Lawrence Daws Recent Paintings
Opening Tuesday 3 November 6-8pm 31 October - 25 November 2015
Robin Gibson Gallery modern + contemporary
Lawrence Daws has enjoyed a long and successful career as a painter and printmaker during which he has depicted the different characteristics of the Australian landscape with a unique sensibility. From the parched earth and olive trees of his childhood in South Australia, through the Tanami and remote deserts of the Northern Territory, or the cultivated acres of Tasmania and the tropical rainforests and strange volcanic land forms of Queensland where he has lived since 1970, Daws brings to his work a sense of foreboding mixed with an almost dreamlike tranquility. Always present however, no matter where he locates the physical geography of his art, is another landscape – the inner landscape of the unconscious mind. This is an uneasy terrain of fears, dreams and desires, where mysterious land forms combine with tiny running figures, monstrous pythons, gigantic birds and faceless female nudes, whose nakedness threatens as much as it seduces. Drawn from many sources ranging from Freud, Jung, the Tarot and Alchemy, to Caspar David Friedrich and Piero della Francesca, his paintings contain symbols of both the collective unconscious, `the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution’, as well as that of the individual psyche. They are places of exquisite beauty seen through a thin blue veil – a state half-way between waking and nightmare – that also contain an almost unbearable tension in which we sense that something terrible is about to happen but cannot explain why. The strange juxtapositions of landscapes, figures and forms create a personal lexicon – a kind of secret language – which when put with his technical mastery, demonstrates that Daws has lost none of his ability to tantalize and intrigue. Dr Candice Bruce
Morning Pool I oil on canvas 102x122cm $30,000
Glasshouse Mountains and Palm Trees 61x84cm oil on board $18,000
Tibrogargan and Jacaranda 61x90cm oil on board $18,500
PuLi Pool III 61x76cm oil on board $12,500
Night Pool II 122x175cm oil on canvas $50,000
Morning Pool II 102x122cm oil on board $30,000
Anlaby Pool 102x122cm oil on board $30,000
Glasshouse Mountains and Poinciana 102x122cm oil on board $38,500
PuLi Pool in Shanghai 122x168cm oil on board $50,000
PuLi Pool IV 61x76cm oil on board $12,500
Mt Beerwah, Early Evening 60x90cm oil on board $18,500
Shadows, Fleurieu Peninsula 61x76cm oil on board $16,500
Lawrence Daws 1927 Born in Adelaide, South Australia Studies engineering and architecture 1948-49 Survey work with an oil company in New Guinea 1950-53 Four years at Melbourne National Art School 1957 Awarded Italian Travelling Scholarship 1958-59 Lived and worked in Rome 1960-69 Lived and worked in London Travelled extensively in Europe, Russia, India, Mexico and USA Awarded Silver Medal, S達o Paulo Biennial Awarded the Wardle Invitation Art Prize, Perth
1970 Returned to Australia and moved to Bribie Island, Queensland 1974 Moved to Owl Creek farm in the Glasshouse Mountains 1977 Awarded Georges Invitation Art Prize Appointed member of Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees 1992 Received honorary doctorate from Griffith University 2000 Received honorary doctorate from University of the Sunshine Coast Survey exhibition—‘Lawrence Daws: Asylum in Eden’, Brisbane City Gallery 2010-11 ‘The Promised Land: The Art of Lawrence Daws’, Caloundra Regional Art Gallery touring to QUT Art Museum; Redcliffe City Gallery; Tweed River Art Gallery; Hervey Bay Regional Gallery; Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville; Gladstone Regional Art Gallery; S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney; and Wollongong Regional Gallery
Selected Solo Exhibitions Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney 2015, 2008, 2006, 1997, 1994, 1991, 1988, 1983, 1980 Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane 2014, 2011, 2008, 2005, 2002, 1999, 1996, 1993, 1990, 1987, 1982, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1975 Caloundra Regional Art Gallery Touring to venues across Queensland and New South Wales 2010-2011 Festival of the Arts, Adelaide Greenhill Galleries and Hilton Hotel 2008 Sophie Gannon Galleries, Melbourne 2007 Nevill Keating Tollemache, London 2003
Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne 2001 Sam Hill-Smith Gallery, Adelaide 2000 Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane 2000 BMG Fine Art, Adelaide 1982, 1978, 1968, 1967, 1964, 1963, 1961 Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney 1977, 1973, 1969, 1965 Skinner Galleries, Perth 1973, 1967, 1965, 1962, 1961 Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane 1972, 1969, 1968, 1966, 1963, 1957, 1956 Matthieson Gallery, London 1962
La Salita Gallery, Rome 1959 Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney 1959
Public collections National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin Australian National University, Canberra University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Bendigo Art Gallery Brisbane Supreme Court
Broken Hill City Art Gallery Cairns Regional Gallery Mildura Arts Centre Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery New England Regional Art Museum Newcastle Region Art Gallery Parliament House, Canberra Tweed River Art Gallery Wollongong City Gallery Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland National Gallery of China, Beijing Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Tate Gallery, London The Royal Society, London The Victoria and Albert Museum, London Yale University, New Haven Shanghai Art Gallery, Shanghai MusÊe des Beaux-arts de L’Ontario, Toronto And other public and private collections
Robin Gibson Gallery modern + contemporary
278 Liverpool Street Darlinghurst Sydney NSW 2010 Australia 11-6 Tue-Sat +612 9331 6692
www.robingibson.net