From Sharne Wolff…
It’s hard to be cool and make still life paintings but despite the high degree of difficulty Dane Lovett somehow manages to pull it off. Lovett is a young artist who caught the early attention of the art world via a mentorship with MCA Director Elizabeth Ann McGregor when just out of art school. He’s been showing his work with Sullivan and Strumpf since 2010 and last year made the final hang of the Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Lovett’s practice has often transported us to the past via retro-inspired domestic subjects like VHS home videos, old books and cassette players. The thing that’s most attractive about his new exhibition is the way he continues to convey a sense of simplicity through form. Even before viewing Lovett’s pared-back paintings, the show’s title sets the tone. For So Many Days and Vases to Fill, Lovett was inspired by imagery collected from vintage pottery journals, 1960s home-décor magazines and the late British ceramic artists Ruth Duckworth, Lucy Rie and her partner Hans Coper. Lovett translates his vision into acrylic works painted on Dibond – a type of bonded aluminium panel. There’s much to do with the classical but each work presents a unique contemporary twist.
Until October 12
Sullivan and Strumpf Fine Art, Zetland.
Pic: Dane Lovett, Untitled (Walker) 2013, acrylic and oil on dibond 122 x 150 cm. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan and Strumpf Fine Art.
