“three”

18th February - 1st March
Opening night Friday 20/02 6-8pm

Group Exhibition

Susan Cowan, Judy Thamphicha, Karena Dalla Rosa

Exhibition Statement

by Onawa Gilkes, curator at Harlow Gallery

Finding the triads and trinities, in forms of nature, “three” brings together the scenic compositions of domestic still life, flora bursting through canvas, and an uncanny balance of bodily forms. The exhibition showcases artists Susan Cowan, Judy Thamphicha, and Karena Dalla Rosa who each portray the liveliness and tenderness of natural forms in their material and compositional balance.

Susan Cowan’s intimate compositions of domestic florals and sculptural curations of vases made from everyday objects such as books, teapots, ceramics, and fruits. Her works energise flowers through their interactions within their composition, as they reach, fold, and fall into and out of their vessels. This energetic depiction of natural artefacts is seen in Dalla Rosa’s vibrant paintings of native flora, bringing attention to the overlooked life of natural phenomena with illustrative detail.

This is taken into bodily forms with Judy Thamphicha’s esoteric material scenes which centre abstracted bodies in evocative silhouettes, which merge portraiture and landscape with their marred and textural bodily impressions.

These figures of compositional still life, ambiguous bodies, and natural landscapes draw out the uncanny beauty of uniquely personal daily artefacts. Cowan, Thamphicha, and Dalla Rosa serve as a trilogy of practice working to render the tension in our most integrated forms.

List of Artists

Susan Cowan

After thousands of hours viewing art, sculpture, architecture, textiles and fashion, Susan realised she needed to make art, not just consume it. She looked to photography as a way of opening up her creativity, learning to really look at the world again. She enrolled in an Associate Diploma at Melbourne’s Photography Studies College. But more than a step towards finding her creativity, the camera became her medium. Always a fan of the abstract and sculpture, she combines that to create a distinctive approach to still life.

@suzbot

Judy Thamphicha

I have had a long fascination with what lies beneath in disintegrating matter, whether organic or manmade, to reveal its basic structure and essence. With a recent return to painting after some time mostly working In sculpture and assemblages, I am attempting to transfer that feeling using simplified anatomical forms to convey fragility and resilience, stillness and emotion, shedding of the unnecessary and evoking/triggering memory whether present or absent. Sometimes the absence more powerful.

Born in 1952 and apart from a year of travel through South East and Central Asia in 1979 I have always lived inner city – Albert Park, Port Melbourne, St Kilda, Balaclava and for the last almost 40 years in Planet Brunswick.

Karena Dalla Rosa

Karena (Kaz) Dalla Rosa (b. 1962, AU) is an emerging visual artist based on the Bellarine Peninsula.

Painting from an early age, she commenced a Fine Arts degree at Caulfield Institute before leaving to embark on a career as a musician. Karena has performed consistently in Melbourne and around Australia until recently returning to her first love of painting.

Her work explores local places and landscapes of cultural and environmental significance like the Ocean Grove nature reserve on Wadawurrung Country, being the only parcel of remnant woodland on the Bellarine Peninsula. Recently she has been working on a series of close-up images of native flora. The proximity to the subject provides an intimacy to ecosystems humming with life and beauty. These paintings aim to bring awareness and a remembrance to the phenomenon happening in each moment in nature, often hidden or forgotten in the business of daily life.

kerenadallarosa.com

@karenadallarosa

All artworks featured in this catalogue are available for purchase. Please see link below.