In these recent works, as in the past, I start with an image that I respond to quite subjectively. I explore this attraction through painting them, I look forward to seeing what will become of the image in the process and how the material quality of the medium might give the image meaning. I try to find the point where image and paint hover in unison. Though the images are disparate and come from many sources, there is often a pattern. For instance, I am drawn to the same gesture that appears in Boucher’s paintings of goddesses as in a photo of a leaping football player, and this gesture too can also be found in paint's liquid quality. Often the image is so kitsch it's embarrassing to admit an attraction to it. Other times it is the tragic image of a victim of terrorism, which can be so powerful you can't be sure whether you have the right to reproduce it. Some of the images remain unused for many years until the light bulb moment when I see how it can be painted. Whatever the initial attraction to an image it is a starting point that may be abandoned. I paint quickly and the painting emerges more than it is planned. I try and stay open to what might happen, to take advantage of what the paint will do when it is wiped back, splashed with turps, turned upside down, glazed or opaque.
In this way the image is less specific and open to interpretation. It becomes more like a mirage or a Rorschach test, However rather than aiming to reveal psychological disorders, I am interested in how the painting is interpreted or felt emotionally, and whether they will be seen as I do. I am always trying to reconcile both figurative and modernist abstract traditions. The female nude is a common motif for me, something that shifts in meaning over the years both politically and personally while also maintaining its iconic distance. Recently trees have made their way back into my work, due in part to move to the country and a growing unease about the environment. They embody so much common experience both prosaic and poetic. They are worlds within themselves and measures of time. What I find interesting is that an oak from South West France or a river gum on the Murray can connect to a viewer who may never have been in either place. There is a strong element of nostalgia in much of the imagery I work from and the paintings themselves. I draw on the perception of a more beautiful past or that strange happy/ melancholic emotion of longing. This is something I both embrace and question in my work. - Adrienne Gaha
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2017 Recent Work, DOMINIK MERCH GALLERY, Sydney Recent Work, Kali Rolfe Contemporary at Neon Park, Melbourne 2016 Snake Dance, Greenwood Stret Projects, Melbourne 2014 Vestiges, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins 2013 New Paintings, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney 2009 Recent works, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2006 Paintings & Drawings, Charles Nodrum Gallery 2004 Recent Works (with Brooke Fitzsimmons), Hewer Street Studios, London 1999 Recent Drawings, Mori Gallery, Sydney 1998 Drawings & Photographs, Charles Nodrum Gallery 1994 Adrienne Gaha, The Merchants House of the National Trust, Sydney 1993 Recent Work, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1990 The Camels Hump, Mori Gallery, Sydney A Merchant Sailors Gift, Chameleon, Hobart (Artist in Residence of that year) 1987 The Crossing, First Draft Gallery, Sydney 1986 Cockles and Muscles, Mori Gallery, Sydney
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 10, DOMINIK MERSCH GALLERY Sydney Contemporary, DOMINIK MERSCH GALLERY 2016 Spring 1883 2015 Spring 1883 Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition 2014 Spring 1883 Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition Geelong Contemporary Painting Prize Exhibition 2002 Sweet Spot, Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne Savill Contemporary, Savill Galleries, Melbourne The Human Portrayed, Charles Nodrum, Gallery 2001 Male Nude: A Private View, Charles Nodrum Gallery 1998 Erotic, Melbourne Fine Art Gallery Spring Exhibition, Charles Nodrum Gallery Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne 1996 Blondes, Gaha & Maguire, Galene Snoei, Rotterdam, Holland 1995 In the Company of Women, 100 years of Australian Women’s Art from the Cruthers Collection, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art 1992 Inherited Absolute, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 1989 re-Creation/Re-creation, Monash University Gallery
1988 Contemporary Works from the University Collection, Fine Arts Gallery, University of Tasmania Print Show, Pomeroy & Perdy Gallery, London Homage to the Square, Flaxman Gallery, London 1987 The Golden Shibboleth, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne Young Australians – The Budget Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Drawing Competition, Heide Park & Art Gallery Backlash, National Gallery of Victoria 1986 Young Contemporaries, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne The Hand and the Photograph, The Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney Future Directions, Flaxman Gallery, London Self-Image, The Immolation Mirage, 1986 Biennale Satellite Exhibition, The Lewers Bequest and Penrith Regional Art Gallery 1985 Perspecta, Art Gallery of N.S.W. 1984 Last Past the Post-ism, Art Unit, Sydney 1983 Bunker to Bunker, Art Unit, Sydney 1982 Womens Work, Cell Block Theatre, Sydney
‘Appleby’, 2017, oil on canvas, 110 x 90 cm
‘Fallen 4’, 2017, archival pigment print, 84 x 124 cm, framed, edi>on of 5 + 1 AP
‘Andromeda (a<er Ti>an)’, 2017, oil on linen, 120 x 90 cm
‘Fallen 6’, 2017, framed archival pigment print, 80 x 120, Edition of 5 + 1AP
‘Fig (small blue)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
‘Landscape (golden brown)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 135 x 110 cm
‘Echo’, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
‘River Gum’, 2017, oil on canvas, 112 x 92 cm
‘Pale Oak’, 2017, oil on linen, 110 x 100 cm
‘Ocean’, 2017, oil on canvas, 110 x 100 cm
‘Narcissus (purple)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 100 x 110 cm
‘Pale ultramarine’, 2017, oil on canvas, 153 x 118 cm
‘Oak (small blue)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
‘PuU’, 2017, oil on canvas, 51 x 41 cm
‘Wave’, 2017, oil on canvas, 33 x 24 cm
‘Blue Uniform’, 2017, oil on canvas, 110 x 110 cm
‘Un>tled (yellow)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 120 x 90 cm
‘Small Tree’, 2017, oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm
‘Venus (pink)’, 2017, oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm
‘Oak (so<)’, 2017, oil on linen, 110 x 100 cm
‘Detail a<er Rupert Bunny’, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
‘Leda and The Swan’, 2017, oil on canvas, 95 x 65 cm
‘Swimming Horse (blue)’, 2017, oil on linen, 135 x 110 cm
’Dianna (green) a<er >tan)’, 2017, oil on linen, 110 x 100 cm
‘Red Rider’, 2017, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm
‘Falbala’, 2017, oil on linen, 50 x 40 cm
‘Un7tled (lemon yellow pale)’ 2017, oil on canvas, 61 x 45 cm
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