Richard Lewer, Watch out for Wolves, 2025, acrylic on laminate tabletop, 91 x 151 cm. Photography by Christian Capurro.

“We are perhaps the stories we tell ourselves – a curious blend of truth and invention. My vivid childhood memories intermingle with fragments of recurring dreams, unsettling and elusive. Current news stories blend with ancient fables told over centuries, with their tricksters, heroes and villains, their warnings, and moral lessons. The narratives accumulate, layer by layer.

“Laminex tabletops are designed to withstand the spills and stains of family life, wiped clean again and again. We gather to tell our stories around tables, I like to think the traces of human experience remain. Painting on this resistant surface is challenging; like memory, the paint slips, resists, leaving faint impressions.

“Do I remember eating fish and chips every Friday night with my family? I think I remember earthquake drills in primary school, crouching under my desk. I recall something about witches in my closet – mostly I remember the fear. I remember painting in my dad’s workshop, unsure if I imagined a face watching me through the window. The wolf from Little Red Riding Hood lurks in Melbourne’s Edinburgh Gardens as a reminder that predators are anywhere.

“This series gives way to the otherworldly. Familiar settings are infused with a subtle unease. These tangled narrative threads are woven together. The stories that persist are not always true.” ~ Richard Lewer

Opening event: Thursday 10th April, 6-8pm