Two Days

It is a privilege to welcome Michael Reid Northern Beaches represented artist, Ben Waters, to our downstairs gallery in Berrima.

Waters’ Two Days captures the essence of the Pittwater bush with remarkable precision and restraint. His distinct combination of graphic lines and soft washes of colour brings these landscapes to life–not simply as scenes, but as emotional spaces imbued with quiet magic and subtle power.

“I don’t want to paint actual views of this area,” Ben shared with Michael Sharp in a recent Scrutineer profile. “I want to paint the way it makes me feel. These feelings can be numerous. It might be awe, but it could just as easily be a sense of healing. It might evoke wonder, or draw me back into the present moment.”

This latest exhibition chronicles a journey from Careel Bay to the mouth of the Hawkesbury River and up into Smiths Creek–undertaken on a friend’s sailboat. Over two days, Ben was captivated by the slowly shifting landscape he observed while drifting down the river, recording his initial impressions in a sketchbook. “It was only two days,” he writes, “but it was enough time for this wondrous, sublime landscape to ignite my heart.”

Brimming with inspiration, Ben returned to his recently expanded studio, determined to create some of his most ambitious works to date.

Although many of the pieces in this collection depict the river from water level, Ben’s signature elevated perspective is still evident. His striking visual forms–like a distant row of trees–are distinctly mid-century in feel, emerging from sharp, geometric hills and headlands. An evocative palette of ochres, reds, yellows, blacks, and whites remains one of the artist’s most recognisable signatures.

Two Days marks Waters’ first solo show at Michael Reid Southern Highlands, following a series of successful exhibitions at our Northern Beaches and Sydney galleries.