Catherine Cassidy. "Love Bomb". Sian Watson. "Superimposed". Grainger Gallery, Studio 1 & 2, Bldg 3.3, 1 Dairy Road, Fyshwick. Until 28 March 2021.
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![Catherine Cassidy, Fade 5 Tree at the Springs. Catherine Cassidy, Fade 5 Tree at the Springs.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/9gmjQxX8MpSQh6J68NHMnY/302b6c85-4c44-4d96-b018-25fc1bd49dfb.JPG/r0_0_965_1385_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
As the exhibition title suggests, "Love Bomb" could be seen as an explosive painterly expression of the artist's "love" for the Australian landscape. It is an exuberant display, vibrant and energetic, extravagantly activated by (sometimes) glaring, luminous colours overlaid and interspersed with the artist's signature gestural brushstrokes. While the artist is concerned with the Australian landscape, it is her experience of this rather than the reality of it that she configures in this very full exhibition.
The artist's reactions to place are visceral, emotional and aesthetic. The various topographical entities that populate the landscape prompt a range of unexpectedly ambiguous responses. Cassidy is concerned simultaneously with the intimate and panoramic aspects of the landscape. Her "perspectives" are not those of the established Western canon but rather constantly changing as she moves through the landscape. This results in images in which multiple viewpoints are the norm and natural motifs are aesthetically and emotionally analysed, synthesized and sometimes broken down to the extent that their original identity is purposefully dismantled. All of this is clothed in the veils of memory that are integral to Cassidy's associative approach to her art.
She filters her reactions to, and experiences of place, both in front of the motif and later in the studio. Singular identity is not her aesthetic or conceptual concern but rather she is interested in how objects in the landscape and the landscape itself are in a constant state of becoming and in this state evoke each other and other elements of the landscape. For her a tree may well be a tree but it holds within itself concurrent possibities for other visual readings. The constant presence of this innate ambiguity imbues a finely-tuned aesthetic tension into Cassidy's images and an overall vitality to the exhibition as a whole.
The exhibition includes large canvases and smaller works on paper. In both these formats the artist's control of scale is particularly astute and the beautiful vastness of the Australian landscape is never lost. "Fade 3 Atmosphere" is a large work (152 x 196cm). Its palette is overwhelmingly pink-red. The colours have an almost frenetic presence underscored by the mixture of the background, mid-ground and foreground into an equivocal amalgam of spatial planes.
Another work on canvas, "The Crossing", is characterised by delicate overlays of marks and gestures over the background. Spectral figures float through the space and their presence adds an element of mystery to the work that speaks of the antiquity of the land. The palette here is more subdued than the majority of the works and alludes in a nuanced way to the varying moods and changes that give individual identity to our multifaceted landscapes.
"Springs/Spinifex" is a powerful work. The artist uses contrasts to great effect. The "spinifex" of the title sits to the left of the picture plane. Its spindly appearance is neatly caught in the rapidly executed group of white brushstrokes. Their whiteness stands starkly against the dense blackness of the gestural swathe that holds the "springs" to the right of the picture plane. Both these are highlighted by the deep ochre of the background.
The exhibition is spread over both floors of the gallery. Downstairs it is accompanied by a selection of sculptures by local artist Sian Watson. The exhibition titled "Superimposed", continues the artist's explorations of the human and animal world through abstracted hybrid forms. Their solid presence in the gallery space is an especially effective formal, aesthetic and visual ploy to Cassidy's colourful expressions. There is a quiet connection between the two bodies of works in the underlying conceptual ambiguity that characterises both. There's a lot to absorb in these exhibitions and prolonged engagement with both is well worth the effort.