Don't miss Rebecca Wallis – 'Void of Meaning'...
Rebecca Wallis is an artist who has gained much attention for her work recently while also being included in the highly- respected Bateman Books publication, ‘250 Years of New Zealand Painting’, now in its fourth edition.
UK born, Rebecca has lived in New Zealand since 1980, studying for her DipFA Honours in Dunedin before venturing back to the UK in 1994 to complete her Masters in Visual Arts at the renowned Goldsmiths College in London. Her work has been shown around the world ever since.
Her fourth solo show with us is one of her most compelling yet – explorations of ‘the void’; the tension between self and other, absence and presence. These magnificent paintings on silk are gently worked in layers behind the surface over time to create deeply nuanced spaces. Yet they feel brilliantly alive, and you really need to experience them to ‘feel’ their emotional resonance.
At first glance, these works look like they occupy the edges of traditional formal abstraction - but they offer far more than that, balancing metaphors of tension and separation with the deep resonance of loss that a parent feels when the mother becomes ‘the other’ – when the child quite literally finds their own path opposing parental love. This is a current source of personal exploration for Rebecca.
As she explains, “When we love too hard and give ourselves away completely to another, or when our love is rejected, questioned and when we feel abjection – it’s impossible to reflect that in words. In my case, these paintings reflects the collapse of the idea of what love is and of what I am as a mother, of the ways I’ve been loving and consequently, the breaking down of my identity. Of what I thought and all I knew about how to mother, and being a mother. It’s the breaking down of the meaning of what I thought my role could and should be.”
Rebecca’s last solo show sold out and these new works are anticipated to be highly popular, so please come along to the opening event on Saturday 4 December 11am-5pm, or get in touch with scott@scottlawrie.com for a link to the online preview.
SCOTT LAWRIE GALLERY, 2 Murdoch Road, www.scottlawrie.com
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Published 3 December 2021