Woodlands: Strange Beauty

After the success and delight of showing Steve Gough’s work last year, Outstation is excited to host his first solo show, an iteration of the technical mastery and detail of his top end landscapes.

OUT BUSH AND BEYOND

Influenced by seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorraine, Steve Gough continues his quest to capture light: the hazy pink hues of a warm sky, bulbous clouds and the atmospheric glow of the sun’s position, the spiky crunch of dry season barks, the softness of fronds in the wind, the antics of magpie geese and the flutter of birds in flight. Hailing a European aesthetic with quintessential top end likeness, these small works are jewel-like, revealing more of his subtle palette and the finesse of fine brush work.

REFLECTING ON THE SEASONS

This series also introduces the Japanese aesthetic for elegant simplicity and tenacious line; Gough makes reference to the Rinpa artists of Japan whose work straddled the period of Lorraine’s European romanticism. Noting the Rinpa tradition of using sliding screens to represent the passing of the seasons, often seemingly floating on an ethereal gold leaf background, some of these new works are multi-panelled bringing a sense of narrative and continuity.