Slow Looking - The Art of Working From Life

WHEN | 16 OCTOBER TO 10 NOVEMBER

OPENING EVENT | 19 OCTOBER, 2 TO 4 PM

WHERE | BARN GALLERY

Slow Looking is a group exhibition exploring the ways in which working from life inspires the artistic practice of six painters and a sculptor.

This exhibition brings together a group of artists who regularly engage in life drawing either as painters, or in one case, as a model.

While not defining their practice, we see through their work the ways in which the process 'slow looking' invigorates and inspires them.

To sit and slowly observe and make, in a specific place and at a specific time has a certain magic that has inspired artists through the ages. This way of working implies a reciprocity—an subtle exchange between model and artist, between a landscape and a painter, between a sculptor and their material.

This notion of 'slow looking'—slowing down, stilling the mind, choosing to 'see' in a different way, closely observing detail, colour, light, temperature, texture—is the art of the thinking hand, one that records one’s experiences filtered through all of the senses.

The work featured in this exhibition includes artwork not only from regular group sessions with a life model, but also individual bodies of work from each artist (plein air, landscape, still life, or portraiture) that is inspired in some way by working from life.

ARTIST BIOS

This group exhibition brings together six painters—

Danni Bryant, Nicole Bowller, David Boyle, Von Davenport, Stephanie Mortlok, Ian Steele & Mark Wotherspoon,

who regularly engage in life drawing either as painters, or in one case, as a model.

The group currently meets weekly at Dunmoochin in Cottles Bridge and works primarily on long form poses

across multiple weeks in collaboration with a talented network of life models from across Melbourne.