This month the gallery will be ablaze with colour as Amelia Johnson Contemporary takes part in the Australian Trade Commission’s “Australia Art & About” program. The exhibition will showcase the work of four young and happening Australian artists each imparting their unique interpretation of Australia in their canvases.
Born in Victoria, David Frazer is renown as a printmaker and a painter and is highly celebrated for his eerie, disconcerting depictions of the outback and bizarre scenarios. Working with a figurative depiction of the landscape, his work is fraught with social commentary. He has held countless exhibitions around Australia and has won numerous awards including a residency from the Bundanon Trust in 2001. His work has been collected by Museums, Public Art Spaces and corporations in Australia and the United Kingdom and can be found in private collections worldwide.
In 1999 Vogue Living hailed Waldemar Kolbusz "Design Aficionado" and purchased a piece for its own collection. Since then his work has been hotly collected by award-winning architects and interior designers, hip hoteliers & restaurateurs and can be found in numerous international corporate collections including KPMG, IBM, Clayton Utz, the Insurance Commission of WA, CapitaLand Residential Limited and Singapore Technologies. Kolbusz's artworks truly seduce the viewer. His large canvases in oils combine rich colours which are often butted against deep, dark-stained backdrops. Kolbusz layers his colors in luminous glazes rather than applying them alla prima. This may account for the subtle modulations he achieves with hues that seem to overlap like filmy veils, creating a smoky sense of depth, even while his bold rectangular forms hold fast to the picture plane, asserting its two dimensionality. Waldemar Kolbusz has been able to extend the lessons of the Abstract Expressionists and turn them to his own ends in order to forge a visual vocabulary altogether his own. Geometry and gesture converge dynamically in his canvases to achieve a vigorous synthesis that is at once sensual and architectural.
Mitchell McAuley is an artist who focuses on the lines, both natural formations and man made, that are found in the landscape. Using heavily textured paint incorporating wax and soil his richly coloured works resonate with warmth and impart a true sense of the Australian landscape. McAuley has held over forty exhibitions in Australia, Hong Kong and the United States. His work can be found in both private and corporate collections around the world.
Experiencing Sue Ninham’s paintings is like experiencing a nostalgic trip back in time, where people were having cocktail parties, and drinks were enjoyed around the pool or by cocktail cabinets. Her inspiration stems from childhood holidays spent at her grandparents 1950’s designed house in Adelaide. The architecture and aesthetics of the 1950’s are visualised in new forms by Ninham. The objects in her paintings consist of figurative and non-figurative elements compositionally balanced by blocks of strong primary colours. Her paintings become nostalgic and overwhelming as the viewer is drawn into the storm of impressions and fragments of recalled images. Citing Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso as influences, Ninham strives for aesthetic order in her work. Graduating in Design from the South College of Advanced Education and then working, initially as an illustrator, has armed her with a wealth of visual expression. Knowing how to balance a composition of harmoniously complimentary elements and colours has contributed to her uniqueness as a painter
