Richard Tabaka  |  Indigenous Landscapes

24 May - 25 June 2017

The digital Gicleé prints on artist canvas, presented in this exhibition, highlight some of the unique aspects of the iconic Australian outback and reveals in a surprising manner the inimitable way to re-present or challenge concepts of traditional landscape artwork and investigate a more conceptual and nonrepresentational, abstracted version.

Abstract art does not attempt to define or represent an external reality, but strives to accomplish this effect by employing colour, form and gestural marks. Tabaka’s landscapes as seen from the sky, transform the dominant, identifying features and characteristics of the landscape. Landmarks recognisable when viewed from a ground plain level are radically changed when viewed from “above”. They are reduced visually to marks that look like painted brushstrokes and dots, with large areas of intense colour broken by linear marks.

In the latest works, originally inspired by beauty, mystery and the spirituality of reality, images have been digitally manipulated and altered to change colours or key features within the composition creating even more personal interpretation of Australian landscape.

Indigenous Landscape creates an illusory world of blurred boundaries between landscape, creative imagination, documentation and fiction. The graphics transcend a normal and expected view of Australian landscape, leaving reality almost illegible. In its place are abstracted artworks that a viewer can visually read in a number of different personal ways. They will provoke questions and discourse, while potentially creating a sense of spirituality and connection to the land. The exhibition invokes illusory worlds that disrupt the boundaries between the real form of the land and fragments of someone’s creative imagination, a document and a fiction. The images transcend the usual leaving reality unreadable to bring forward dreams, hidden symbolism, sense of spirituality and emotions.

Richard Tabaka has worked extensively as a commercial photographer, while maintaining a fine art photographic practice. His European heritage and conceptual art ideology inform all aspects and style of his graphics, which is evident in his personal and artistic work.

Richard combines his two great passions a love of photography and flying. On various trips to Australian outback in his small open cockpit aircraft, he captured the fragile, maze-like patterns seen below. He has chosen to diverge from a traditional representation of landscape and investigate a more conceptual and nonrepresentational, abstracted version.

 Launch Event: Thursday 25 May  |  5.30pm - 7:30pm