Passages of Time: Hill Smith Gallery 27 April – 20 May

Brume 2012 oil on linen 152 x 152 cm

Hill Smith Gallery

113 Pirie Street

Adelaide

South Australia 5000

Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5.30pm

Sunday 2-5pm

Passages of Time is Adriane Strampp’s first exhibition in Adelaide since 1999, and is an overview of recent work. It includes paintings from both the horse and landscape series as well as several drawings.

Strampp’s new work continues to explore the poetic and the romantic, whilst at the same time referencing elements of her earlier work. Over the last six years Strampp has reduced her palette to quiet greys built of many thin washes of colour, creating a sense of stillness and shadow, reinforcing her interest in both spatial relationships, surface materiality and the presence of absence.

As a result her landscapes have become ethereal and ambiguous, their haziness leaves the viewer uncertain of what they are seeing – trees in the mist or shadows suspended in particles of light, they appear familiar but not specific. The statues refer to her early and popular dress series, weathered and sometimes damaged they remain strong and heroic, a contemplation of mortality and fallen ideals. The animals she chooses to draw and paint are often vulnerable, yet they too carry a stoic, if guarded strength.

There is a sense of timelessness in this new work, and a sense of maturation as Strampp attempts to address the importance of connection and communication through her work.