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Contemporary Showcase 13

A selection of recent works by CAS Inc. Members

Decoy Café Bar Gallery, 303 Exhibition St, Melbourne

24 August - 12 November 2015

Review by Shelley Vincent


Many of the works in this exhibition have a dream-like, other-worldly quality. Things and ideas are partially glimpsed or partially perceived. The concrete dissolves into nuance. One example of this is Abstract Thoughts by Jenny Scholes. Here the real and the imagined mix and tumble over each other. Thoughts dissolve or explode. Wishes become real. Vague concepts coalesce into birds and take flight. A mirror reflects another dimension. Morning Reflecting. One and Morning Reflecting. Two, by Anita van Grootveld, also have this dissolving and reshaping quality. The morning appears to bring fresh possibilities, or maybe harsh realities.

Abstract Thoughts, acrylic, 92 x 92 cm, by Jenny Scholes

Morning Reflecting. One, water-colour, 52 x 52 cm, by Anita van Grootveld

In White Sail, by Sabina D'Antonio, the essence of a white sail is captured as a dream symbol. Blue Flower, by Eva Miller, portrays a dream-like flower with a pleasing balance of rich colours and olive green. An inner moment of a dancer is briefly described in Lillyana Antoneavic's Ballerina (Study in Gray Wash). Who knows what is going on in her mind? Mary-Lin Litchfield's Head Space may provide a picture of a state of mind at a particular time.

Blue Flower, acrylic, 50 x 40 cm, by Eva Miller

Head Space, oil on linen, 40 x 46 cm, by Mary-Lin Litchfield

Just as we may glimpse a truth in the moment between sleep and wakefulness, there is a narrow band of joy and hope on the beach in Cricket on the Beach Gallipoli (100 Year Centenary) by Vida Ryan. Between a deep, dark, all-consuming ocean and a ruined, barbed-wire covered hillside, tiny figures share a moment of sporting joy. At the end of winter hope also shines out of the joyful yellow sky of When the Sun Shines by Jan Delaney. It has that slightly delirious feeling you get when some spring sunshine warms your bones and you recklessly consider discarding a layer of clothing.

When the Sun Shines, acrylic on canvas, 92 x 92 cm, by Jan Delaney

There is also a theme of decay and regeneration running through some of the other works. In Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre - Now Abandoned, by Ian Whitford, a building is hunkered down amongst slim tree trunks thrusting ever upwards. The tipsy bathing boxes in Edithvale Bathing Boxes, by Otto Boron, appear to be holding each other up beneath the squabbling seagulls. After everything has fallen into ruin Nature will take back what is lost as in Regeneration by Karen Neal and Nature's Reclamation, Mt Slide Quarry Mine Face, Kinglake by Ian Whitford. Although the plants in Rebirth by Dawn Cole may be something entirely new to this world. The cycle of life is completed with the growth of fruit such as in Lemon by Mandy Hopkins.

Similar to the fleeting nature of dreams and the cycles of Nature, these 27 artworks by 13 artists have their season so pop into Decoy before their time is over.

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