INGALLERY.1
06 – 28 October 2018
Kerry Johns: THE WAY OF THE FOREST.
Kerry Johns is a realistic-abstractionist, working pre-dominantly en plein air for this exhibition in the Bywong area of the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales.
Kerry Johns has previously been awarded the 2016 Eutick Still Life Award (EMSLA), the 2016 Empire Global Art Award for Landscape and is currently a finalist in the 2018 NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize.
Her work is held in Public Collections including the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery Collection; the Kedumba Award Collection; the Basil Sellers Collection and the Blue Mountains City Council Collection.
I find the beguiling interaction of trees with one another a delight to my eye, the character of the individual tree capable of moving my affections…
My studio is in the rural landscape of Bywong, between Lake George and Canberra. The paddocks are dun coloured and dry, bordered by graceful smooth white trees that form into elegant dance lines beside the roads. In other parts there are forests of these velvety cream, yellow or cool white trees.
The dry climate discourages thick undergrowth, giving the impression of an open welcoming way, with intertwining branches in extravagant profusion above.
I have felt drawn to the silence of the forest and also to its visual complexity, trees in profusion presenting a rich field for abstraction. In the intriguing relation of forms there is pleasure for the painter’s eye, subtlety as well as intricacy, abstraction as well as accepted appearance… I want the painting to… become a poetic realization of my engagement with… the way of trees and forest. ~ Kerry Johns, 2018.