Clifford How: Debut solo exhibition with Bett Gallery

Southwest Solitude 

Opening night: Friday 13 November, 2026, 5.30 pm

To be opened by Peter Marmion

register your interest to recieve catalogue when available

In Lutruwita/Tasmania’s South-West, the landscape can change in minutes. Mountain ranges disappear into cloud, tannin-stained creeks surge, and familiar contours shift as fronts roll in from the Southern Ocean. It is within these constantly changing conditions that Clifford How developed the work for his upcoming exhibition Southwest Solitude. From Port Davey to Bathurst Harbour, this new body of work draws us into one of the most remote places in the world, a place few of us will ever experience for ourselves.  Clifford begins each work in the field, meticulously recording shifts in colour and atmosphere through intimate colour studies. Back in the studio, he restricts his palette, building textured surfaces with brushes, fingers, balls of paper, whatever he can get his hands on. These observations remain central as the encroaching bush and distant ranges are distilled and reworked through paint. There is a stillness in these paintings, but the country is never still. The weather roars through, but the land remains.  Through Southwest Solitude, Clifford gives us rare access to this distant part of Lutruwita/Tasmania, while somehow allowing its remoteness and mystery to remain beautifully intact.

The paintings in Southwest Solitude stem from Clifford How’s six-day creative research trip to Bathurst Harbour, which sits within Tasmania’s vast Southwest National Park. The region’s jagged rocks, shapely vegetation and wild weather have long inspired artists, drawn to the mystery and atmosphere of this remote part of the world. While How is an experienced bushwalker used to gathering creative source material on foot, for Southwest Solitude the artist travelled by boat. Guided by the naturalist, adventurer and photographer Peter Marmion, the vessel provided access to areas and perspectives only seen by water.

Southwest Solitude is a visual journal with a difference, capturing the essence of the ancient landscape through the manipulation of weather systems. For most visitors to Tasmania’s Southwest wilderness, six straight days of “burning blue sky” would be an ideal weather window. However, the unusually clear weather issued How a creative challenge, prompting him to take creative liberties with the apparent weather to better represent the mood of the southwest and the natural forces that have shaped it.

Approaching Front - Mt Rugby, 2026, evokes the coming of rain with its darkening skies and soft obscuring mist. The angles of the gestural application of paint hint at a rain shadow, capturing the region’s notorious weather variability. The Stillness Holding Weight - Bathurst Harbour, 2026, also imagines a band of inverted clouds beneath Mount Stokes at sunset, amplifying the sense of calm and solitude.

Little Survivor - Bathurst Harbour, 2026, depicts a spindly tea tree, determined to grow on the soft banks of Bathurst Harbour, despite its exposure to westerly winds and regular metre-high waves. “It looks like it hasn’t grown for years,” How remarks, marvelling at the plant’s endurance. While the picturesque mountains of the southwest are often the centre of artistic attention, Little Survivor crops the top of the mountain background, focussing instead on this micro-scene, of a plant that is so ubiquitous in the Tasmanian bush that it becomes almost invisible. In Little Survivor, the stunted tea tree is elevated to hero.

The magic of first light is captured in The Morning Breathes - Breaksea Islands, 2026. The string of islands forms a natural barrier to Bathurst Harbour, which has resulted in a unique aquatic ecosystem in the dark tannin waters. The islands also represent the many contrasts inherent in the southwest environment - of light and shadow, raw energy and calm - with the western side of the islands lashed by wind and heaving waves, while adapted plant life flourishes in the eastern weather shadow. Determined to capture the diversity of tones he witnessed, How created a colour swatch in-situ, capturing the bright green Senecio, the grassy poa, and the grey highlights in the cliffs. In isolation, the colours on the swatch seem almost unbelievable, and yet the final composition - painted in How’s northern Tasmanian studio - is beautifully resolved, the combination of colours deeply evocative of the region.

While The Morning Breathes represents the islands as a beacon, Surge and Spray - Breaksea Islands, 2026, warns against getting too close. The churning waves and jagged rocks create a sense of danger, enhanced by the presence of dark clouds on the horizon. How says he’s drawn to the contrast between the “raw energy” of the harbour and the “flat passive rivers” that feed it, shifts in mood that can be seen throughout the exhibition. The water in Surge and Spray is built up with thick expressive paint marks, for instance, whereas the still, reflective water surface in Tannin Mirror - Old River, 2026 is softer, creating a sense peace and stillness.

The title of Silver Hour - Celery Top Islands, 2026 is a play on the classic ‘golden hour’ long celebrated by landscape painters.  A silvery reflection threads its way between the small harbour islands, a hint of pink in the sky relief from the dark clouds and shadows. While the same island subject matter, Southwest Morning - Celery Top Islands, 2026, conjures quite a different atmosphere, celebrating a band of gnarled tea trees against a glowing mountain backdrop, the sky light and full of promise for a clear day ahead.   

The Southwest Solitude paintings started out gouache studies, allowing the artist to experiment with light and composition on a smaller scale. The studies are exquisite in their own right: delicate snapshots of a vast rugged environment. Exhibiting the studies alongside the larger oil paintings gives us a glimpse into the artist’s process, with Suspended Light - Celery Top Islands, 2026 and its lighter gouache study showing how just the simplest change in light and tone can shift the mood. Comparing Colour Before the Rain - Celery Top Islands, 2026, to its study also demonstrates the effect of the “hot underpainting” that remains a constant in How’s oil paintings, the glimpses of orange intensifying the scene’s dominant greens and blues.

Similarly, in Tannin Weaving - Bathurst Harbour, 2026, the orange underlayer captures the water’s reflective qualities. It provides a sense of movement, in contrast with the looming background mountain. Like Little Survivor that celebrates a small, commonly overlooked weather-worn tree, Tannin Weaving finds unlikely beauty in a slick of nutrient build up as it snakes its way towards the harbour banks. Southwest Solitude truly captures this landscape of contrasts.

Lucy Hawthorne, 2026