Philip Cam - Joanna Poulson - Erin Renfrey - Mia Behrens - Painting - Friday 31 January - Saturday 15 February 2025

Reflections and Quotations

Philip Cam is a philosopher and author who has returned to Adelaide and to art after half a lifetime living and working in Sydney. Trained at the South Australian School of Art, his paintings are most often reflections on our everyday world. Many also refer to the world of art, particularly to artists of a metaphysical bent. Accordingly, the paintings chosen for this exhibition reflect on commonplace scenes, either by exploring the relationship between people and place, or by way of art-historical references.

Floral Perspectives: A Five-Year Exploration

Over the past five years, Poulson’s work has been an ongoing exploration of the quiet complexity and ephemeral beauty found in flowers. Central to each painting in this exhibition is the use of contemporary photography and translation of shallow depth of field to oil on canvas.

In Poulson’s earlier work, Euphorbia, the out-of-focus background becomes the subject and is translated to this soft, multi layered bold work. In subsequent paintings Poulson was drawn to the challenge of capturing the in focus complex formal qualities of flowers – petals, calyx, leaves, stamen – through the precise brushwork and subtle interplay of colours, whilst paying equal importance to the blurred backgrounds as evidenced in Cornflower.

Working with photography as a basis provides Poulson with the ability to adjust the level of focus in the background moving from soft transitions in colour to abstract elements which evoke a sense of otherworldliness. In Leucadendron, photographed in the artist’s garden, Poulson demonstrates the studious application of paint in the background elements providing a level of intrigue and interest beyond the solitary flower.

Epernay Dahlia, Poulson’s most recent work, inspired by a recent trip to France, gave her the confidence to return to larger scale paintings and to sparked the desire to add many more flowering plants to the garden outside her studio.

Any Colour You Like

This collection of works embraces the wonderful world of imagination and fancy. Each work is a contemporary exploration of existential fears. A UFO abducts a childhood comfort, a Jatz biscuit ventures into an unforgiving world, and the four horsemen reign, all ancient symbols of destruction. Each work is built up gradually through washes of watercolour, the transparency creating depth and imparting a dreamlike glow. Leaving the viewer to reflect on the absurd reality of our existence.  Erin Renfrey, artist.

Forms

My oil-painted portraits and still lifes represent feminine experiences of objectification under the male gaze, and the enforced mentality that our value as women is driven by our bodily usefulness. Vivid colours, sharp edges, and blemishes emphasised in my application of paint, along with the denial of eye contact, subverts the all too common sexualised depiction of women. The repetition of the chair throughout my practice encompasses the habitual patriarchal sexualisation of the female form. In this series, I refuse its sole intended use of supporting our bodies through destruction, thus imitating the way the male gaze determines feminine utility solely through bodily use. Entangled with and emerging from these women, the broken chairs portray the lasting affect a history of societal demoralisation and objectification has on our minds and bodies. The wear and tear is lasting, suffocating, but together we are healing and becoming our selves again.  Mia Behrens, artist.