Clifford How
Southwest Solitude
13 November - 5 December 2026
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.
Video filmed and edited by Richard Harmey with additional wilderness footage courtesy of Eddy Delorie.
