ADRIENNE GAHA The Turning 26 May - 19 June 2022
© Martin Browne Contemporary © All images copyright Adrienne Gaha This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. COMPILER: James Edwards PHOTOGRAPHER: Jessica Maurer COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney Cover Image: Tapestry (detail), 2022, oil on linen, 160.5 x 180.5 cm
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The Turning This group of Adrienne Gaha’s paintings pursue and further develop a body of work commenced about ten years ago. They nod to the Symbolist tradition of rich jewel-like colour, dreamily elusive images, ethereal beings and exotic settings, suggestiveness and ambiguity. Gaha works in layers of transparent colours. She captures a flux of sensation, a surface of constant movement and change. Gaha takes imagery from various sources: from nature (monstera leaves, trees, clouds, water); from the decorative arts (tapestries and antique wallpapers); and from art history (from Titian to Goya via the Rococo painters). All her recent paintings share the sense of a transformation, breaking down the familiar and reforming it into something not quite tangible. Her use of glazes gives a sense of fluidity and radiance. Solvents, poured or brushed on, both define and dissolve the forms, where negatives become positives and the reverse. This is true, too, for her near-monochromatic, more muted, yet still lyrically-coloured paintings. Despite working intuitively, Gaha’s images are hard-won; Gaha re-works her paintings, sometimes for two or more years. Gaha’s forms are sometimes akin to a fata morgana or mirage. In The Qing Wave, 2022, a castle or far-off city appears as a tremulous apparition in the clouds; in Green Parasol, after Goya, 2022, Goya’s tapestry cartoon The Parasol is transfigured into an abstract levitating apparition. Her use of high colour underlines the dreamlike nature of the imagery.
Some of Gaha’s paintings include large patches or spots of opaque colour, much as Kandinsky applied to his early abstracts such as Black Spot, 1921, and to similar ends. An example in this exhibition is the painting The Waterway, where the obscuring patch of opaque pink in the very centre of the painting ruptures the wholeness of the image and suggests an invisible beyond. As Kandinsky observed, within the invisible life resides the spiritual. In this painting there are other disjointing and strange aspects: for instance the combination of figures in a gondola with Australian eucalyptus trees. In Gaha’s works that involve human figures drawn from art history – Titian’s Callisto or Europa, for instance - the figures are a lit but ghostly presence. Far from being an imitation of the real, her paintings have a fantastical visionary quality that also suggest a world out of joint. Sensing the uncanny allows us to identify a not fully stable existence. These paintings deal with that point of turning or presencing of forms, the point at which we can feel at home with the unhomely; inducing a way of looking that engages with the essence of things.
David Humphreys May 2022
LIST OF WORKS
The Qing Wave, 2022, oil on linen, 90 x 90 cm (opposite) Callisto, 2022, oil on linen, 168 x 184 cm Vestiges of Cythera, 2022, oil on linen, 153 x 168 cm Hunters, 2022, oil on linen,137 x 153 cm The Island, 2022, oil on linen, 153 x 137 cm Unfaithfulness, after Veronese, 2022, oil on linen, 137.5 x 152.5 cm The Following Tower, 2022, oil on linen, 198.5 x 132 cm Bucolic Landscape, Alizerin, 2022, oil on linen, 198 x 122 cm Summer Park, 2022, oil on linen, 102.5 x 198.5 cm Green Parasol, after Goya, 2022, oil on linen, 112 x 132.5 cm The Naiad, 2022, oil on linen, 131 x 101 cm Europa Red, 2022, oil on linen, 91.5 x 112 cm The Waterway, 2022, oil on linen, 67 x 122.5 cm Tapestry, 2022, oil on linen, 160.5 x 180.5 cm
Callisto, 2022, oil on linen, 168 x 184 cm
Vestiges of Cythera, 2022, oil on linen, 153 x 168 cm
Hunters, 2022, oil on linen,137 x 153 cm
The Island, 2022, oil on linen, 153 x 137 cm
Unfaithfulness, after Veronese, 2022, oil on linen, 137.5 x 152.5 cm
The Following Tower, 2022, oil on linen, 198.5 x 132 cm
Bucolic Landscape, Alizerin, 2022, oil on linen, 198 x 122 cm
Summer Park, 2022, oil on linen, 102.5 x 198.5 cm
Green Parasol, after Goya, 2022, oil on linen, 112 x 132.5 cm
The Naiad, 2022, oil on linen, 131 x 101 cm
Europa Red, 2022, oil on linen, 91.5 x 112 cm
The Waterway, 2022, oil on linen, 67 x 122.5 cm
Tapestry, 2022, oil on linen, 160.5 x 180.5 cm
ADRIENNE GAHA Born Sydney, Australia Lives and works in Australia and France SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2022 The Turning, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney COLLECTIONS 2021 Verdure, Edwina Corlette, Brisbane 2020 Arcadia, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney ArtBank 2018 Recent Work, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney National Gallery of Victoria 2016 Recent Work, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary art Neon Parc, Melbourne Art Gallery of Western Australia 2016 Snake dance, Greenwood Street Projects, Melbourne Art Gallery of South Australia 2014 Vestiges, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins Monash University Museum of Art 2013 New Paintings, Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney University of Tasmania 2009 Recent works, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne Private & Corporate collection in Australia, 2006 London Paintings & Drawings, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne France, UK & USA 2006 Recent Works (with Brooke Fitzsimmons), Hewer Street Studios, London 2004 Recent Works (with Brooke Fitzsimmons), Hewer Street Studios, London 1999 Recent Drawings, Mori Gallery, Sydney 1998 Drawings & Photographs, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1994 Adrienne Gaha, The Merchants House of the National Trust, Sydney 1993 Recent Work, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1990 A Merchant Sailors Gift, Chameleon, Hobart (Artist in Residence that year) 1990 The Camels Hump, Mori Gallery, Sydney 1987 The Crossing, First Draft Gallery, Sydney 1986 Cockles and Muscles, Mori Gallery, Sydney SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2022 Autumn Group Show, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney 2021 Summer Group Show, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney 2021 Sydney Contemporary, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney 2019 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sydney 2019 Side by Side, Piers Feetham Gallery, London 2019 Auckland Art Fair, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Auckland, New Zealand 2018 Couplings, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney 2018 All We Can’t See, Yellow House, Sydney 2018 Condo, Mexico City 2018 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2017 10, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney 2017 Sydney Contemporary, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney 2017 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sydney 2016 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2015 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sydney 2015 Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition, Wahroonga 2014 Spring 1883, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2014 Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition, Wahroonga 2014 Geelong Contemporary Painting Prize Exhibition, Vic 2002 Sweet Spot, Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne 2002 Savill Contemporary, Savill Galleries, Melbourne 2002 The Human Portrayed, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 2001 Male Nude: A Private View, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1998 Erotic, Melbourne Fine Art Gallery 1998 Spring Exhibition, Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne 1998 Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne