Gray’s exhibition presents us with a record of her life abstractly recorded in the paint marks placed on each canvas every day over a 180 day period. The works on show reflect life in paint, sometimes fluid, sometimes a little muddy, sometimes colourful and crisp, sometimes dark, sometimes reflective.
Life is. Life is challenge. Life is boredom. Life is love. Life is work. Life is a left eye vitrectomy and the fear of going blind. Life is your ‘91 240 Volvo reaching ‘vintage’ age and getting a face lift with new club plates. Life is joining the gym when both of your parents have serious heart issues and you are terrified they are going to die – then one does, but comes back and tells you ‘there is nothing on the other side’. Life is a first year wedding anniversary and the tatt to prove it. Life is longing to be back on your honeymoon, traipsing about the Alaskan wilderness and hoping to see a bear, then freaking the hell out when one shows up at your camp site to eat your freshly BBQ’d steak, and there’s no one else around. Life is walks around the park on your lunch break. Life is cowboy boots and denim on Fridays. Life is three fruit a day and five veg, except on Saturday when life is prosecco and cheese. Life is coffee, warm and milky and rich, with a little froth and chocolate sprinkle for fun. Life is laughing at your husband’s dad jokes (whether they are funny or not). Life is stretching canvases and washing brushes. Life is paint, sometimes fluid, sometimes a little muddy. Life is deciding to paint every day, without fail, for 180 days on (and over) the same canvases. Life is putting the end result on show regardless of whether the paintings are finished at the end of the 180 days (or were finished 170 days ago): but rules were set, so each canvas met some paint, every day, for 180 days.
Alizon Gray is a Melbourne artist who has shown work in solo and group exhibitions locally and nationally. She has also been included as finalist in numerous art prizes.
Exhibition details:
Opening Wed August 9th – 6-9pm
continues to August 26th