Liz Sullivan, Bridge Over Shallow Water, 2023. Acrylic and oil on board, 95 x 183cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tacit Art, Melbourne.

Liz Sullivan is unashamedly driven to work with the substance of paint to create bold, large-scale artworks charged with optical visual energy. Sullivan is no stranger to the paintings of Cy Twombly, Turner and closer to home, Fred Williams. Her paintings are about mark-making and finding and creating beauty in the unexpected. She makes no attempt to disguise the methods of production involved in her paintings and clearly celebrates painting as the preferred medium of expression.

The artist is thoughtful and intentional in her direct approach to painting but still allows paint to take over from imagery. Her exposure to the Heidelberg School from an early age informed her deep understanding and appreciation of the mechanics of paintwork, layering, gesture and glazing. Always looking for the unexpected beauty in the mundane, her paintings are suggestive of deeper mediations at work. It is her truth in visual form. She is interested in water changing, the interplay of lines and shadow, and lively passages of light and dark. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, Sullivan stops to see the weeds.

‘I have the freedom of using what is around me and the energy of my surroundings and memories to think ‘well, I am painting my interpretation and am aware of but not answerable to the past and to reality’. It is the voice inside my head where reflections, the playing of light on form and shadow and the flat painting surface is not constricted by the one viewpoint. Lines can overlap, colour and rhythms can compete and harmonise and the mind can be an adventure.’ – Liz Sullivan, 2023.

Opening Event: Wednesday 6 December, 6.30 – 8pm.

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