Noosa Regional Gallery founding director and artist Merton Chambers will present a late career survey exhibition of work this month at The Condensery, the Somerset Regional Art Gallery at Toogoolawah.
The new exhibition, The Apple and the Knife, brings together work produced by Chambers over the past 40 years. The exhibition showcases his unique graphic style and vivid use of colour, a response to the luminosity of the light of his adopted home and the environmental concerns that have guided his approach to art over the past four decades.
The Apple and the Knife is the first solo presentation of work by the highly recognised artist in his newly adopted hometown of Toogoolawah.
Merton Chambers had a significant career in North America producing large scale public art commissions and achieving recognition for his contribution to the arts and crafts movement before moving to Australia. He moved to the Brisbane Valley in 2003 and has continued to practice his art.
The works selected for The Apple and the Knife are beautiful and lush images of the natural world – sensitively rendered drawings of the plants, fruit and vegetables that grow in his garden. There are densely rendered graphite and geometric drawings of abstracted light, colour field drawings and depictions of energy. What unites the work is its strength of colour, technical proficiency and a sensitivity to light and the natural world.
Merton Chambers’ work is held in major collections in North America and Australia including the Government of Canada, the Art Institute of Ontario, the Ontario Board of Education Canadian Museum for Contemporary Fine Crafts and Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art as well as numerous private and corporate collections.
Also in The Condensery will be video work by Ipswich based artist Donna Davis titled De-compose.
As the title suggests, De-compose explores the world’s hidden ecological players, such as termites, microbes and fungi and the processes of decay.
Davis’ work shines a light on the essential relationships between humans and nature in a beautiful, immersive experience.
The Apple and the Knife and De-compose open 9 July and continue until 4 September at The Condensery, 29 Factory Road, Toogoolawah.
