‘Ciao Ciao’- Liz Caffin – Charcoal drawings and Aquatints
and
‘Liminal Spaces’ – Nick Dridan – Oil paintings
Liz Caffin has been in numerous exhibitions and her work is in both public and private collections. She studied art at RMIT, completing an MA in printmaking in 1998. She lives near Castlemaine in Central Victoria and enjoys traveling to Italy – both these places appear in her work.
Nick Dridan is an artist from Central Victoria. His paintings depict his surroundings and he is primarily drawn to the shapes, forms and inhabitants of the landscape. Being aware of working in a figurative tradition, he sometimes considers visual narrative but is less interested in telling a concrete story and prefers to leave his work open ended. Dridan completed an honours degree in Fine Arts in 2010 at University Ballarat and has been a finalist in various prizes including The A.M.E. Bale Prize and The Len Fox Painting Prize.
‘Ciao Ciao’- Liz Caffin – Charcoal drawings and Aquatints
Mystery and whimsy are evoked by Liz Caffin’s drawings and prints.
Using strong blacks with subtle shades of grey, she observes the complexity of our relationship to landscapes and urban environments.
Throughout much of her work she uses her understanding of natural forms found in the Australian landscape, and melds this with the influences of Italian Renaissance artists.
She explores the Italian ‘città’ – the place where art came to express the dramatic, where artists discovered the power of chiaroscuro (light and dark).
‘Liminal Spaces’ – Nick Dridan – Oil paintings
Artist Statement: “These paintings continue my exploration into the landscape and forms of my immediate surroundings, on a farm in central Victoria. Even after spending most of my life in this area, I am still frequently surprised by new and sometimes unusual sights which can be found around every corner in a relatively small area. When walking the landscape for instance, a deviation from the usual path can often give you a new perspective on a commonly seen motif, bringing it to life in a new way. Shape, tone, colour and line seem to be what initially catch my attention, in an abstract way. Narrative is secondary, and hard to escape being human, and working in a figurative tradition. Some motifs are very suggestive, but I prefer my work to be open ended in a way.” Dridan
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