Significant Encounters
It is a strange thing that sometimes the people that make the deepest impression on us in life are people we don't know very well. We may have seen them only fleetingly,perhaps for a moment or two on a train, or passing in the street. And yet for some reason they grab our attention. We wonder about them, even make up stories about them. Some attraction or recognition, permits them to take up residence in our imaginations, and they may even appear in our dreams .
This odd phenomenon is the theme of Lyn Harrison's exhibition called Significant Encounters. Drawing on memories ranging from childhood to the present , Lyn presents a gallery of rather startling characters many of whom are total outsiders in society's terms. We are introduced to Jesus in Pyjamas from Rozelle; Space Boy (who was attempting to contact his boyfriend in a flying saucer); The King of Merrylands(who proposed to Lyn when she was only 14); and Old Darky the Tramp. Lyn comments: "Old Darky used to camp down the bottom of our yard in Valley Heights where I lived until I was six. He would stay with us whenever he was in the area. My sister and I would wander down to his campfire and he would tell us stories and give us strange black boiled sweets from his pockets. We were very fond of him and our dog adored him." One of the most memorable images in the show is Venus of Newtown. Here we have a magnificent black - skinned woman sashaying down the street in a bright blue dress. She stops to admire her abundant charms in a shop window while a startled male bystander almost twists his head off in appreciation. Colour is a dominant element in all these works, showing Lyn's wry form of expressionism at it's best.
An attendant part of the exhibition is a series of 12 gouache paintings called Lost in Wonderland. These images show a more gentle and lyrical aspect of Lyn's talent. Based on objects owned by a friend who is an avid collector of many things including angels, porcelain cats, model hands, and hundreds of editions of Alice in Wonderland, Lyn has taken combinations of these objects and placed them in imaginary settings, creating new associations between the objects and a new surrealistic world for them to live in. This latest exhibition takes us deep into Lyn Harrison's private world which we are free to wonder at, but only the Cheshire Cat and the March Hare are privileged to fully understand.
Significant Encounters will run at the Nolan on Lovel Gallery from Tue Feb 10 - Sun Feb 22
You are invited for drinks with the artist on Wednesday Feb 11 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Nolan on Lovel Gallery
56A Lovel Street
Katoomba NSW 2780
t: 02 4782 6231
e: gallery@ nolanonlovel.com.au
w: nolanonlovelgallery.com.au
It is a strange thing that sometimes the people that make the deepest impression on us in life are people we don't know very well. We may have seen them only fleetingly,perhaps for a moment or two on a train, or passing in the street. And yet for some reason they grab our attention. We wonder about them, even make up stories about them. Some attraction or recognition, permits them to take up residence in our imaginations, and they may even appear in our dreams .
This odd phenomenon is the theme of Lyn Harrison's exhibition called Significant Encounters. Drawing on memories ranging from childhood to the present , Lyn presents a gallery of rather startling characters many of whom are total outsiders in society's terms. We are introduced to Jesus in Pyjamas from Rozelle; Space Boy (who was attempting to contact his boyfriend in a flying saucer); The King of Merrylands(who proposed to Lyn when she was only 14); and Old Darky the Tramp. Lyn comments: "Old Darky used to camp down the bottom of our yard in Valley Heights where I lived until I was six. He would stay with us whenever he was in the area. My sister and I would wander down to his campfire and he would tell us stories and give us strange black boiled sweets from his pockets. We were very fond of him and our dog adored him." One of the most memorable images in the show is Venus of Newtown. Here we have a magnificent black - skinned woman sashaying down the street in a bright blue dress. She stops to admire her abundant charms in a shop window while a startled male bystander almost twists his head off in appreciation. Colour is a dominant element in all these works, showing Lyn's wry form of expressionism at it's best.
An attendant part of the exhibition is a series of 12 gouache paintings called Lost in Wonderland. These images show a more gentle and lyrical aspect of Lyn's talent. Based on objects owned by a friend who is an avid collector of many things including angels, porcelain cats, model hands, and hundreds of editions of Alice in Wonderland, Lyn has taken combinations of these objects and placed them in imaginary settings, creating new associations between the objects and a new surrealistic world for them to live in. This latest exhibition takes us deep into Lyn Harrison's private world which we are free to wonder at, but only the Cheshire Cat and the March Hare are privileged to fully understand.
Significant Encounters will run at the Nolan on Lovel Gallery from Tue Feb 10 - Sun Feb 22
You are invited for drinks with the artist on Wednesday Feb 11 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Nolan on Lovel Gallery
56A Lovel Street
Katoomba NSW 2780
t: 02 4782 6231
e: gallery@ nolanonlovel.com.au
w: nolanonlovelgallery.com.au
