New Stock: 18/7/09

New stock in the gallery by Brett Whiteley, Patrick Hockey, Lloyd Rees, and Judy Cassab.

Artist Spotlight: Sam Wade

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is proud to present the first artist in our spotlight series, Sam Wade. Sam very kindly answered a few questions regarding inspiration, art, and his peers.

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

Everyday scenes often inspire my work , so it is important for me to leave the studio regularly. That combined with seeing an inspiring exhibition is ideal.

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

Looking at my work people might be surprised by this but more often than not there will be a metal band playing in the background. I thought (or pretended) for a while that I might have grown out of it, but it turns out that I haven't and probably never will. Its a way to block (or blast?) out the outside world when I'm working. My parents came from classical music backgrounds, maybe there's some subconscious rebellion there.

Who of your peers do you respect the most?

All of them who are forging careers as painters, illustrators, sculptors etc despite all the inherent difficulties and uncertainties.

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

I'll often put on a hat before working, even in the studio as if putting on a tie to go to work. A thinking cap perhaps?

When did you decide to become an artist?

I made the move to Sydney from Tasmania aged 18 carrying the ambition to make a career out of it. Prior to that I had been drawing for as long as I can remember, with much encouragement. My highschool football coach who had nicknames for everyone used to call me 'the artist' if I did something clever on the field. As silly and insignificant as it may seem, things like that may have helped in a strange way...I could play footy and be an artist. In a small Tasmanian town that seemed important at the time.

What is your favourite colour?

Ultramarine Blue has been a long term favourite on my palette.

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

It changes all the time, but Streeton's 'The Railway Station' is a favourite Australian work. Degas' 'Absinthe Drinker' would be right up there.

Sam Wade's next exhibiton opens Saturday 17 October, 3-5PM. Click here to view works in progress from his new series.

Collection: Art for a Child's Bedroom

Art is a wonderful stimulant for growing children. We have put together a sampling of child friendly paintings to hang in a little boy or girl's bedroom. The colours and textures found in many of these canvases are a wonderful way to inspire imagination and encourage your child's creativity.

Artists pictured above include: Anne Smith, Charles Blackman, Anna Platten, Geoffrey Proud, Stephen Nothling, Song Ling, Richard Larter, Nora Heysen, Zai Kuang, Weaver Hawkins, Sarah Edmondson, Robert Dickerson, Margaret Cilento, Susan Conde, John Brack, Merric Boyd, Jamie Boyd, Arthur Boyd, Philippa Blair, Marika Borlase, and David Boyd.

Press Release: Zhong Chen - Beijing Girl

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

Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of Zhong Chen’s Beijing Girl 2009. The twenty-six paintings in this show will continue Chen’s internationally sought after series of portrait and landscape paintings, which are now permanent fixtures in public gallery prizes such as the Archibald. Throughout his career Chen, having moved to Australia from China in 1989, at age twenty, has explored his transcultural identity through a melding of Eastern and Western influences such as in the monumental Huang Sisters (2009), finalist in the 2009 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.

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.

The Beijing Girl series considers the depiction of the female image in both contemporary and historical Chinese culture. The Girls series are often city or region specific, (the previous paintings were based on Guangzhou girls). In this show the new Beijing muse will be hung side by side with Zhong’s other major subject – the Australian landscape – many of which have been Wynn Prize finalists, and acquired by Macquarie Bank and other important collections.

Chen has been the recipient of numerous coveted awards including the 2009 Salon des Refusés People’s Choice Award, he was a finalist in the 2008 Sulman Prize, the 2007 and 2008 Archibald Prize and the Wynne Prize in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Chen was also awarded the Samstag Scholarship in 1998, allowing him to complete a Master of Fine Arts at the Chelsea College of Arts in London, two Australia Council grants (2001, 2006) and the SBS Federation Art Award. His works are held in numerous collections including the Art Gallery of South Australia, BHP and Macquarie University. He has exhibited internationally in New York, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, including at the Hong Kong, Singapore and New York Asian Art Fairs.

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."

Click to view the exhibition.

Click to view the exhibition or to download from iTunes.

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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