© Martin Browne Contemporary
© All images copyright of Bronte Leighton-Dore
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: Bianca Luciano
PHOTOGRAPHER: Robin Hearfield
ARTIST PORTRAITS: Elise Idiens
COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney
Front Cover: When a Space Holds You, The Cuttagee Cathedral, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 166 x 244 cm (detail)
When a Space Holds You - Bronte Leighton-Dore
In two suites of paintings Bronte Leighton-Dore presents her vision of two spaces - the landscape and the domestic. Two spaces that might hold us. Two spaces that do hold the artist.
Leighton-Dore currently lives in Barragga Bay on the lower-south coast of NSW. The landscape captured so frankly and directly here is that of Bermagui and surrounds. Country where the bush meets the saltwater of the Pacific Ocean. You can smell the salt and the scrub in the air - feel it in the space left between paint, between the quickly captured tangle of trees and undergrowth. See the surprising array of colours we find when we look closely and that might disappear right before us, changed in the shifting light of a day. These are paintings that breathe, an economy of paint that leaves space and encourages here an economy of words - their simplicity filling broad canvas and board. Landscape as something to be seen and seen through. Permeable. Carefully coloured with the essence of light bouncing off trunks and branches; knotty and then opening out onto clear white or a shock of blue water. We are refreshed.
Alternatively, a vision of carefully arranged interiors is full of paint from go to whoa, bright light illuminating the bold colour of assorted packages and vessels, food and flowers. These small, perfectly formed, personal tableaux are staged in the artist’s studio or her home. The familiar colours of specific kitchen staples give them a note of reassuring certainty and welcome nostalgia. In them are the kind of elements that might become the fondly remembered details of a perfect escape. Of meals cooked at leisure when the city is far away and fully-bloomed flowers clipped from an overgrowing garden that hums outside in the summer sun. The cool, white glow of an enamel mug - the perfect measure of simple beauty and comforting practicality.
These paintings are an ode to the spaces that we allow ourselves to be held by. Or that we might all do well to seek out to hold us and those we love. I’d search a lifetime for a kitchen table like these. And I remember like a photograph in my mind, moments of light glimpsed through trees and the welcome sight of water appearing as you scramble down an uneven track, the cool promise of the ocean breeze blowing up to meet you.
Bradley Vincent April 2023
LIST OF WORKS
1. Holding an Eye to Blue, Banksia Bluff, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
2. Reverence in the Reflection, Bell Bird Creek, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
3. This Place Around You, Bermagui State Forest, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
4. Woven in Shadows, Cuttagee, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
5. Falling Shadows, Raising Limbs, Cape Conran, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
6. To the Water’s Edge, Bermagui State Forest, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
7. A Never Ceasing Sense, Six Mile Creek, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
8. To be Found in Time, Bermagui State Forest, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, 122 x 166 cm
9. When a Space Holds You, The Cuttagee Cathedral, 2023, oil and marble dust on primed birch, diptych: 166 x 244 cm
10. Gang Gang, Studio View, 2023, gouache on paper, 56 x 76 cm
11. Cuttagee Spotted Gums, Birdsong and Sunlight, 2023, gouache on paper, 56 x 76 cm
12. From the Headland, Barragga Bay, 2023, gouache on paper, 56 x 76 cm
13. Tilba Rose and Bess Vase, 2023, oil on board, 39 x 32 cm
14. Bermagui Camelia and Local Lemon, 2023, oil on board, 39 x 32 cm
15. Chilli Flakes and Moruya Pumpkin, 2023, oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
16. Moruya Honey and Cuttagee Salt, 2023 , oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
17. Colourful Companions, Barragga Bay, 2023, oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
18. Fading Light, Umbi Gumbi Reserve, 2023, oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
19. Milk Jug and Bess Vase, 2023, oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
20. Vessels and Apricots, 2023 , oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
21. Marco’s Garlic, Lettuce and Spuds, 2023, oil on board, 30 x 24.5 cm
Holding an Eye to Blue, Banksia Bluff, 2023
Reverence in the Reflection, Bell Bird Creek, 2023
Falling Shadows, Raising Limbs, Cape Conran, 2023
When a Space Holds You, The Cuttagee Cathedral, 2023
Oil and marble dust on primed birch
Diptych: 166 x 244 cm
Gang Gang, Studio View, 2023
Cuttagee Spotted Gums, Birdsong and Sunlight, 2023
From the Headland, Barragga Bay, 2023
Moruya Honey and Cuttagee Salt, 2023
Oil on board
30 x 24.5 cm
Chilli Flakes and Moruya Pumpkin, 2023
Oil on board
30 x 24.5 cm
Colourful Companions, Barragga Bay, 2023
Oil on board 30 x 24.5 cm
Fading Light, Umbi Gumbi Reserve, 2023
Oil on board 30 x 24.5 cm
Marco’s Garlic, Lettuce and Spuds, 2023
Oil on board 30 x 24.5 cm
Vessels and Apricots, 2023
Oil on board 30 x 24.5 cm
BRONTE LEIGHTON-DORE
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Fine Arts, National Arts School, Sydney
Studies at College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney
SOLO SHOWS
2023 When a Space Holds You, Martin Browne Contemporary
2021 Rise and Fall in Stillness, Martin Browne Contemporary
2020 Made of Dust, Edwina Corlette Gallery
2020 A Feeling Amongst the Motion, Martin Browne Contemporary
2019 Coming and going away, Robin Gibson Gallery
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2022 National Art School in the NSW landscape, Parliament House
2022 Petrichor, Broken Hill City Gallery
2022 Melbourne Art Fair, Martin Browne Contemporary
2021 Contemporary Landscape Perspectives - a group show, Wangaratta Regional Gallery
2020 HERE I AM: Art by great women exhibition, Ambush Gallery, Kambri ANU
2019 Summer Group Show, Martin Browne Contemporary
2019 Sun It Rises, Ambush Gallery
2019 Sydney Contemporary, National Art School
2019 Crossing Boarders, Ambush Gallery
2018 RELEASED, National Art School Gallery
2018 Barkers and Biters, Ambush Gallery
2018 DIRG, National Art School Hoffspace
2018 Belanglo Show, Ambush Gallery
2018 Drawing Week exhibition, National Art School Hoffspace
2018 Sweetness of the New, Stepping into Tomorrow and The Yellow House Gallery
2017 Landscape exhibition, National Art School Hoffspace
PRIZES
2021 Paddington Art Prize (UNSW Print Prize)
2021 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
2020 Mosman Art Prize
2019 Paddington Art Prize (Highly Commended)
2019 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
COLLECTIONS
Art Bank, Sydney