Sunlit Tree Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Sunlit Tree
Sunlit Tree 2021
Sunlit TreeAdrienne GahaSunlit Tree
Sunlit Tree2021
oil on linen
138 x 153 cm
SOLD 
Interior with 'Abyss Table' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Interior with 'Abyss Table'
Interior with 'Abyss Table' 2021
Interior with 'Abyss Table'Adrienne GahaInterior with 'Abyss Table'
Interior with 'Abyss Table'2021
oil on linen
110.5 x 91.5 cm
SOLD 
Verdure Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Verdure
Verdure 2021
VerdureAdrienne GahaVerdure
Verdure2021
oil on linen
132 x 103 cm
SOLD 
Outremer Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Outremer
Outremer 2021
OutremerAdrienne GahaOutremer
Outremer2021
oil on linen
132 x 103 cm
SOLD 
Judas Tree Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Judas Tree
Judas Tree 2021
Judas TreeAdrienne GahaJudas Tree
Judas Tree2021
oil on linen
152 x 110 cm
SOLD 
Burnt Umber Landscape Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Burnt Umber Landscape
Burnt Umber Landscape 2021
Burnt Umber LandscapeAdrienne GahaBurnt Umber Landscape
Burnt Umber Landscape2021
oil on linen
103 x 132 cm
SOLD 
Seven Shillings Beach (Blue) Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Seven Shillings Beach (Blue)
Seven Shillings Beach (Blue) 2021
Seven Shillings Beach (Blue)Adrienne GahaSeven Shillings Beach (Blue)
Seven Shillings Beach (Blue)2021
oil on linen
110.5 x 101.5 cm
SOLD 
Study 'Worship of Venus', Titian Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Study 'Worship of Venus', Titian
Study 'Worship of Venus', Titian 2021
Study 'Worship of Venus', TitianAdrienne GahaStudy 'Worship of Venus', Titian
Study 'Worship of Venus', Titian2021
oil on linen
110 x 92 cm
SOLD 
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Adrienne Gaha, Marisa Purcell
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Adrienne Gaha, Marisa Purcell
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' Adrienne Gaha Adrienne Gaha - Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In' 2021
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'Adrienne GahaInstallation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'
Installation View Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure' + Marisa Purcell 'Outside In'2021

Adrienne Gaha’s mirage-like dreamscapes are an emotional and intuitive response to the world, constrained by her formal understanding of painting, surface, and form. Working with glazes, she layers and rubs colours into each other in a process of putting on and wiping off, letting the drips of paint and turpentine create interesting details in the surface. While doing so, she allows her mind to wander and contemplate life and the rhythms of the world around her.

Inspiration might come from mysticism, popular culture, politics, or art history, with Gaha often returning to the same source images over and over again - how these images are reinterpreted with each iteration highlights how she herself is changing over time. The combination of the first two colour layers in a painting are considered rather than spontaneous, often conveying a sense of nostalgia.

Gaha appears to work quickly, with many paintings on the go at one time. But integral to this process is a period of separation from the works - physically putting them away until she is ready to resolve them. This period of waiting is as much a part of the process as the physical act of painting.

The result is ethereal works that collapse the socio-political, emotional, and technical into a single space. Like a Troxler’s fade, tangible moments disappear into the background, figuration breaks down into abstraction, and light fades to shadow. Yet despite this elusiveness, an essence stays for the audience to respond to and recast through their own personal narrative.

Adrienne Gaha 'Verdure'

Adrienne Gaha’s mirage-like dreamscapes are an emotional and intuitive response to the world, constrained by her formal understanding of painting, surface, and form. Working with glazes, she layers and rubs colours into each other in a process of putting on and wiping off, letting the drips of paint and turpentine create interesting details in the surface. While doing so, she allows her mind to wander and contemplate life and the rhythms of the world around her.

Inspiration might come from mysticism, popular culture, politics, or art history, with Gaha often returning to the same source images over and over again - how these images are reinterpreted with each iteration highlights how she herself is changing over time. The combination of the first two colour layers in a painting are considered rather than spontaneous, often conveying a sense of nostalgia.

Gaha appears to work quickly, with many paintings on the go at one time. But integral to this process is a period of separation from the works - physically putting them away until she is ready to resolve them. This period of waiting is as much a part of the process as the physical act of painting.

The result is ethereal works that collapse the socio-political, emotional, and technical into a single space. Like a Troxler’s fade, tangible moments disappear into the background, figuration breaks down into abstraction, and light fades to shadow. Yet despite this elusiveness, an essence stays for the audience to respond to and recast through their own personal narrative.

Adrienne Gaha is a Sydney-born artist now living and working between Australia and Europe. An alum of the Sydney College of the Arts and the National Art School, Sydney, her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia as well as New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. A finalist in the Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award (2015, 2014) and the Geelong Contemporary Painting Prize (2014), her work is held in public, university and private collections through Australia.

Carrie McCarthy 2021

Adrienne Gaha

Born Sydney, Australia Lives and works in Australia and the UK

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

  • 'Two Autumns', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane

2021

  • 'Verdure', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane

2020

  • 'Arcadia', Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney

2018

  • 'Recent Work', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney

2016

  • 'Recent Work', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary at Neon Park, Melbourne
  • 'Snake dance', Greenwood Street Projects, Melbourne

2014

  • 'Vestiges', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

2013

  • 'New Paintings', Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney

2009

  • 'Recent works', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

2006

  • 'London Paintings & Drawings', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
  • 'Recent Works (with Brooke Fitzsimmons)', Hewer Street Studios, London

2004

  • 'Recent Works (with Brooke Fitzsimmons)', Hewer Street Studios, London

1999

  • 'Recent Drawings', Mori Gallery, Sydney

1998

  • 'Drawings & Photographs', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

1994

  • 'Adrienne Gaha', The Merchants House of the National Trust, Sydney

1993

  • 'Recent Work', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

1990

  • 'A Merchant Sailors Gift', Chameleon, Hobart (Artist in Residence that year)
  • 'The Camels Hump', Mori Gallery, Sydney

1987

  • 'The Crossing', First Draft Gallery, Sydney

1986

  • 'Cockles and Muscles', Mori Gallery, Sydney

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019

  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary, Sydney
  • 'Side by Side', 2 person show, Piers Feetham Gallery, London, UK
  • 'Auckland Art Fair', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Auckland, New Zealand

2018

  • 'Couplings', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
  • 'All We Can’t See', Yellow House, Sydney
  • 'Condo', Mexico City
  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne

2017

  • '10', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
  • Sydney Contemporary, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sydney

2016

  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne

2015

  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Sydney
  • Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition

2014

  • 'Spring 1883', Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne
  • Grace Cossington Smith Painting Award Exhibition
  • Geelong Contemporary Painting Prize Exhibition

2002

  • 'Sweet Spot', Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne
  • 'Savill Contemporary', Savill Galleries, Melbourne
  • 'The Human Portrayed', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

2001

  • 'Male Nude: A Private View', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne

1998

  • 'Erotic', Melbourne Fine Art Gallery
  • 'Spring Exhibition', Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
  • Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne

COLLECTIONS

ArtBank

Art Gallery of Western Australia

Monash University Museum of Art

National Gallery of Victoria

University of Tasmania

Private & Corporate collection in Australia, France, UK & USA

June 4, 2021

ADRIENNE GAHA IN ART COLLECTOR MAGAZINE

Adrienne Gaha is featured in Issue Art Collector issue 94, October to December, 2020.

ADRIENNE GAHA: THROUGH ROSE-COLOURED GLASSES

What drives Adrienne Gaha’s latest work is the myriad different interpretations waiting to be discovered in paint.

Words: Louise Martin-Chew Portrait: Jacquie Manning

READ MORE HERE