Debbie Mackenzie is an artist residing on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. After studying Graphic Design and then following a career in advertising, Debbie embarked upon a journey into the romantic.  She quickly established herself as one of the most exciting emerging artists to watch and has gone on to be involved in countless sell-out solo shows and group exhibitions. Debbie ‘s work is largely about reverie, a sense of place and a desire to be there. Inspiration comes from Debbie’s childhood, spent on the Mornington Peninsula and holidaying at their century-old family beach house at Peterborough on the Great Ocean Road. These land and seascapes provide a rich and endless source of motivation. A John Leslie Art Prize Finalist in 2020 & 2018, The NEAP “ACB Selects” 2023 finalist. Debbie has exhibited in numerous successful solo shows and group exhibitions and has work in private collections around Australia and internationally.

“My practice revolves around my desire to capture the incredible beauty of the Australian landscape, both where I live and further afield. Returning to where I either have been or where my imagination takes me afterward.Away from the frenetics of modern living to the ease and gentleness of the landscape and all its contemplation.  I am uncontrollably immersed in these landscapes.  Chronicling my absolute captivation with the peace it brings me. My hope and motivation is that the viewer can feel that not just see it. To feel peaceful, we all need that!” ~ Debbie Mackenzie 2023

Lauren Jones is a visual artist based on the Sunshine Coast. Working primarily in oils, her still life scenes speak of moments captured in time. Lauren’s works, executed with immediate brushstrokes, are evocative and impressionistic. Her art showcases the materiality of paint and celebrates the process of painting through a delicacy and freshness rendered by the alla prima technique.

Born in 1989 in Queensland, Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts (Creative Literature) from the Sunshine Coast University in 2009, and in 2012 a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from Monash University.
Lauren has shown at Michael Reid Northern Beaches over the last 2 years with her last exhibition, ‘Papaver’ April 2023 being incredibly well received with our collectors. Currently Jones works from her home studio in the Noosa Hinterland, Queensland. Her work is held in private collections across Australia.

“The paintings from ‘Postcards from the Museum’ are inspired by the late 19th century French artist Henri Fantin-Latour. I find myself drawn to 19th century European Still Life artists, mostly for their moody, atmospheric and textural flower paintings. Fantin-Latour’s work particularly stands out to me stylistically for being on the cusp of impressionism. I’m interested in the space between loose impressionism and realist tonal work. I like to see the workings and movement of the paint, but I’m also interested in capturing the light and trueness of shadow and tone.

This exhibition explores the idea of ‘inspiration’ and of artwork informing artwork. I love this hopeful notion of perpetually existing in the art world. Of new paintings being inspired by old paintings and the relationship of the modern and the old world.
As an art school student I was often in awe at the old masters paintings while wandering around gallery museums. Filled with inspiration, I would always visit the gift shop on my way out the gallery, wanting to take home some token to remind me of my experience and the paintings that moved and inspired me. A postcard of a painting, (the most affordable item) was a popular choice. This show explores that idea of an admired artist’s painting, printed on a postcard, purchased and kept as a reminder of the lived and experienced ‘inspiration’. A small token of an old master painter inspiring and influencing a new series of paintings in a contemporary era and in turn these new works perhaps informing another.” ~ Lauren Jones 2023

Lily Platts captures the forgotten items of the everyday. She is drawn to highlighting objects in transitional environments, such as on the side of the road, at a garage sale, an op shop, or on an online marketplace.

The series focuses on the beauty and humanity found within these neglected objects. The finely balanced yet intriguing compositions showcase the unique stories within these scenes, environments that we are familiar with but still seem slightly surreal. Lily has created 5 ceramic pieces to complement her Special Release of paintings at Michael Reid Southern Highlands.  They continue her theme of  household items being tossed kerbside, with chairs in particular being a recurring muse.

Platts is a visual artist living and working on Ngunnawal land. Through her subject matter she explores themes and nuances of the everyday. Platts was a recipient of the 2020 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship after graduating with Honours from RMIT, Melbourne in 2019 and from ANU in 2017.

Holly Dormor is a multidisciplinary artist working in Sydney NSW. In recent years she has turned her attention to painting, primarily within the still life genre. Holly is a current finalist in the National Emerging Art Prize 2023 and the Hunter’s Hill Art Prize 2023. With a strong interest in sculpture, she was a finalist in the 2015 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. Holly holds a BA in Media, Arts & Culture and studied Fine Art at Sydney’s National Art School. Her work is held privately throughout Australia. Holly has maintained her art practice alongside a twenty year career in television production with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

For Holly’s first showing with Michael Reid, ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ she has created eleven botanical works – each a study in light and transformation.
“As a marker of time & space, light reveals an astounding variation of colour in an object providing warmth, weight and otherworldly contrasts. A leaf suddenly illuminated or a shadow curiously awash with colour, these are the moments I look for. Naturally, the light will change and the illusion will pass. This series honours that shift… resisting and remembering the crawl of daylight across a room.” – Holly Dormor

Sally Browne is a painter of still life and the natural environment working predominantly in watercolour and oils. She grew up in the UK and travelled through SE Asia before eventually settling in Sydney. Her work is an exploration of the order and wildness, the human-made and natural that are woven together in Sydney’s Inner West. Her work evokes an ephemeral and emotional world as seen through the eyes of a migrant now at home in the unique Australian light. Sally’s practice is centred around drawing and has evolved from her formal studies of surface pattern design, painting, printmaking and graphic design.

Of the watercolours created for this special release she says : “Last February I attended a drawing residency in Hill End with the National Art School, these paintings are my response to the magical landscape there. Some of these works were painted on-site and others have been reconstructed from sketch book studies back in the studio. The Australian bush is chaotic; I will sit and look in one spot for hours sometimes before I can find a way in and make my first mark, I enjoy the spontaneity of watercolour to describe the feeling of being amongst it, there is an energy to watercolour paint that is wild and untamed, just like my subject. Dappled sunlight, bursts of native wild flower, swimming in the green waters of the Turon River, red ochre soil and silvery gum leaves dancing in the breeze, the sound of silence – Hill End was a sensory delight that filled my creative cup to the max, and these light, joyful works capture the essence of time spent in a special, uniquely Australian place.” – Sally Browne

Canadian painter Gavin Lynch makes his Australian exhibition debut at Michael Reid in presenting a panoramic installation of eight individual landscape paintings. Arborarium is now showing and is a wonderful opportunity for Australian collectors to access the artist’s work locally.

Gavin Lynch is an artist in full control of his creative vision, whose gentle disruption of the landscape genre observes the role of painting in a digitally saturated world. Lynch’s articulation of North American landscapes is refreshingly original, and is a visual language achieved through a series of protracted studio methods. In each artwork, Lynch upheaves the landscapes that he paints, reassembles them, and reduces his compositions to planes of pattern and colour. Lynch approaches his paintings with a tessellated vision, drawing wonderful parallels to the digitally informed processes that inspire them.

Photography, field-trip sketches, and collage inform the artist’s final paintings, most of which depict his home province of Wakefield, Quebec. In the studio, brush, washes, masking and airbrush techniques are used, skilfully combined by Lynch to emulate the appearance of recognisable ‘real worlds’.

Gavin Lynch holds a BFA from Emily Carr University (2009) and a MFA from the University of Ottawa (2012). He is the recipient of awards and grants from various organisations, including the Canada Council for the Arts (2014), the Ontario Arts Council (2013) and the province of Ontario (2011).

In 2014 Lynch was a finalist in the RBC Painting Competition, which was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux Arts.  His work has been exhibited across Canada, featured in Canadian Art magazine and is in various permanent collections, including Air Canada, Simon Fraser University, TD Canada Trust and the City of Ottawa Permanent Collection.

Those interested in exploring more are invited to contact: danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Michael Reid Southern Highlands proudly announces the debut exhibition of Sydney based painter, drawer and printmaker Mirra Whale, The Table. We visited the artist in her inner-west studio last month to preview the thirteen oil on linen pieces which form this show, and to hear the artist’s thoughts on art making, motherhood and the tightrope walk between both.

Phoebe Stone is a self-taught Sydney/Cammeraygal based artist working in predominantly in oil pastels. She has had works in numerous group shows and her work is held in many private collections both locally in Australia and Internationally. She won the 2022 Lane Cove Art award in the division of Drawing & Mixed Media. 

Phoebe works with oil pastels to explore the beauty and delight to be found in a well balanced coming together of composition, colour, pattern and texture. Scenes of the domestic, whether food or the accoutrement of daily life, are drawn and drawn again in her signature urgency; impatient to see their pleasing forms and arrangements take shape. For Phoebe, her practice is not just about the realisation and completion of a final piece but the process and meditation of her hand moving intuitively across a surface bringing a moment or a feeling to life. 

For those who follow both our gallery and Michael Reid Northern Beaches, the name Kate Vella will be very familiar. She is known for capturing the beauty of homegrown flowers, fruit and vintage crockery on her canvases. For this Special Release she has turned her eye to the landscape surrounding her home and studio in the Southern Highlands of NSW and focussed in on the sheds and outbuildings.

Since her debut solo exhibition, ‘Antidote’, in Sydney in 2019, Vella has gone on to participate in numerous shows and collaborations. Her work has also been selected for various art prizes, including the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize 2020, the Kangaroo Valley Art Prize 2020, and the Meroogal Women’s Art Prize 2020. In July 2022 she was awarded 1st prize at The Bowral Art Gallery Still Life Prize judged by John Bokor and in March 2023 she was awarded the Hannah Forbes Memorial Prize as part of the BOCCA Art Prize judged by Ben Quilty for her painting ‘Corrugated Iron Shed’.

“Through my paintings, I explore the captivating beauty and profound significance of sheds and outbuildings nestled within the rural landscape of the Southern Highlands and South Coast regions. These structures, often overlooked or taken for granted, embody a rich tapestry of history, culture, and human connection to the land. They serve as silent witnesses to the evolving agricultural practices and the enduring spirit of the communities they belong to.

With each brushstroke, I strive to convey the inherent character and individuality of each shed and outbuilding. These structures, weathered by time and elements, bear the marks of their history. Cracks, peeling paint, and aged iron become visual testaments to the passage of time and the stories they hold. Through my paintings, I aim to immortalise their essence, capturing their weathered charm, and inviting viewers to contemplate the stories they silently whisper. I aim to honour and celebrate this heritage, paying homage to the hard work, resilience, and connection to the land that they symbolise.”

Based in South Australia’s picturesque Adelaide Hills region, Romany Mollison is a landscape painter working in oils to portray the beauty of her surrounds. The move to South Australia from Melbourne (via a few years in Sydney) – with her husband and young daughter – resulted in the adventurous restoration of a 130 year-old cottage on an orchard which was to become their home when first settling in South Australia. Through this experience, Romany completely fell in love with the rolling hills, misty valleys, orchards and vineyards of the Adelaide Hills. This landscape now informs all of her work. Romany’s paintings have a sense of quiet calm, romance, sometimes melancholy, and there is always a source of light emerging. Many thin layers are built up on the canvas and softly blended to give a feeling of being immersed in the landscape – the emotive qualities of fading light, storms and fog are the main inspiration. Romany’s work has featured as a finalist in the Glover Prize for 2022 and her painting “I’ll Wait For You” was awarded Highly Commended in the 2023 Glover Prize. She holds a Bachelor of Art (Design) and Post Graduate Diploma (Design) from RMIT in Melbourne.

“In my painting practice I am interested in capturing in oils those moments of stillness in the country where light and conditions are changing and a feeling of quiet descends, especially in winter. At my home in the Adelaide Hills we are lucky to be surrounded by the landscapes I love to paint; with gorgeous morning fogs, rollings hills and misty valleys. And further afield on our many family road trips I am always on the hunt for that atmospheric quality in the landscape..pines standing silent in vast paddocks; silvery winter light emerging from heavy rain clouds; glimpses of distant ranges in blues and purples. There is a sense of quiet, restorative calm in these winter landscapes.”

– Romany Mollison 2023