End friendship sufficient assistance can prosperous met
Images and Story by Simon Barnett
Currently in a delightful gallery in Lygon Street Carlton, three artists are exhibiting their work together for the first time, but only for two weeks.
Steps Gallery is a purpose-built exhibition space owned and run by the Meat Industry Employees’ Superannuation Fund. The gallery is walking distance from Melbourne’s central business district and attracts a lot of passing pedestrian traffic.
Painters Matthew Simpson, Kristian Shaw and Peter Kennedy, well known to many galleries, have joined forces in a in a kaleidoscope of colourful oils on canvas, Masonite and linen.
Matthew Simpson’s visual work is in oil on canvas and is influenced from design elements of lines in artwork. Much of his work only contains the line of brushstrokes but the lines come in many forms.
Matthew loves the way the patterns of lines build up‚ harmonies and the joining of form and the different scales at which the lines form patterns. The process involves both random marks making and considered addition to revealed structures.
“I like to make it open for interpretation, like what the viewer brings to it and the story they see in it,” said Matthew. “For myself, it’s about creating little universes with their own laws.”
The work of St Kilda’s artist Kristian Shaw with oils on Masonite is unique and individual. Gesso white is a clean white with cool undertones and reflects; the power of nature, timeless and with a touch of warmth. The contrast of ‘Winter Sea’ in Russian Blue oil directly reflects a fierce, cold, death and an eternity. Kristian’s work is Dadaism, surrealism and abstract expressionism.
Peter Kennedy horizons are abstract with oils and are quality hand painted pieces of art finished on a high-quality linen canvas. Included are works from well-known land marks such as Station Pier Sunrise, Port Melbourne Beach View and Princess Pier Horizon.
The Three Painters exhibition is a worthwhile visit with the artists expressing their very different abstracts but their work just seems to fit together. “We are all doing our own thing but it is complimentary,” said Matthew.
Steps Gallery – Three Painters Closes Saturday 14th September
Open Tuesday to Saturday 12 to 5 pm
62 Lygon St Carlton South Ph: 03 9662 3861 https://miesf.com.au/steps-gallery/
