Edward Koumans is one of Far North Queensland’s favourite artists, delighting collectors and artists for over two decades with his witty and sometimes sinister figurative assemblages and paintings. His figurative works in painting and sculpture extend contemporary post-colonial and cultural narratives. In the tradition of assemblage sculpture Koumans presents figures constructed from everyday flotsam and jetsam, mementos of times gone by and ethnographic fragments. Discarded odds and ends take on new life as distinctive figurative sculptures. Kouman’s paintings have a primitive figurative style. He uses an open brush technique and scrapes back through the wet paint in a drawing gesture. Over the years his subject matter has conveyed a compelling insight into northern Australia’s spirit of place with content ranging from ‘Men and Crocs’ to inland landscapes.
9 December 2005 to 18 February 2006