PRESS RELEASE:

Group Show Featuring New Works by Kerry Dawson, Jo Parkin and Shane Robertson at the Sheffer Gallery 38 Lander St., Darlington, Sydney. Opening Night: Thursday, July 16 at 6.00pm.

The Exhibition is the first time the public will have the chance to see them as a collective. The Artists with their different styles and unique use of media, Kerry Dawson, Abstract Painter, Jo Parkin a Collage Artist and Shane Robertson a Urban Landscape Painter, features New Works at a Group Exhibition Opening at the Sheffer Gallery, Darlington until July 25 2015.

Dawson works in oil and mixed media on linen and canvas.  His paintings are bold statements that rely on no preconceived ideas of end results, with marks that are authentic, honest and organic.  Large scale canvases of encaustic wax sweeps with layering of fragmented dripping washes feature strong strokes of colour that inspire hidden views made by brush and other less conventional tools.  The audience is left with no expectation to have any preconceived thoughts or impressions... just the limitless possibilities abstraction offers. 

Dawson has a commercial art background, studied art in New Zealand and at the Brera Art Academy in Milan, Italy. Inspired by mid 20th century American abstract impressionists.  "A recent visit to Vienna exposed me to Miró.  The force, simplicity and gravity of his mark-making draws me in."

Parkin works with the re-imagining of found vintage images by juxtaposing the forms into a new narrative. The process of image selection for background, foreground and midground is lengthy and involves almost endless edits to create a new reality. The modern pastiche that is formed by the traditional cut and paste method brings a new contemporary tableaux to emerge. The collage created is evocative and allows the viewer to invent their own narrative.

Parkin has a Theatrical and Fine Arts background.

Robertson's painting features urban landscapes in a combination of acrylic and high gloss enamel paints onto boards. Robertson is focussed on the manmade structures within these landscapes.  The works are visually stimulated by the variance, depth and life of colour that is present in the study of shadows that are caused by these structures and how the light changes over time. Robertson is fascinated by the patterns and lines in architecture and nature. "The seemingly mundane and usually industrial forms that infiltrate our urban and rural environment fascinate me."

Robertson is a Self-taught Artist.

Contact details:

Kerry Dawson

Web: kerrydawsonart.com

Jo Parkin & Shane Robertson

Web: joparkin.com

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Conscious style

The start the finish, the middle and the end. The process of creating art is a very lonely one. Thinking about my works and where they will be has been keeping me up at night. Do I think too much or do I think too little.

I have been reading a blog by John McDonald http://johnmcdonald.net.au   about the late Roy Jackson and he writes "Sometimes he would paint with his eyes closed, to keep the demon of "conscious style" at bay." 

Again how great are the words of someone that knows how to use them. 

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The point at where you start...

The point at where you start a work or a group of works has always interested me. That point of no return. How and where do you start? Sometimes just starting is the breakthrough. All the thinking and procrastinating can act like water building up behind a dam ready for release. Or another way to look at it maybe is like catching something, weather it be an idea or moment. As I am no word smith I will end with a great quote that sums this up in a very elegant way. 

What was any art but a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself — life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose. ~ Willa Cather

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