Vanessa Gordon

Opens 18 September with a reading from Joshua Lobb
Runs 19 – 29 September 2019

We’re so happy to have Vanessa Gordon back for her second solo exhibition at Scratch.

Driven by the Australian landscape as a threshold, Vanessa respond’s in a contemporary style to the history of landscape painting in Australia. Her work brings an intimate perspective, replacing the traditional battling figure with the revelling animal totems of fairytale and lore drawn.

In this series of paintings the forest is not a location but a reference to what is imprinted on our imagination. Woodlands are perilous, threatening to devour or obscure reason, but also a place of refuge and solace. Magical places are dangerous, but also a place of opportunity and transformation. If we find our way through safely we will be a better version of the soul that started the journey.

Fairytale forests can mean freedom or danger, where characters go to make decisions, confront inner darknesses and choose the path of who they truly are. But they are also a place to be avoided where children are abandoned and the strange and the weird may hide.

Vanessa Gordon is an Australian artist who lives and works in Sydney, she gained a Graduate Diploma from the Dunedin School of Art in 2012.

Previous exhibitions include a Group Show, Dunedin School of Fine Art 2013, represented at A Gallery in Dunedin 2012, and a solo exhibition at Scratch Art Space in 2014.