Melbourne Art Fair 2012

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Exploring the very act of painting through a renewed sense of colour, form and technique Wallis’ latest works delve further into her abstracted representations of the landscape, infused with human reference. Through the melancholy and grief of the recent loss of her mother there is both lightness and darkness in these new paintings: ominous grey clouds, black rain and white ghost figures are offset by vibrant blocks of jade green, electric blue and peach. The most recently executed paintings, however, feature lush tropical palms and orange and pink horizons, belying an omnipresent sense of optimism and hope for the future.

Wallis’ energetic mark making and strength of line is also carried over to her new drawings, layered with loose representations of the landscape and the body.

Wallis completed a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Photomedia at the Canberra School of Art, ACT and participated in an exchange program with Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Canada in 2002. She completed her Master of Visual Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne in 2008 and was the winner of the tenth Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship in 2008. During her scholarship she worked from studios at ISCP, New York, Redbird Studios, Montreal and completed a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Wallis was also resident artist at the Canberra School of Art in 2009. Solo exhibitions include Dark Gully Sex Drawings, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2011; Mountains Full of Sky/Salty Lines, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane, 2011; I Fuck Mountains, Utopian Slumps, 2010; Dark Gully/Psychic War, Chalk Horse, Sydney, 2010; and Circle of Eagles, Utopian Slumps, 2009. Selected group exhibitions include Need to Seem to Glimpse, C3, 2011; The New Arcadia, curated by Kezia Geddes, Lismore Regional Gallery, 2011; Worm Mountain, C3, 2010; Territorial Pissings, Utopian Slumps, 2010; The Shilo Project, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2009; Chalk Reindeer, Chalk Horse, Sydney, 2009; South, Monster Children Gallery, Sydney, 2009; Brett Whiteley Travelling Arts Scholarship, Brett Whiteley Studio AGNSW, Sydney, 2008; Thank God We Died Together, TCB art inc., Melbourne, 2008; Autumn 2008, Moving Galleries, Melbourne, 2008; Robert Jacks Drawing Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, 2008; and Swans and Ammo, with Lizzie Hall, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2007.

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