Author: Lorna J Grear ( LJG)

Visual artist

The Baker’s Dozen at UTS Gallery

The Baker’s Dozen 6 March – 5 April
Opening Tuesday 6 March 6-8pm

The Baker’s Dozen celebrates new directions in geometric abstraction and spatial relationships by some of Australia‘s most dynamic artists. Through confident and colourful works, considerations of movements such as Neo Geo and Formalism give way to underlying intuitive processes and the pleasure of artmaking.

Drawing on the domestic vernacular for the arrangement of the works, curator Lorna Grear has created an inviting space for exploring the “ideas of social, political and cultural exchange embedded within the works.”

Featuring painting, collage, sculpture and installation by 12 established and emerging artists (with one more thrown in for good measure) The Baker’s Dozen includes work by Vivienne Binns, Bonita Bub, Debra Dawes, Lynne Eastaway, Lesley Giovanelli, Elizabeth Gower, Lorna Grear, Lisa Jones, Elizabeth Pulie, Nike Savvas, Gemma Smith, Kerry Smith and Samantha Whittingham.

http://www.utsgallery.uts.edu.au/gallery/upcoming/thebakersdozen.html

Stacked Blurb

LORNA GREAR            STACKED              2011      

Stacked, packed to the rafters, jammed full of stuff. In Lorna Grear’s new body of work surprising effects happen from the stacked paintings. Recycled, found plywood is used as grounds; painted and stacked to cause deeper spaces. Shadows move within the works. Meaning is inherent. Silhouettes are painted on tourist stencil templates of Australian fauna; possums, platypus and kangaroos.  Once discarded, used now. The piles of plywood make the issue of space real: 3D. The viewer can travel into them.

Along side the discarded templates, left over packaging is also used. A shout to Rauschenberg; and a nod to the readymade; these cardboard boxes and plastic wraps have been used as canvas for paintings. They are displayed as a smorgasbord of miscellaneous ideas.

Colour too, is celebrated and falls easily into place. Sometimes the colour comes from an old T- Shirt design, other times it belongs to midnight; mostly it is intuitive and based on rhythms. The personal is hidden in the choice of colour.

As much as the work references Australian art history the idea remains abstract. Within this abstraction are contradictions of dualities. Baroque but minimal; formal yet easy; geometric and at the same time organic. It is no longer Formalist, no longer Hard Edge; it has Op Art references, even a Modernist theme. It could be old and new.

Lorna has held numerous solo shows including at the infamous Tailor Room Gallery, Sydney 1998 – 2003 and Peloton in 2005 and 2009. Other galleries include, Imperial slacks, Herringbone, SNO, Phatspace, Zitlip, Firstdraft and Mop Projects. Her work has been hung in the Portia Geach Memorial Prize, Fishers Ghost Art Award, Mosman Art Prize and the Liverpool Art Prize. Before this her time was spent in London initiating community arts groups, namely The Dolehouse Collective and Scarecrow Tiggy-  an artist run co-operative in Camberwell, London. She is a graduate of both Sydney College of the Arts and The National Art School. Lorna currently teaches art history and painting at South Western Sydney Institute of TAFE and is in the middle of curating an exhibition titled ‘The Baker’s Dozen’ for UTS Gallery in 2012.

-STACKED @ Peloton runs 24 November – 17 December 2011

Peloton Gallery 25 Meagher Street Chippendale, Sydney NSW 2008

Gallery hours: Thursday to Saturday 1-5pm

Rainbow Warrior, stacked plywood, oil, 60 cm 85 cm 2011

      

 

 

Brolgas in Black and White, stacked plywood, oil, 60 cm x 85 cm 2011

 

 

Gerard’s Traveller no.1, stacked plywood, oil , 60 cm x 80 cm, 2011

Lorna is a visual artist pre- occupied by unusual illusions to space. Originally a landscape painter Lorna’s current work deals with ideas of place seen through pattern and colour. It would be to over simplify the ideas in Lorna’s work to discuss in terms of space and colour alone. Woven into the abstraction are years of personal iconography and experience. Sometimes the works reflect direct influences of Op art; namely Bridget Riley and at other times Hard Edge and Neo Pop is allured to. The influences are vast and varied.

Recently Lorna’s work uses references to Australian art history; placing iconic figures amongst her heavily patterned colour scapes. They are a palimpsest of art upon art.  In Dippity Beach Pattern, Charles Meere’s lady from Australian Beach Pattern is repeated within the painting.

Dippity Beach Pattern, oil on board, 2011

In another painting, Gruner’s Spring Rainbow, Elioth Gruner’s wonderful Spring Frost is copied into the patterned landscape.   Beside this sits George Raper’s Waratah.

As well as painting Lorna works with found objects such as recycled packaging, left over stencils from mass produced goods and plastic coverings. These are transformed into 3 dimensional painted works and often hold personal significance to the artist

The Pioneer, cloth, wood ply, paper collage, 2011, 20 cm x 30 cm
 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gruner’s Collage, paper collage, 21 cm x 28 cm , 2011

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guerard’s Traveller Meets Guess Who, collage, 15 cm x 20 cm , 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Beach Pattern in Black and White, paper collage, 25 cm x 30 cm, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black and White Over Breakaway, paper collage, 2011
Blue Over, paper collage, 21 cm x 28 cm 2011
Spinning Tops over Guerard’s Traveller, paper collage, 15 cm x 20 cm , 2011

Homefront 2010 Sheffer Gallery Sydney

 

HOMEFRONT

SATURDAY 16 OCTOBER 4 – 6PM. 2010

Mariela Brozky

Lorna Grear

Lee Frost

Bridget Ralph

Samantha Whittingham

Reiko Azuma

Elinor Pickard

Curated by Lorna Grear

Homefront aims to blur distinctions between traditional notions of high art and craft, women’s work and the art hero; showcasing the often overlooked art objects which fill our rooms

Exhibition  13 Oct – 23 Oct 2010

Sheffer Gallery

38 Lander St Darlington

Sydney NSW.Ph 93105683

http://sheffergallery.com/exhibitions/Homefront1/index.html

www.sheffergallery.com

Stacked Exhibition @ Peloton 24 November 2011/ 6pm opening

Rainbow Warrior, oil and acrylic on ply, 2011, 56 cm x 70 cm

LORNA GREAR       STACKED                                      2011

Stacked, packed to the rafters, jammed full of stuff. In Lorna Grear’s new body of work surprising effects happen from the stacked paintings. Recycled plywood is used as grounds; painted and stacked to cause deeper spaces. Shadows move within the works. Meaning is inherent. Silhouettes are painted on tourist stencil templates of Australian fauna; possums, platypus and kangaroos.  Once discarded, used now. The piles of plywood make the issue of space real: 3D. The viewer can travel into them.

Other stuff happens; heroic symbols meet Australiana. Hidden images are there, gallant heroes of a past era. The painting Gruner’s Spring Rainbow uses Elioth Gruner’s image, Spring Frost to re-visit a forgotten landscape. George Raper’s Waratah has also been referenced. There are others; Meere’s fabulous woman in his Beach Pattern, re- envisaged in, Purple Play. Von Guerard’s cloaked man in Northeast View from the Top of Mount Kosciusko is referenced in Guerard’s Traveller. In another, Brolgas from Spirit of the Plains move their way across stencil outlines and Rainbow Warrior brings Gruner’s cow into the pattern. In a playful and intuitive process ideas of place and identity are revealed.

Along side the discarded templates, left over packaging is also used. A shout to Rauschenberg, these cardboard boxes and plastic wraps have been used as canvas for paintings. They are displayed as a smorgasbord of miscellaneous ideas.

Colour too, is celebrated and falls easily into place. Sometimes the colour comes from an old T- Shirt design, other times it belongs to midnight; mostly it is intuitive and based on rhythms. The personal is hidden in the choice of colour.

 

As much as the work references Australian art history the idea remains abstract. Within this abstraction are contradictions of dualities. Baroque but minimal; formal yet easy; geometric and at the same time organic. It is no longer Formalist, no longer Hard Edge; it has Op Art references, even a Modernist theme. It could be old and new.

Lorna has held numerous solo shows including the Tailor Room Gallery,Sydneybetween 1998 – 2003 and Peloton in 2005 and 2009. She is a graduate of bothSydneyCollegeof the Arts and The National Art School. Lorna currently teaches art history and painting at South Western Sydney Institute of TAFE and is in the middle of curating an exhibition titled ‘The Baker’s Dozen’ for UTS Gallery in 2012.

-STACKED @ Peloton runs 24 November – 17 December 2011

Peloton Gallery 25 Meagher Street Chippendale,Sydney NSW 2008

Gallery hours: Thursday to Saturday 1-5pm