A Charles Darwin University art lecturer will unveil a collection of new oil paintings at Araluen Art Gallery in Alice Springs this Friday, 1 June.
Henry Smith, who has lectured in Visual Arts at Alice Springs campus for most of the 16 years he has lived in Central Australia, said the “Slow Burn” exhibition of 30 works would hang in the Sitzler Gallery for four weeks.
“It’s a collection of Central Australian landscapes presented from a perspective that gives the abstract primacy over realism,” he said.
“There are so many realistic paintings out there already. I challenged myself to come up with something different; a fresh point of view.”
Mr Smith said he had been experimenting with various techniques for the past two years.
“Each one would start as a landscape. Then I developed a composition of shapes, textures and patterns, using different palettes, depending on the seasons.
“Play and chance came into it quite a bit and in some cases I reworked a piece three or four times until I felt it was strong.”