8 - 25 September 2006
about the exhibition
Movement and the dynamics of the natural world are major features of Kerrie Leishman’s atmospheric oil on canvas works. Gestural strokes weave shapes from the same material as the landscape in which they sit. The objects, buffeted by the elemental force of the wind and perched between earth and sky with no horizon, are suggestive of the impermanence within the natural balance of all life. These paintings are about limitlessness and limitation, energetic textural compositions that resonate with frenetic activity. The brushstrokes radiate and diffuse but are still contained within and without the painted form, almost osmosis, with the added possibility of concealing something within. As the artist says of her work, “Parts of the paintings could be microscopic views of elements of nature, for example the overlapping of grass, the layering and building up of texture disintegrating over time”.
Kerrie was born in Victoria and studied Fine Art at the Ballarat College of Advanced Education. She has had fourteen solo exhibitions both in Australia and in London since 1982, and has been involved in over thirty group exhibitions. In 1994, she was highly commended for her entry in the Blake Prize Exhibition. Kerrie’s work is held in the collections of Artbank, Parliament House, Bundanon, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and the Hamilton Regional Gallery.
