Courtsey: the artist and S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney.

“Steve Lopes’ work is enormously diverse in imagery and content. It is a celebration of the enduring spirit of humanity and the power of connection.” Anne Ryan, senior curator AGNSW.

Steve Lopes: Encountered is survey exhibition of over eighty paintings, from 1997 to 2021, and including rarely seen drawings, prints and collages, together with the artist’s diaries and drawing books. Opening at the S.H. Ervin Gallery, the exhibition will also be presented at the Orange Regional Gallery from May.

Steve Lopes is a Sydney based painter known for his figurative landscapes. He often works en plein air, painting vignettes of places which are used as references for large-scale studio works.

Curated by Kon Gouriotis the exhibition considers how the artist, through thematic narratives of migration and place, of the body on the land and the land without body, reflects on our age of complexity, volatility, crisis. The emergence of voids, barriers and paths that appear and reappear play an important role in Lopes’ work, and provide insights into his philosophy regarding representation and the social and art context through which his scenes of harshness and kindness emerge. A further objective will be to contemplate how these paintings come to the eye in a subtle but disquieting manner, and to appreciate the technique with which he achieves these effects.

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