Light and Land brings together a group of contemporary artists who are rethinking the practice of landscape painting. Rather than offering traditional or representational views of the landscape, these artists use abstraction to communicate their memories, stories, and emotional responses to place. Through varied approaches to mark-making and colour, the exhibition explores how artists receive and respond to land and light, drawing on both lived experience and reflection. The exhibition also includes artists whose work is shaped by inherited cultural knowledge and story.
Landscape has long played a central role in Australian art and historically has been manipulated to shape national identity and cultural narratives. In many historical examples, the land is framed as something to be claimed, represented as picturesque scenes or heroic imagery. In contrast, the artists in this exhibition work from a more personal and reflective perspective. Their landscapes are not fixed views but instead are shaped by time, memory, and the experience of existing alongside the land. This exhibition highlights artist who primarily work in abstraction as a way to express what is felt or remembered rather than what is immediately seen. In these works, the landscape becomes less about location and more about experience: the effect of light on colour, the emotional weight of a remembered place, or the physical act of moving through space.
Sally Anderson’s paintings reflect upon her personal connections to the world around her, hesitant to describe her works as landscapes, her practice is one of meditation on her life experience and layered memories, observations, and associations.
Bridie Gillman’s work reflects on the changing nature of memory and place. Her paintings are influenced by specific environments, but she allows her responses to shift over time as she connects to the place. Colours and forms evolve through the process of painting, reflecting how memory itself distorts and reconfigures experience.
Dan Kyle works in the bushland near his studio. His paintings use repeated marks and tonal shifts to suggest texture and depth, hinting at the shapes of trees and water without literal representation. The result is a record of the Blue Mountains mood and atmosphere.
Ross Laurie also paints from a long-standing connection to land, working from his farm just outside of Walcha. His approach is shaped by years of living and working on this land, and his paintings reflect that ongoing relationship. He works outside to respond to the land directly as he sees it.
Joanna Logue paints familiar places over long periods of time, layering and reworking surfaces until they hold a personal sense of presence. Rather than aiming for accuracy, she allows her images to emerge slowly, guided by memory and material response.
Eleanor Louise Butt draws from the light and colours of her studio surroundings. Her work is not landscape in the traditional sense but is shaped by her daily observations and close attention to seasonal change. Light, in particular, plays a strong role in guiding her palette and tone.
Candy Nelson Nakamarra paints Kalipinypa, a significant Water Dreaming site passed down through her family near Papunya. Her process begins with poured paint, forming a base that echoes the structure of the land before she layers it with Dreaming motifs.
Similarly, Carbiene McDonald Tjangala paints only his Country, using a restrained palette and textured forms to represent specific sites tied to his knowledge and experience, representing the landscape not as a visual field, but as a system of law, memory, and identity.
Light and Land focuses on how artists use abstraction not just as a formal technique, but as a way to engage with land on personal and cultural levels. These works do not aim to present a single vision of landscape and instead reflect the diverse ways of thinking about place through memory, emotion, and long-term connection. The paintings, lands, and light upon them grow warm and cool throughout the seasons. The result is a survey of landscape painting practices that highlight the inextricable relationship between people, their memories, painting, and the land.
Alex Grady, July 2025
