SEA CHANGE : recent work in oils
June 6 to July 2, 2008

For Ruby Ewen, a career painter who is well known in the region for her immediate, intuitive landscapes, her work in Sea Change belongs to a recent adventurous departure. These new paintings, consisting of colourful, gestural brush strokes on a white ground, are bursting with vitality and are a celebration of the act of painting. Freed from a connection to narration or representation, the subject of the work is the making of art itself, an exploration and distillation of the formal elements of colour, texture, line and rhythm. Ruby describes the origins of this work:

"These paintings spring from a pulse, from the heart. They are felt, not planned, but they depend on years of learning technical aspects of brushwork, colour and canvas preparation. These canvases are a visual improvisation corresponding to jazz, created in the moment when a brush dipped in colour responds to the hue, shape and texture of the brushwork laid down before it."

The musical analogy is indeed fitting. Improvisation and counterpoint come into existence as the free and sensual brush strokes play off each other to create dynamic and lively rhythms, harmonies and phrases. In fact Sea Change is all about spontaneity, inspiration and the creative process. Ruby Ewen presents us with a body of work that is invigorating, dynamic and joyful.