"For Bridie Gillman’s latest exhibition Sight Lines at Edwina Corlette, Brisbane, the paintings invite a moment
of pause. A moment to be in the landscape. Hear the wind and rain. Watch the shadows dance in the
foliage. Gillman invited this energy in the repetition of line, form, and colour—translated from the rural
typology. Engaging not only the senses we resonate with on an immediate basis (like smell, sight, touch,
taste, hear), but also the ones we don’t—memory and emotion—for a tapping into the subconscious.
In her large-scale abstract paintings, Gillman presents her recollections of Bundjalung Country in Northern
NSW. The landscape through the Tweed Valley—Brays Creek and Murwillumbah—and her observations of
the winding 33km road between the two. One the artist comments is full of lines: ridge lines, fence lines,
tree lines, shadow lines, sight lines, tyre lines, dotted lines, and solid lines. These are translated into fresh
gestures, textured surfaces, and expressive mark making.
Vast in size at 168 x 213cm, Breathing in a cloud (2024) was one of the first artworks the usually based in
Brisbane artist created on her residency in the country. After a time when she was struggling to create in
her home studio in the city. Painting in a horse shed in Brays Creek, Gillman observed a sense of working
in a micro-climate specific to her location up the mountain. The feeling of being in a cloud with the weather
rolling through. The artwork, full of varying shades of grey, buzzing on the canvas, replicates the sense of
drizzle and immersion in the elements.
With Gillman’s studio in the heart of Murwillumbah town, she builds on the canvases first worked on in
the farm. In Between the lines (2025), 153 x 122cm, the artist has used old pieces of canvas, stitched
together for a geometric abstract, in varying shades of green, thick with paint. The viewer may view the
artworks as the artist views this rural landscape. Divided, gridded, agricultural, with light peeking through
the composition. She comments that each painting starts with a specific memory or observation — holding
an initial reference point and isolating the colours. Perhaps the ridge lines or the blues and purples of the
eucalyptus mountains.
Paintings like Listening to the grass (2024) and Shifting shapes (2024) are full of dark and textured mark
making, quickly worked and full of energy. More so than the artist’s other series of works. Here, the artist
reveals her interest in exploring new methodologies of mark-making. What before would be painted out,
are now held onto. The artworks reveal the action, the moment of life they are created within, and the
moment they set out to capture. Painting, sewing, drawing, and sanding back are all used on the surface.
Colour pulled forwards and pulled back, adding depth and that sense of looking through the landscape at
the light and shadow that form.
Completely green with darkly worked lines, Listening to the grass evokes being in the landscape during the
day. But Shifting shapes represents the isolation of the country at night and the sense you get from being
the only person around. Gillman says this work is like night vision; your eyes adjust to the light and the
dark. Where things move and push in and out, a vibration. Shapes becoming other. In particular as she
notes her isolation in these new places. Away from people. Immersed in the landscape.
Here is where the magic of Sight Lines is revealed as Gillman captures her sense of being light and
unburdened, and completely alone, in awe of the environment with time to reflect. We are witness to
how art allows for a tapping, an entering, of another realm, where reality and fiction intermingle with
memory and emotion."
Written by Emma-Kate Wilson for Art Almanac
READ MORE HERE
IMAGE:
BRIDIE GILLMAN
That Purple Storm Approaching 2025
oil on linen
61 x 51cm
