Brendan Huntley ‘Without Within’

17 April – 15 May 2021
Meet the artist: 1pm – 4pm, Saturday 17 April 2021

A new collection of paintings and sculptures. Read an interview with Brendan Huntley at Artist Profile. Listen to an interview on 3RRR.

In early April 2020 I found myself searching for some peace of mind amongst the chaos of the pandemic. One day, I heard someone on a podcast describe how a moth or butterfly doesn’t simply grow wings on its already fully formed caterpillar body, but breaks itself down into a kind of soup and slowly reforms itself in the cocoon, reusing its body parts to come out at the other end as a completely new creature…

During Melbourne’s long lockdown my studio and home became my cocoon, a place to grow and experiment. Usually, I spread my practice out between two studios – my home studio for painting and my sculpture workshop in Frankston. When the threat of limited movement loomed, I filled my car with bags of clay and adapted my home studio. With the paintings pinned to the wall, a conversation could take place between the two mediums – patterns, colours and forms flitting across the space.

This series depicts a spectrum of transformations, a diversity of personalities, patterns and forms, and a propensity for movement and flight within the immovable solidity of clay, plinth and frames.

They sprung from a year of isolation, as I slowly built my own community of butterfly and moth people to celebrate the hope of emerging transformed.

– Brendan Huntley, excerpt from the exhibition text

Image: Brendan Huntley Untitled (moth) 2020, oil pastel, dry pastel, oil and graphite on archival paper, 61.5 x 42 cm (framed)

Brendan Huntley online viewing space:
Click to view the Without Within exhibition online –  sculpture and painting