5 – 29 April 2023
Opening Event Thursday 6 April – 5:30pm. Opening address by Ashley Bird, Senior Curator, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
Despard Gallery is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated inaugural solo exhibition by emerging Tasmanian artist Harrison Bowe.
Passing Through presents a new suite of paintings that captures the unique alpine terrain of the loinnekumme / Arthur Ranges, a remote mountainous area located in south-west lutruwita /Tasmania. Bowe’s practice centres on responding to personal expeditions that take him deep within the Tasmanian wilderness. Navigating the terrain and experiencing it first hand, Bowe response to the landscape becomes instinctual, creating often large-scale paintings that revere the magnitude of these spaces and the ethereal experiences that they can elicit. The surface of each painting is built up through thick layers of enamel, oil paint and beeswax, carved out with various sized palette knifes. This physical, yet sensitive use of mediums, results in a surface that is both tactile and complex, contrasting rich texture against subtle gradients. With compositions that switch between high and low vantage points, as well as horizontal and vertical orientations, Bowe emphasises the theatrical grandeur of this rugged landscape.
Through his paintings, Bowe demonstrates the power of the landscapes to evoke real feelings, reflecting a strong relationship that is personal, yet universally shared. But also how paint can be a means to express these connections in a way that cannot be termed in words; to be in awe of its presence, humbled by its power and lost to its intimacy. Bowe’s practice provides an honest and exciting contribution to the discourse of contemporary landscape painting, adopting a process that transcends representation, prompting meaning and awareness through personal interpretation.
Click here to register your interest for Harrison Bowe.
ARTIST INTERVIEW
Listen to Harrison discuss his solo trek through loinnekumme / the Arthur Ranges in south-west lutruwita /Tasmania and the paintings that he produced on his return. Harrison also reflects on his creative journey that has lead to his inaugural solo exhibition and the importance of walking as means to discovery and self contemplation.
EXHIBITION IMAGES
GALLERY VIEWS
