369 Elizabeth Street
North Hobart Tasmania 7000
Telephone: +61 3 6231 6511
Email: dick@bettgallery.com.au
Web: www.bettgallery.com.au

The Shape of the Wind
03 March—06 April 2010

Sue Lovegrove, The Shape of the Wind 471 2010, acrylic & gouache on canvas, $6,600

Well known Tasmanian artist Sue Lovegrove admires the spirit of 18th century artist explorers. Not content to sit in the comfort of her studio and quietly paint, Sue gets right out there. Her latest solo exhibition, The Shape of the Wind, is a suite of works inspired by her time exploring the ruggedness of Tasman Island.

For me painting is not just about looking at landscapes, but experiencing them, being in them and being touched by them. Tasman Island is one of those places where the weather and the wildlife dominate and where the balance and order is still in favour of the natural world rather than the human world.

An artist of national renown, Lovegrove’s work hangs in many public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Parliament House Art Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Ivy
09 April—04 May 2010

Following Jane’s hugely successful exhibition Motherland in 2008, this next series of photographs is eagerly anticipated. The current edition of Australian Art Collector notes Jane as one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists for 2010.

Rendered in sepia tones with mottled stains in pastel hues, these images suggest a certain, timeless otherworld. Evoking vintage picture postcards and old photographs from the pages of family albums, the people and places pictured are forever anonymous and enigmatic.

Female figures and children are captured in garden settings where the foliage is rampant and encroaching and the shadows threaten. There is an air of enchantment suggested but with an unspecified darker edge.

In interior spaces, vignetted nudes appear against wallpapered backdrops with theatrical props. Posed suggestively for the camera and the viewers’ gaze, the subjects themselves are faceless, their gaze and features hidden behind dark hair.

Similarly, an image of a house covered in ivy appears shaded and watchful, its windows staring out like dark eyes of the soul.

The subjects and surface patina of these works suggest a mythology of decay, the traces and stains of family history: events past, people long gone, and secrets forever buried. – Jane Burton, March 2010

Mat is exhibiting works from a larger installation conceived and exhibited as part of the MONA Foma festival, celebrating the life of rock star Frank Zappa. Raincheck Lounge, 392 Elizabeth Street, North Hobart.

New works on paper
3 March—27 April 2010

Michael is exhibiting a series of elegant relief prints on Japanese Kozo paper. These striking large format, woodblock prints not only display high levels of artistic skill and craftsmanship, they are the result of great physical strength, manual dexterity and creative determination. This new series of editioned works is a wonderful example of this age old printing process, and is exquisitely graphic and highly collectable.

Michael Schlitz
Coal Bearer 2009
Woodblock print on
Kozo paper, $950