La Prima Luce – The First Light

Archibald finalist Evan Shipard will make his exhibition debut with Michael Reid with a new body of Southern Highlands landscapes, centred on Berrima and its surrounds. These paintings grow out of repeated walks and return visits: river bends that hold the light, poplars standing like sentinels, low hills that lift and fall in slow rhythms. Shipard works between the studio and the open air, chasing the fugitive moments that remake a place — the pearl-grey hush of dawn, the heat-drained tones of late afternoon, the mirrored stillness of water at dusk. Classically trained and deeply attentive to atmosphere, he brings a rare tenderness to these scenes.