be on view at Eva Breuer Art Dealer until the 22nd of June.

Plate's exhibition of collages will be on display at Eva Breuer Art Dealer from the 10th of June alongside a selection of his paintings. To view the exhibition click here.



(top) Untitled (1971), collage on magazine paper, 32.4 x 22 cm, no. 10593

(center) Dance with Boat (1975), magazine paper collage on card, 21.3 x 32.3 cm, no. 10565
(bottom) Homage to Dr. C (1975), PVA on vinyl bonded cotton, 51 x 81 cm, no. 10588


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