OPENING NIGHT
Thursday June 25
6:00pm – 8:30pm

Exhibition runs
June 25 – July 16

Location:
Art to Art Gallery, 135 Burwood Road, Hawthorn

Presenting works from 5 incredible landscape artists, this exhibition celebrates the inspiring Australian landscapes we call home.

Featuring the works of Bree Morrison, Clair Bremner, Jac Puntoriero, Kelly Kondis, and Lisa Kerr, each artist captures the spirit of the landscape in their own way; painting from personal experiences and the unique connections they feel to the land.

Join us in the gallery on Thursday 25th June to celebrate the opening our latest exhibition. Enjoy a cocktail on arrival, wine, nibbles, handmade wood fired pizza and an evening of incredible art.

Bree Morrison grew up in a remote town in the Riverina region of New South Wales, a space surrounded by giant skies stretching over arid grassy claypan plains, and murky green rivers lined with red gums snaked through the land. It was here she explored and observed the ebb and flow of changing seasons, an interwoven ecosystem and the shift of light, landscape and life.

Travelling and exploring the landscape far and wide feeds into Bree's artists practice, seeing her spending time observing and photographing the world around her, before painting intuitively, with little prior planning from her backyard studio. Her work is an unfolding story of these wild places, focusing on the memory and imprint they create in her mind, a connection between an introspective inner world and the meaningful relationship with nature and landscape.

Her landscapes consist of abstracted forms, expressive colours and textures, and intuitive mark-making, where spaces and experiences are revealed on a slightly dreamlike, nostalgic lens.

Aiming to capture the essence of a landscape, Clair Bremner paints stylistically, employing colour, pattern and repetition to create layers of foliage or shifting landscapes. Bold colours and a textural, detailed style create magical worlds that draw us in, tempting us to disappear. Each piece a contemplative, reflective, and oftentimes complex depiction of our natural world, brought to life under her brush.

Largely self taught, Clair has been painting full-time since 2013, striving through her art to capture the essence of the landscapes she is drawn to, conveying the emotions they evoke within her.

Clair's work celebrates colour and expressive detail, formed from an intuitive, spontaneous process that allows each piece to develop organically with each layer of paint.

Living and painting in Leeton, NSW, Jac Puntoriero feels strong connections to her community and family. She paints with inspiration from nature, people, life, colour, and in the act of creation itself; a practice that let's her explore, discover, and act intuitively.

Each piece in an abstract layering of forms and colours, exploring life's stories and landscapes and drawn from intuition and feeling. Working primarily in acrylic paint and charcoal on linen canvases, she layers colour and tone, before painting over to block out the shapes and forms that sprawl across her canvases. Lines and details may even be pushed back into the paint to create even more hidden texture and detail.

For Jac, painting is a safe space of exploration, a little pocket where there is no right or wrong, where the paint dances, and calls to her and she creates with courage from her heart. It is through this process she asks 'What If?' and follows where that leads.

Painting from Melbourne's misty Sherbooke rainforest, Kelly Kondis creates landscape works full of atmospheric light, the drift and movement of weather and cloud, and the subtle ecological variations that pass by.

Inspired by her close surroundings along with her love of travel, Kelly balances the qualities and details of realism with a more impressionistic, emotive expression. With compositions full of organic light, subtle texture and smooth layered palettes, her art details the fleeting moments she encounters.

Having exhibited across Australia, Kelly has also been a finalist in several Australian art competitions, and has won categories in the Biblio Art awards and at Art Red Hill. She periodically creates works alla prima; where paint is layered quickly together without drying, allowing a soft, blurring of edges in a spontaneous, immediate style, although most of her works are painted over weeks, where each detail can carefully emerge and be added to. Her works are immersive and sensory depiction of landscape, where intuitive responses guide her process.

Lisa Kerr finds her inspiration walking amongst the trees, looking at the sky, or hearing birds – a setting that has always given her a sense of peace. It is this beauty that she aims to communicate through her paintbrush, capturing her subjects with a keen eye for detail and an expressive, free-flowingand impressionistic approaach.

For Lisa, light is a constant theme in her painting, and one she finds herself constantly pursuing and refining. Her practice is meditative, contemplative and influenced by her faith and spirituality, allowing her time to create in a slower and more fulfilling way. Lisa's works are planned, yet with the space for flexibility and spontaneity, and a strong focus on colour and the emotions it can evoke – an element she often finds herself drawn to.

There is a sense of symbolism in her works, where a flower can represent a family member or loved one. For Lisa, creating art is not just reflecting and rendering what she sees, but is a form of storytelling that will continue to be told.