After more than five amazing years in Glebe it is with mixed emotions that we announce Salerno Gallery will be moving to a new space. Glebe has been absolutely wonderful […]
“Life Remixed” by April White
25th February – 3rd March, 2014
Opening Night:
Tuesday 25th of February, 6.00 – 8.00pm
Salerno Gallery presents Life Remixed – a new solo exhibition by Sydney based artist April White whose unique artistic voice of continues to evolve and expand. In 2014, an exciting continuation of surreal portrait paintings emerged and will be shown alongside a new collection of mixed media work. The new mixed media work shows a dramatic shift in style and technique that dives deeper into themes explored in previous work. Together these works explore life lived, and life processed.
The new mixed media collection offers a bold street-view mash-up re-mix of consciousness present in the worldly culture of 2014. Free from any connection to street worldliness, the drawn and painted portraits convey a more distilled view. The two collections in one show offer an exploration of life, death and culture with a contemporary edge. Pain, beauty and confusion all live here, and that’s ok.
For the portrait paintings, April has continued with graphite and gouache on board, drawing and painting; creating a thought-provoking collection. These figurative images make a heart felt humanistic statement of strength in vulnerability. The translucent figures in the portrait paintings are barely located within the world, their inner realities seemingly more real. This expression flows from the brush into the digital world using mixed media, further realizing one of the main themes; making sense of who we are at street level in a world of chaos. In the collage-style, mixed media images, landscapes and figures have be distorted and re-interpreted. The figures in both collections occupy a unique place in between the complex mysterious layers of human existence.
Admirers of Modern European Art will also recognize a flash of cheeky inter-textual play with Arnold Bocklin’s (1827-1901) ”Isle of The Dead” in both collections. For the first time in an April White show, the much-visited theme – life, death and culture – is handled with reference to another work. Death bears no morbid qualities in the art of April White. The embracing of death as a theme seems to have appealed to a generation of Berliners; prints of Bocklin’s original painting were so loved in central Europe in the early 20th century that Vladimir Nabokov observed in his novel “Despair” that they were to be “found in every Berlin home”. “There are so many layers to life and whatever lies beyond, it is incomprehensible to the ordinary human mind. I don’t want to shy away from any of the possibilities – with my feet on the street, I want to put it out there, ask questions and open it up for discussion.” April White.
April’s exploration of inner worlds developed over a decade of artistic practice. Now based in Sydney, Australia, her vision was recognised as a finalist in the Mount Eyre Art Prize 2013, Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize 2011, Blacktown City Art Prize 2011, Waverley Art Prize 2011, Muswellbrook Open Art Prize 2011, and the Crocket Group Art Prize (2007, 2009, and 2010). White was a two-time winner of the People’s Choice Awards at Bent Art Blue Mountains, and at Newtown Art Exhibition. April works as a full time artist.
April White completed a BFA, Specialised Honours Degree, in Drawing, at York University, Canada. She has a long-term interest in both figurative and landscape art. April uses studies of people, culture and nature including experience from her extensive travels across Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia to ground her exploration of inner worlds.