Exhibitions
February
Old World, New World
An exhibition of large scale paintings created using Tim Maguire’s colour separation technique. The works are influenced by 17th century Dutch still life, memento mori and the aftermath of Australia’s recent bushfires.
Image: Tim Maguire Untitled 20200902 2020, oil on canvas, 153 x 168 cm
November
2022
November
2021
November
Tachisme
Tachisme is Justine Varga’s first exhibition at Tolarno Galleries. The winner of the Dobell Drawing Prize (2019) and Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture (2017), Varga’s new works rupture any clear distinction between photography and painting.
The negatives from which these photographs derive were smeared and stained with pigment during their long exposures. Justine Varga has always seen her photography as a drawing with light, or more literally as a light-sensitive substrate on which she makes marks or allows the world to leave its own marks.
These photographs make visible an art practice that is at once physical and chemical, autobiographical and contingent, painterly and photographic. Tachisme is a critical rumination on inscription, meaning and knowledge.
An exhibition of PHOTO 2021
International Festival of Photography
18 February – 7 March 2021
Image: Justine Varga Vicissitude 2018-19, chromogenic photograph, 151.5 x 121 cm (framed size), edition of 5 + 2 AP
Tachisme is Justine Varga’s first exhibition at Tolarno Galleries. The winner of the Dobell Drawing Prize (2019) and Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture (2017), Varga’s new works rupture any clear distinction between photography and painting.
The negatives from which these photographs derive were smeared and stained with pigment during their long exposures. Justine Varga has always seen her photography as a drawing with light, or more literally as a light-sensitive substrate on which she makes marks or allows the world to leave its own marks.
These photographs make visible an art practice that is at once physical and chemical, autobiographical and contingent, painterly and photographic. Tachisme is a critical rumination on inscription, meaning and knowledge.
An exhibition of PHOTO 2021
International Festival of Photography
18 February – 7 March 2021
Image: Justine Varga Vicissitude 2018-19, chromogenic photograph, 151.5 x 121 cm (framed size), edition of 5 + 2 AP
October
Shoegazer
Visit Shoegazer Online Viewing Space
Shoegazer, a diverse group of drawings made by Andrew Browne during the extended Melbourne COVID-19 lockdown, is a playful allusion to that sub-genre of indie rock, Shoegaze, but more so to the attention one pays to subjects and prompts found close at hand… almost underfoot. These somewhat introspective images are tender and intuitive encounters with observation, composition and mood.
Image: ANDREW BROWNE Shoegazer (wharf) 2020, pencil on Moulin Du Gue paper, image size 37.5 x 26 cm, paper size: 76 x 56.5 cm
September
Sydney Contemporary presents 2020 (online)
Tolarno Galleries is pleased to participate in the online event Sydney Contemporary presents 2020 with new works by A&A, Brook Andrew, Andrew Browne, Amos Gebhardt and Ben Quilty.
Pictured: A&A Klaatu, tallboy. Custom dyed rye straw, birch ply, brass, 160 (h) x 42.5 (w) x 42.5 (d) cm, unique.
September
memory scars, dreams and gardens
This will be the first Judy Watson exhibition at Tolarno Galleries since 2016.
Read the catalogue essay by Katina Davidson.
memory scars, dreams and gardens precedes the TarraWarra Museum of Art exhibition Looking Glass: Judy Watson and Yhonnie Scarce, opening 28 November 2020 to 8 March 2021.
Image: Judy Watson memory scar, cable tie, nut 2020, indigo, acrylic, graphite and linen thread on canvas, 176 x 90 cm
stitching by: Dorothy Watson
[daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Australia March 14 – April 23, May 25 2020, graph source: Crikey]
August
Night Horse
Night Horse examines the powerful currents between horses as they negotiate consent and desire during mating season. The viewer is drawn inside the kinetic swirl of the herd where hooves, flicking tails, and outstretched limbs offer an intimate encounter across the species divide. Shot in the heat of a February summer’s night, on the artist’s birthday, the charged atmosphere is palpable.
Modern equine reproduction is now often a supervised insemination process, or between a mare and stallion who are performing on cue. Night Horse captures a rarely seen ritualised courtship, where the protagonists experience heightened states of being ‘for themselves’. Gebhardt says, “The images are raw, showing the mess of body fluids and muscle, giving vivid dimensions to the physical language of the body as an archive of story, to suggest a dramatic arc in horse terms.”
Image: AMOS GEBHARDT Crest 2019, archival inkjet pigment print, 122 x 163 cm, edition of 5 + 2 AP
August
TV Week 1980-1985
A new series of small abstract paintings by Peter Atkins, playing on cultural memories of small screen heroes and villains from the 1980s.
Image: Peter Atkins ‘Why Jack Thompson Posed Nude / Inside Kamahl’s Sydney Mansion’ 2019, acrylic on board, 28 x 21 cm, 51.5 x 41.5 cm framed
Download the TV Week 1980-1985 catalogue essay and full list of works
August
Parallel Universe
If a painting is a portal to another dimension, then the canvases of Tim Johnson are magic carpets, each one an invitation to embark on a voyage through the acclaimed Sydney-based artist’s personal cosmology. Revealing his sustained interest in Buddhism and other Eastern traditions, these serenely composed constellations of figures, objects and symbols inhabit an exalted space free from everyday concerns.
Johnson’s first show in five years with Tolarno Galleries, which has represented him since 1987, Parallel Universe brings together twelve new paintings, five of them made in collaboration with Daniel Bogunovic, a self-taught artist who lives in Los Angeles.
Image: Tim Johnson Thredbo River 2020, acrylic on linen, 101 x 137 cm
Download the exhibition essay by Tony Magnusson.
Watch the exhibition video featuring Tim Johnson in a rare glimpse inside the studio with curator-at-large Tony Magnusson. Our thanks to Thirdrow Films.
