New exhibition inspired by local landscape
06 March 2018
Fiona Lowry was artist in residence at Tweed Regional Gallery in 2017
Tuesday, 6 March 2018
A new exhibition at the Tweed Regional Gallery by Sydney-based painter Fiona Lowry has been inspired by her time spent as artist in residence at the gallery last year.
Ms Lowry said working in the gallery’s Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio enabled her to revisit landscapes that she spent some time growing up in.
“My work often explores my own memories of place as well as the history of place,” Ms Lowry said.
“The residency provided a unique opportunity to immerse myself in my own history and to further understand the histories of the landscapes of the Norther Rivers region.
“I spent some time visiting sites that held potent memories for me.”
Paintings this exhibition included responses to places such as the Bangalow palms on the road to Wollumbin and the mangroves that look out to Ukerebagh Island.
While her subject matter is recognisable in form, aspects of her rendering are unexpected.
A tangled web of mangroves is airbrushed, on a large-scale, in pinks and soft lilacs. The soft-edged haziness is disconcerting as we are given no focal point, no way in, nowhere to settle.
The title of the work My mother’s far embrace (Ukerebagh Mangroves) is immediately evocative of a deeper narrative and prompts one to question: What else is going on here? What lies beneath? What stories does this hold?
“The tangled form of the mangroves, their shadow and their reflection are beautiful but also complex and difficult to navigate,” Ms Lowry said.
“I related this to the beauty and complexity of relationships and also often unacknowledged histories these places hold.”
Other cultural references in Lowry’s work include songs and poetry.
The exhibition title There is a place in the heart that will never be filled comes from Charles Bukowski’s poem ‘No help for that’ as do titles for some of the paintings in the exhibition such as We will know it more than ever and We will wait and wait.
The poem and the exhibition share an ache, a yearning for something that will never be fulfilled.
That place in the heart that will never be filled is palpable and Lowry’s expression, through airbrushing, results in works that resonate with something of that space and while it is universal it is just beyond our reach – like a distance memory, a hazy dream.
There is a place in the heart that will never be filled will be on exhibition from 16 March to 29 July in the Friends Gallery at the Tweed Regional Gallery and is an outcome of the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio program, generously funded by Mr Tim Fairfax AC.
Associated event:
Art in the Pub: In conversation with Fiona Lowry
Monday 18 June, 6.00pm for 6.30pm I Free. No bookings required
The Courthouse Hotel, Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby
Downloads
Photo 1(JPG, 136KB)
Caption: Fiona Lowry