Enchorial

In Enchorial, Leanne Harrison Davies turns her meticulous gaze once more to the natural forms that have long anchored her practice. Living and working on the South Coast of New South Wales, the painter draws closely and attentively from the landscape that surrounds her — eucalyptus, banksia, wattle and grevillea. The title of the series, meaning “belonging to a place,” signals a deepening of this engagement.

Harrison Davies’ classical training — a Visual Arts degree from COFA and several years studying historical oil technique at the Charlie Sheard Studio School — is evident in the compositional discipline that shapes each canvas. Against darkened grounds or softly diffused fields of colour, a single stem or cluster sits with near-architectural clarity. The vessels are unadorned, the lighting carefully controlled, and the drama is held firmly within the forms of the flora themselves. It is in this interplay between natural abundance and the order of the frame — between the unruly asymmetries of the bush and the painter’s rigorous restraint — that the works gather their force. Her banksia blooms, flannel flowers and gum blossoms appear sumptuous yet composed, exuberant yet stilled within the cool discipline of her pictorial world.

If Botanica (Michael Reid Northern Beaches, 2024) announced Harrison Davies as a painter of rare sensitivity and technical command, Enchorial extends that promise with new confidence. Harrison Davies has been a finalist in many of Australia’s significant art prizes, including the Mosman Art Prize, the Basil Sellers Art Prize, the Calleen Art Award and the Gosford Art Prize.