INSTALLATION VIEW 'Desert Scenes and Other Dreams'Lyndal Hargrave
INSTALLATION VIEW 'Desert Scenes and Other Dreams'2023
Desert Scenes and Other Dreams
Lyndal Hargrave's work is a celebration of the beauty of the natural world and the power of art to capture the essence of time and place. There is progression and impermanence across the work, mirroring moments of personal transition Hargrave herself experiences while in the studio. Her shimmering compositions inspire contemplation and introspection, allowing an opportunity to consider the constant push-pull of life and how we impact and are impacted by our surroundings.
'Family, art and travel are my passions in life. In 2022 I was able to indulge in all three on an 8000 km roadtrip dissecting this vast country through its very heart. A long awaited exploration of the Simpson Desert in our trusty 4WD and small tent morphed into a circuit of epic proportions due to flooded roads across three states.
The desert after rain is green, pastoral and full of life; beautiful but not the red centre I was hoping for. Then we neared Uluru. Deep blue skies against burnt orange cliffs took my breath away. Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon and the West MacDonnell ranges with their ancient rock forms and inky waterholes fed my soul.
Back in the studio, relying on memory and some photographs, I revisited this odyssey and other journeys I have taken, searching for the essence of a place. Working rapidly and abstracting the landscape into blocks of colour, I was able to create visual diaries of my travels.'
Lyndal Hargrave has a Diploma of Education in Fine Art from the Queensland University of Technology. She was the winner of the 2011 Mosman In Situ Sculpture Award, a finalist in the International Lace Award at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, twice a finalist in the Blake Prize Directors Cut Exhibition and a finalist in the Stan and Maureen Duke Prize. Collections include Artbank, The Gold Coast City Gallery, Redland City Council, Ipswich Grammar School and Greenslopes Hospital.
Lyndal Hargrave's work is a celebration of the beauty of the natural world and the power of art to capture the essence of time and place. There is progression and impermanence across the work, mirroring moments of personal transition Hargrave herself experiences while in the studio. Her shimmering compositions inspire contemplation and introspection, allowing an opportunity to consider the constant push-pull of life and how we impact and are impacted by our surroundings.
'Family, art and travel are my passions in life. In 2022 I was able to indulge in all three on an 8000 km roadtrip dissecting this vast country through its very heart. A long awaited exploration of the Simpson Desert in our trusty 4WD and small tent morphed into a circuit of epic proportions due to flooded roads across three states.
The desert after rain is green, pastoral and full of life; beautiful but not the red centre I was hoping for. Then we neared Uluru. Deep blue skies against burnt orange cliffs took my breath away. Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon and the West MacDonnell ranges with their ancient rock forms and inky waterholes fed my soul.
Back in the studio, relying on memory and some photographs, I revisited this odyssey and other journeys I have taken, searching for the essence of a place. Working rapidly and abstracting the landscape into blocks of colour, I was able to create visual diaries of my travels.'
Lyndal Hargrave has a Diploma of Education in Fine Art from the Queensland University of Technology. She was the winner of the 2011 Mosman In Situ Sculpture Award, a finalist in the International Lace Award at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, twice a finalist in the Blake Prize Directors Cut Exhibition and a finalist in the Stan and Maureen Duke Prize. Collections include Artbank, The Gold Coast City Gallery, Redland City Council, Ipswich Grammar School and Greenslopes Hospital.
Lyndal Hargrave
Born 1959, Australia
Lives and Works in Redland Bay, Queensland
EDUCATION
1979
Diploma of Teaching (Art), Kelvin Grove CAE
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
'Desert Scenes and Other Dreams', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
2021
'Grounded’, EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
2019
'Florescence', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
2018
'New Prismatics', Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2017
'Prismatics', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
2016
'New Geometricks', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
'The Sky’s No Limit', Gallerysmith, Melbourne
2015
'Geometricks II', Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
2013
'Geometricks', Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne
2012
'Squared', SGAR, Brisbane
2011
'Constructs of Love and Logic', Brenda May Gallery, Sydney
'Hunted and Collected', Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne
'Baby Grand', Anthea Polson Gallery, Gold Coast
2009
'All the Little Pieces', Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne
2008
'Six Degrees', Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
2006
Clearview Gallery, Brisbane
2001
Fox Gallery, Brisbane
1997
Boab Interiors, Brisbane
1995
Riverhouse Galleries, Brisbane
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
'The New Gallery Show - Group Exhibition', EDWINA CORLETTE, Brisbane
Lyndal Hargrave's works 'Emerald Alchemy' 2015 and 'Cloud Poetry' 2015 has been included in the inaugural exhibition of the new Gippsland Art Gallery title 'imagine' which celebrates the imagination in all its wild and wonderful forms.
Curated by Simon Gregg, 'imagine' is about beginnings — the beginning of the world, the birth of consciousness, an awakening to the possibilities before us.
Lyndal Hargarve was a finalist in the 2016 Clayton Utz Art Award which is now being exhibited at Lethbridge Gallery by appointment. The Award is open to Queensland-based artists offering a $10,000 winner’s prize. Congratulations Lyndal Hargrave.
The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a national contemporary acquisitive award presented by Sunshine Coast Council. The Award is open to any artist who is an Australian resident, working in a 2D medium.
Forty finalists have been selected for an exhibition at the Caloundra Regional Gallery and the winning work will be added to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.
Angela Goddard is the judge for the Sunshine Coast Prize 2017. Angela is the Director of Griffith Artworks, responsible for the Griffith University Art Collection and the Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane. Angela was previously the Curator of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). Winners announced 31 August.
Image: Lyndal Hargrave | Tectonic Tremblings | 2016 | oil on canvas | 100 x 100 cm
“I’m drawn to patterns that shape our universe – the hexagons of a beehive, the fractals of a fern, the prisms of minerals,” she says. “I’m moving away from hard edge geometry to a more organic, lighter approach.” Lyndal Hargrave, 2016.
Lyndal’s exhibition ‘New Geometricks’ is current to 27 February, 2016. View her available works here.
Please join us for the official opening drinks of Lyndal Hargrave's first exhibition with Edwina Corlette Gallery 'New Geometricks' this Saturday 13 February, 2 - 4pm. The exhibition is current 2 - 27 February.
'Geometry. From the ancient Greek Geo, meaning earth, and Metron, meaning measurement. In mathematics, it is the branch that deals with points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids. By measuring how each facet of the universe relates to another, it taps to the undercurrent, the guidelines that underpin natural evolution, and the chaos that manages to exist within those parameters. Used in art, geometry creates constraints into which artists can channel their contemplations and emotional energies, creating what the grandfather of geometric abstraction, Kazimir Malevich, once called “the primacy of pure feeling in creative art.” Where modernism taught us that subject was no longer as important as form, geometric abstraction has taught us to consider form as the embodiment of the deepest structures of the universe, challenging our perceptions of surface and space. For Lyndal Hargrave, geometry is the foundation from which she makes sense of her environment.
To see the universe as Lyndal Hargrave does is to see the world in macro. An artist whose practice is informed by the twin concepts of fractal geometry and cellular biology, her work magnifies organic life to the point that recognizable forms are lost in a kaleidoscope of patterns and grids, fragmented and prismatic. Intrigued by the vast mysteries of the natural world, Hargrave’s explorations use key elements of complexity and repetition to consider theories of connectivity, evolution and interdependence. Balancing her scientific and mathematical sensibilities is an instinctive use of colour, arrangement and tone to illustrate the belief that we are all part of the world, not separate from it. Incorporating both painting and wall-based sculpture, each work is an organic and intuitive rendering of well-defined principles, created by an artist attuned to both the earth’s vibrations and her own personal cadences.
In New Geometricks, Hargrave expands on her previous ruminations on interconnectedness by immersing herself wholly in the creative process rather than focusing on strict geometric considerations. Technically confident, Hargrave has trusted past experience to guide this show, ultimately letting her subconscious decide which direction the work would take. The overall effect is ethereal and otherworldly, with compositional studies that drift between cloudy dreamscapes and emerald green underwater worlds. Gem-like prisms tumble upon each other in perpetual motion, floating forward and back, rising and falling with each undulation, giving the works a softness and tactility more akin to quilting or thread art than the hard edges of geometric abstraction. Devoid of representational forms and fixed-point perspectives, emotion is instead conveyed via the subtle nuances of colour, tone and shape, acting not unlike music’s ability to evoke feeling and sentiment. There is a sense of progression and impermanence across these works too, mirroring the moments of personal transition Hargrave herself experienced while in the studio. The result of this working style is a practice that serves as a filter between her outer and inner worlds, ambiguous to the audience, but a visual diary of lived experiences for Hargrave herself.
Ultimately though, Hargrave’s works aren’t intended for such didactic consideration. Rather, these shimmering compositions should inspire contemplation and introspection in the viewer, allowing an opportunity to consider the theories put forward, and to volunteer another interpretation entirely.
It is the constant push-pull of life – how we impact, and are impacted by, our surroundings that is key.'
