Australian Panorama

SERIES OF PAINTINGS BY KERRIE WARREN, CURATED BY DR EWEN JARVIS

The First Hit 2017, Acrylic on Linen, 2.1 mt x 6.7 mt, Finalist in the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize 2017

‘AUSTRALIAN PANORAMA’ A REVIEW BY DR EWEN JARVIS, CURATOR, YERING STATION GALLERY

Exploring Kerrie Warren’s ‘Australian Panorama’ is like taking an extended walk through nature, as there is a point at which superficial preoccupations fall away, a point at which tranquillity descends, a point at which the unfolding landscapes begin to communicate with us directly, and a point at which we know that the experience has quietly come to an end, at least for now.

For some viewers however an inherent tension continues. As much as these works may allude to the external world, they nonetheless effect a movement in the opposite direction, drawing viewers into dynamic interior landscapes. The experience is immersive, although one is not immersed from without, but from within. 

This sensation of immersion is enhanced by the two immense panoramas that give the exhibition its name and flank the eastern and western walls of the gallery: The First Hit and Up for Rural Review would perhaps all too forcefully dominate the exhibition were it not for Warren’s skilled manipulation of depth, texture and colour.

Instead of feeling dominated, viewers feel invited to share in the surging, exploding, arcing, and often radiantly colourful life-forces expressive of the true and often unseen energy of the land.

It is as easy to become lost in the intense vitality and marked lyricism of movement as it is to participate in the vast unfolding vision they represent. The viewer dances with the raw dynamism of the land or rests to observe the fireworks that these lyrical canvasses set off. 

Like Ian Fairweather and Jackson Pollock, Warren paints standing up and looking down upon the artwork from above. Unencumbered by specifics of location, time and dimension, evocative combinations and distillations of impression, sensation, memory and reflection are synthesised in a process within which spontaneity, intuition, power, balance, extravagance and restraint all play a part.

While working within the abstract expressionist tradition, whimsical figurative interventions lap playfully at the edges of several works, providing a sense of fleeting solidity. Rhythmic and undulating, these artistically charged works evoke a state of lively flux, somehow reassuring in their inconstancy, and at once dynamic and at rest.


 

Yering Station’s historic winery building (circa 1859) with its rustic charm, high ceilings and white painted, hand-made brick walls, operates as both a tasting room and a contemporary art gallery.  All commissions from sales associated with Yering Station’s Arts Program are donated to LARCH: The Leukaemia Auxiliary of the Royal Children’s Hospital.

© 2020 Kerrie Warren. All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy / Terms of Use