Congratulations to William Breen whose work The Main Divide has been shortlisted for the 2010 John Leslie Art Prize. The exhibition - The Vision Splendid : Beauty in the Natural World, will be held from 2 October to 14 November 2010.
William
Breen’s latest series of works take us on a languid road trip through the
rolling landscape of the Yarra Valley. As deep skies brood with the promise of
rain, horizon lines fade away to present us with a birds eye view of the valley’s
verdant winter colours. Best characterized by his use of soft focus and subtle
veneration, Breen’s landscapes are testament to his skills of observation
and spatial rendering. Cool and quiet they seduce the viewer with their classical
composition and are imbued with a quality of meditative contemplation. They enable
us to enter into them, permit the mind to clear and evoke the sensation of breathing
in crisp, country air.
The
images echo a state of suspended animation, when everything slows down to a point
where one can appreciate the contemplative nature of a world in balance, a world
where everything is in its right place: an ideal vision. Although each painting
is an intuitive “moment of clarity”, there is also a nostalgic quality,
a half remembered past. The scenes are suspended in time and space in an emotive
architectural landscape. Bathed in a diffused atmospheric light, the meditative
nature of the urban image transcends the banal or familiar, into something sublime.
William
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