Painting, titled TwoOpen is a studio painting- I call them secret shed paintings; they’re spontaneous and brave and can be about many things.
Here’s what I wrote; ‘Two Open is a painting which celebrates painting. It is a culmination of looking at landscape over the last few years as an entry into what lays beneath the obvious subject. Other ideas are always at play when painting; light, rhythm, pattern, favourite influences. This painting has a little bit of everything which I love.’
Lorna Grear is represented by Flinders Street Gallery and held her recent solo show in June 2022. Her work has previously been selected for the Portia Geach Memorial Art Prize, The Paddington Art Prize, The Adelaide Drawing Prize, Fishers Ghose Art Award and the Liverpool Art Prize.
The Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is an annual art prize inviting artists to submit works in a variety of artistic categories and mediums. The Open Award is acquisitive to the Campbelltown City Council collection and in 2022, in celebration of the 60th Anniversary; the award is valued at $60,000. The exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday 29 October until Friday 9 December, 10 am – 4pm
My painting, titled Snakes And Ladders; 150 x 130 cm, acrylic on canvas, is selected as a finalist.
This painting originally took its subject from Bannaby Creek in the Southern Highlands. After a decade of no rain we now have fast, running, wild waters in this creek. It’s beautiful – with its twists and turns, over rocks and river stones. You can hear a cacophony of feral goats whilst being surrounded by a hundred Xanthorrhoea, or Balga Grass Plants. This painting is my tribute to the creek.
My work, titled, Greenway Upclose: 90 x 95 cm, acrylic on board, framed is currently on view at the Greenway Art Prize, Sydney Bus Museum, Leichhardt.
This work was made in the studio after a texta drawing of a secluded area near Marion Street Light Rail station on the Greenway. It’s a place I’ve taken friends – it reminds me of the bush- there are little walking tracks amongst a myriad of textures and colours through the bush. It is also one of the sites of bush regeneration done by volunteers of Greenway Bushcare.
My painting is an explosion of colour- it is a close up view, painted from memory with a feeling of enclosure within a green space.
This work is painted from memory- it has the feeling of an enclosed scrub area. I go there to get lost. Once I discovered a snake skin whilst sitting there, another time I came across a wild pig with her babies in the same spot. It doesn’t feel like many people have ever sat here- it’s in a remote area – you can only reach it by foot. For years the creek that runs close to this was dry- it now has running water with small rapids.
I was trying to paint the feeling of looking through scrub and seeing glimpses of the creek through tea tree bush and spikey leaves.
Of course the work has fave influences of Cubism, geometry and Cezanne . It was exhibited in the Drop Shadow show at Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney and framed by Frameart Sydney.
Not available- Sold/ Private collection …. Gouache on art board- 73 x 83 cm framed
These works were painted as small studies – actually at the time they were not studies at all – I didn’t paint them to think about making other works from – they are works within themselves. They are reactions to light and space and atmosphere. The works represent impulsive and intuitive inspirations to paint.
Works available. Contact Lornagrear@hotmail.com or Flinders Street Gallery; flinderstgallery@bigpond.com
My texta works tell a different story. I had been in the bush for a while by myself and had used up all my resources. I found a packet of textas. I used these to create my first texta work. It was made out of necessity.
The texta work gave me a freedom to look at form and composition. I had to find a way to simplify and enhance. The medium allowed me to delve into my love of pattern and complicated space. Conflicting harmonies even kaleidoscopic structures appeared.
I use landscape as the structure on which to realise my daily perceptions about the world we share.
For all enquiries contact Lorna Grear lornagrear@hotmail.com or Insta lornagrear_studio
Early bird enquiries contact Jason Martin; flindersstgallery@bigpond.com
I’ll be showing unseen gouaches and paintings.
Sky Above, gouache on art card, 15 x 20cm, 2021, framed
DROP SHADOW
These works play with the many beautiful and varied possibilities within painting and drawing.
In the past I have been a structuralist, a formalist, definately a colourist, and even at dusk – an impressionist painter! I respond to sensations, and forms and energy. This show I’m using landscape as my base – it grounds me.
I see a series of paintings like words in a sentence. Each word has significance yet the sentence provides the context. I sometimes think it would be perfect to keep the whole sentence together. But, then, poets are good at using singular words- to draw attention to moments. Perhaps, then, each of these paintings, are like moments in the specific time period.
At times, I like a crowded space- as though the picture plane is enveloping me like a blanket. Other times I pull it all apart and leave only the essential…
ALL WELCOME for drinks… Saturday 4 JUNE, 4-6pm; Flinders Street Gallery, 61 Flinders Street, Surryhills, NSW, Australia
My drawing practice is paramount to my visual art practice. I make many, many drawings as studies and ideas for other work. Inevitably the texta drawings become works in their own right. They are the final works.
The discovery of texta pens has allowed me to work through structures and colour ideas in a different way to painting. I like drawing for its versatility, and directness- the flow of line and quick resolve. This suite of works rely on my memory of real places and my imagination to allow for ‘digressions’ into surreal and colourful landscapes.
When drawing, I find myself thinking of many past and current influences being reworked into new drawings. In drawing, the realisation is instant.
Flinders St Gallery, 61 Flinders Street Surry Hills, Wednesday to Saturday 11.00am – 6.00pm
19 September – 3 October 2020
The paintings in this exhibition mark a return to a sort of figuration for me. The landscapes were painted during the haze of the January fires. Smokey light and a pink haze covered Sydney and its surrounds. I was looking for a grounding, a return to something solid after such an unsettling start to the year. Bushfires were blazing uncontrollably. Since then we’ve had floods and now COVID19. The year became reflective for me – it gave me time for solitude, a time to consider.
When I’m in the bush I always turn to the landscape- I can’t help it- I find it a very natural impulse to paint the light and the big vast spaces. This time was also different- I had started to paint a series of Max Beckman copies. At the same time I had started painting in life drawing classes- directly from the model. I knew I needed to return to life painting in order to paint any figure paintings in the future.
The show From Flesh to Thunder is a personal metaphor relating to a return to working from life. All the paintings in this show (apart from 2) have been painted directly from either landscape or the figure. The landscapes, painted plein-air and the life paintings are studies for me to use for larger studio works. They are small and personal however after painting them I realised they could be shown as they are. Some are fast- they are spontaneous and are usually worked with one layer. They are meant to capture the particular moment, the natural phenomena of wind, or fastness or light….. it goes on. I don’t tend to work over them – they exist in the tradition of plein-air painting.
The large plein-air work titled Wild Card was painted in the middle of a large open space in the heat and wind. I had returned from a 3 hour walk from the creek, it was hot and I felt a freedom. This work is an outpouring of looking for something solid within.
One of the only studio works in the exhibition, The Offering is structured with a gestural orange line describing the beautiful yet complicated space of foliage and bush- yet at the same time more than that. It is a mustering of personal energy, a type of renewal of one’s spirituality to offer back. When I paint these the influence of so many artists is revealed. This one makes me think of Kandinsky, Bridget Riley or John Peart – there are so many.
You’ll see the second room filled with life paintings. Renee, Ishita, Lulu, Vanessa and Rosie – some of the regular models at Alpha House. Each model has his/her own quality which in turn demands different responses. The painted sketches are works in their own right, sitting solidly in the realm of life painting. You’ll see the language of creating an image- a line might describe both the edge of a face yet at the same time be a shadow on the wall. You’ll see the core of my visual language – Cubist, Modernist and Expressionism developed to tell future stories.
Portia Geach Memorial Award finalists revealed Perpetual announces 2020 shortlist for Australia’s most recognised portrait prize for women A list of 61 works by 59 artists has been announced today for the country’s most distinguished portrait prize for female artists, the Portia Geach Memorial Award. The $30,000 annual prize is administered by the Award Trustee, Perpetual. Established in 1961 by Florence Kate Geach, in memory of her sister, artist Portia Geach, the Portia Geach Memorial Award recognises an Australian female artist for the best portrait painted from life of a man or woman distinguished in art, letters or the sciences. Born in 1873 in Melbourne, Portia Geach studied with John Singer Sargent and Lawrence Alma-Tadema in London and was also a lifelong activist for women’s rights. She established the Housewives Progressive Association of New South Wales, The Housewives Magazine in 1933 and the Progressive Journal two years later to promote issues such as equal pay for women and the right to hold public office. The judging panel for this year’s award comprised Ms Anita Belgiorno-Nettis, Trustee of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Ms Natalie Wilson, Curator of Australian and Pacific Art at The Art Gallery of New South Wales and Ms Jane Watters, Director S.H Ervin Gallery. Some of the well-known sitters for this year’s award include radio presenter Phillip Adams; actor Claudia Karvin; author and playwright Louis Nowra; indigenous dancers Ella Havelka and Tayvonne Cora; TV presenter Richard Morecroft; dancer Anthea Pilko; the late Jack Mundey; businessman Luca Belgiorno-Nettis; Francophile Professor Ross Steele AM and concert pianist Simon Tedeschi.
LORNA GREAR Lockdown in the bath, gouache on art board (self portrait)
The winner of the 2020 Portia Geach Memorial Award will be revealed on Thursday 13 August with an exhibition of all finalists open for viewing by the public from 14 August – 20 September at the S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Rocks. For more information on the award, visit http://www.shervingallery.com.au Media Enquiries: Jane Watters 02 9258 0133 / 0414 717 044
Lorna Grear 