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The Painter’s Eye: Form & Origin
Nicholas Thompson Gallery
Artists: Yuriyal Bridgeman, Raymond Carter, Virginia Cuppaidge, Janet Dawson, Elyss McCleary, Kerrie Poliness, Julia Powles, Steven Rendall, Antonia Sellbach, Udo Sellbach, Madeline Simm, Mark Wingrave
Selected images:
The Painter’s Eye: Form & Origin is a multigenerational group exhibition of abstract paintings curated by Antonia Sellbach including two works by her father, Udo Sellbach, from the late 1960s.
‘The Painter’s Eye: Form and Origin explores how abstraction is constantly in relationship with time and seriality. If we are to look at abstraction on a temporal spectrum for a moment, with say, abstraction at the start of a time-line and figuration occurring towards the end (only one of many possible ways to think about abstraction), we might ask: how and at which point, do the artists in this show engage with shape, colour and form? As an origin point that exists (before figuration? before narrative? before meaning?), or as a backward' motion, ‘abstracting’ recognisable objects of the lived world, a return of sorts. Perhaps there is a crossing back and forth between these temporal states... abstraction operating as a time-traveller / a verb / a temporal process that defies linearity or conventional western notions of time. Each of the artists in the group exhibition have their own unique ways of working with abstraction, and have built relationships with colour and form in their practice over time. In this exhibit colour and form become a language that dances in and around thought, meaning and lived experience.’ Antonia Sellbach, 2026.
155 Langridge Street
Collingwood
To August 29
Curated by Antionia Sellbach
Artists: Yuriyal Bridgeman, Raymond Carter, Virginia Cuppaidge, Janet Dawson, Elyss McCleary, Kerrie Poliness, Julia Powles, Steven Rendall, Antonia Sellbach, Udo Sellbach, Madeline Simm, Mark Wingrave
Selected images:
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Yuriyal Bridgeman L: Chief, 2025, oil based enamel on woven pit-pit (cane), 192 x 66 cm approx. R: Watermelon, 2025, oil based enamel on woven pit-pit (cane), 192 x 66 cm approx. Yuriyal Bridgeman is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. |
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Antonia Sellbach Unstable Object #37, 2019-26, acrylic on linen, 141 x 114 cm. |
The Painter’s Eye: Form & Origin is a multigenerational group exhibition of abstract paintings curated by Antonia Sellbach including two works by her father, Udo Sellbach, from the late 1960s.
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Mark Wingrave L to R: The Light, the Dark, 2026; The Night was Day, 2026; The Day was Night, 2026. Each: Oil on linen, 46 x 35 cm. |
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Julia Powles Yours and mine, 2026, synthetic polymer paint, wool, 193 x 151 cm. Julia Powles is represented by Blockprojects Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne. |
‘The Painter’s Eye: Form and Origin explores how abstraction is constantly in relationship with time and seriality. If we are to look at abstraction on a temporal spectrum for a moment, with say, abstraction at the start of a time-line and figuration occurring towards the end (only one of many possible ways to think about abstraction), we might ask: how and at which point, do the artists in this show engage with shape, colour and form? As an origin point that exists (before figuration? before narrative? before meaning?), or as a backward' motion, ‘abstracting’ recognisable objects of the lived world, a return of sorts. Perhaps there is a crossing back and forth between these temporal states... abstraction operating as a time-traveller / a verb / a temporal process that defies linearity or conventional western notions of time. Each of the artists in the group exhibition have their own unique ways of working with abstraction, and have built relationships with colour and form in their practice over time. In this exhibit colour and form become a language that dances in and around thought, meaning and lived experience.’ Antonia Sellbach, 2026.
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Udo Sellbach City in flames, c1967, acrylic on linen, 152 x 122 cm. |
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Raymond Carter Irregular Polygon 6, 2023, acrylic on canvas on pentagonal stretcher, 52.5 x 61 cm. |
Abstraction does appear to be a universal visual expression in art that is not tied to time. A more holistic expression, perhaps, than pure figuration, especially when you consider the entirety of human heritage.
