'Fleeting Wonders is in response to time spent in various areas of Australia and South Island, New Zealand.
En plein air painting adventures during winter and spring in the Snowy Mountains and Jindabyne region resulted in a new appreciation of the ephemeral offerings of each season. The wilderness became a garden in late winter and spring. Capturing this gift of beauty in the passing window of time resulted in several works celebrating the joyful exuberance of the Australian bush in bloom. Flowers in extravagance greet my eye, wattle in brilliant yellows and pastel creams nod in happy abandon. Gum flowers in electric reds and pinks drip nectar and the Gymea lily stately and tall is crowned in a punctuation mark of crimson. The light caresses the land and highlights humble clumps of grass or scrub into something that stops the eyes. I’ve suddenly awoken to the flashes of colour and fragrance on the wind.
As ice melts and winter slowly ends, new pools dot the landscape like temporal mirrors. Springy moss, lichen on stone and the new growth of scrub exposed after the snow set off the last ice in the scape. Streams and rivers rush by, sun shimmers on water.
Expectation of the new captures my breath as beauty heralds the changing season. These paintings are a remembrance of these promises given. Winter ends. I am reminded to be in this moment and partake of all the beauty now on offer, these fleeting wonders.'
Carla Hananiah
Intimate knowledge of colour frames the foundation for Carla Hananiah’s balancing act between nature and artifice. Her paintings depict vast stretches of New Zealand and Australian mountain and sky most often at the “magic hour” – at dawn or dusk when unreal and powerful, dramatic slanting sunlight moves fleetingly across the landscape, creating tonalities and hues to dazzle the eye.
In the studio she returns to field notes and sketches and, in an almost diaristic fashion, responds to the land and sky in paint. The tension she sets up between the self and the impersonal grounds her work: her use of heightened, complementary colour and shimmering fluorescent paint underscores inquiry into consideration of the environment and our place within it as well as our present moment’s complex relationship to “Nature”.
“When I arrive into the landscape, it’s almost as if I’ve let go of a breath I’ve been holding for a long time,” she says. “I am a Romantic, and I paint to capture the essence of the sublime expressed through natural beauty”.
Carla holds a Masters of Fine Arts through Research, a Master of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales. She has exhibited throughout Australia and is the recipient of multiple prizes including Mosman Art Prize Viewers’ Choice Award (2012), the Blake Prize Society’s John Coburn Emerging Artist Award (2011), the Hornsby Art Prize (2011) and the Winsor & Newton Start Your Studio Scholarship (2009).
Intimate knowledge of colour frames the foundation for Carla Hananiah’s balancing act between nature and artifice. Her paintings depict vast stretches of New Zealand and Australian mountain and sky most often at the “magic hour” – at dawn or dusk when unreal and powerful, dramatic slanting sunlight moves fleetingly across the landscape, creating tonalities and hues to dazzle the eye.
In the studio she returns to field notes and sketches and, in an almost diaristic fashion, responds to the land and sky in paint. The tension she sets up between the self and the impersonal grounds her work: her use of heightened, complementary colour and shimmering fluorescent paint underscores inquiry into consideration of the environment and our place within it as well as our present moment’s complex relationship to “Nature”.
“When I arrive into the landscape, it’s almost as if I’ve let go of a breath I’ve been holding for a long time,” she says. “I am a Romantic, and I paint to capture the essence of the sublime expressed through natural beauty”.
Carla holds a Masters of Fine Arts through Research, a Master of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales. She has exhibited throughout Australia and is the recipient of multiple prizes including Mosman Art Prize Viewers’ Choice Award (2012), the Blake Prize Society’s John Coburn Emerging Artist Award (2011), the Hornsby Art Prize (2011) and the Winsor & Newton Start Your Studio Scholarship (2009).
Carla Hananiah
Born 1982, Auckland, New Zealand
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
EDUCATION
2012
- Master of Fine Arts by Research, University of New South Wales
2008
- Master of Art, University of New South Wales
2004
- Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
- 'Fleeting Wonders', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane (forthcoming)
2017
- 'Full Immersion', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2016
- 'In the Wait', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2015
- 'Mapping the Insurmountable', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
- 'Traversing, Undaunted', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2013
- 'Ever Brighter', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
- 'Late have I loved you, o’beauty ever ancient ever new', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2012
- 'In the Cool of the Day', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
- 'As Morning Dawns and Evening Fades', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2011
- 'SCAPE', Artereal Gallery, Sydney
- 'The Exchange', Sydney Entertainment Centre, Sydney
2010
- 'DIRT', College of Fine Art Space, Sydney
- 'Sublime', Artereal Gallery, Sydney
2009
- 'Busting Out: Masters of Their Own Domain', Galleries on Wentworth, Sydney
2008
- 'Works on Paper', Beowulf Galleries
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015
- 'Unfolding Splendour', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2014
- 'Sense of Surround', Edwina Corlette Gallery
- 'Land of Wonder', Australian Galleries, Melbourne
- 'Under the Sun', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
- Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
2013
- 'Imaginings', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
- 'In the Scheme of Things', Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2012
- Mosman Art Prize, The Schoolhouse Gallery, Tasmania
- The Schoolhouse Gallery, Tasmania
- Manning Regional Art Gallery, NSW
- 'Small Works Summer Show', Edwina Corlette Gallery
2011
- Blake Prize, National Art School Gallery, Sydney,
- Blake Prize Touring Exhibition
- Queensland University of Technology Gallery, Brisbane
- Delmar Gallery, Sydney
- Burrinja Art Centre, Victoria
- CBP Law Firm, Artereal Gallery, Sydney
- Hornsby Art Prize, Cherrybrook Community Centre, Sydney
- Finalist Blacktown Art Prize, Blacktown Art Centre, Sydney
- Finalist Waverly Art Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2010
- Blacktown Art Prize, Blacktown Art Centre, Sydney
- John Leslie Art Prize, Gippsland Regional Gallery, NSW
- Norvill Art Prize, Murrarundi Art Centre, NSW
- Fishers Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Regional Gallery, NSW
- Waverly Art Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2009
- UNSW Arc Annual Exhibition, Kudos Gallery
- Liverpool City Open Art Prize, Casula Powerhouse,
- Face of Compassion Art Prize, Erskine St Gallery, Sydney
- Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
- Lloyd Rees Art Prize, Centrehouse Gallery, Sydney
- Waverly Art Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2004
- Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graduation Show, COFA, UNSW, Sydney
AWARDS AND PRIZES
2012
- Winner, The Mosman Art Prize Viewers Choice Award
2011
- Winner, The Blake Prize Society’s John Coburn Emerging Artist Award
- Winner, Hornsby Art Prize
- Winner, Winsor & Newton Start your Studio Scholarship
- Finalist, Blacktown Art Prize, Blacktown Art Centre, Sydney
- Finalist, Waverly Art Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2010
- Finalist, Blacktown Art Prize, Blacktown Art Centre, Sydney
- Finalist, John Leslie Art Prize, Gippsland Regional Gallery, NSW
- Finalist, Norvill Art Prize, Murrarundi Art Centre, NSW
- Finalist, Fishers Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Regional Gallery, NSW
- Finalist, Waverly Art Prize, Sydney
2009
- 2nd Runner-Up Award, UNSW Arc Annual Exhibition, Kudos Gallery, Sydney
- Finalist, Liverpool City Open Art Prize, Casula Powerhouse,
- Finalist, Face of Compassion Art Prize, Erskine St Gallery, Sydney
- Finalist, Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
- Finalist, Lloyd Rees Art Prize, Centrehouse Gallery, Sydney
- Finalist, Waverly Art Prize, Waverly Woollahra Art School, Sydney
2008
- Finalist National Tertiary Art Prize, Sydney University Campus, Sydney
COLLECTIONS
- Trinity College, Melbourne, Victoria
- Macquarie Bank, New South Wales
- Hornsby Shire Council, New South Wales
- Private collections in Australia and Internationally
