Michael Reid Murrurundi is pleased to introduce the work of Anita West, who makes her Murrurundi debut when presenting at our inaugural collaborative exhibition with RM Williams.

Anita West in a Meanjin/Brisbane-based visual artist whose enchanting, enveloping scenes of tangled forests convey the romance of the untamed Australian bush, it’s serendipitous patterns and the allure of this continents diverse landscapes.

“I want my paintings to be soulful and contemplative. I want to take you on an evocative journey through the Australian bush, to experience the unparalleled beauty of nature”, says West, whose early career saw her experimenting with a variety of different styles. From naïve art to abstraction to miniature art, her well-rounded artistic trajectory final culminated in a focus on hyper-stylised Australian bush and beach depictions.

“I am interested in the idea of romantic notions attached to the Australian bush and I am attempting to explore these elements using boundaries between abstraction and realism, emotion, and perception through my engagement with this beautiful land”, explains the artist.

Predominantly location based, her practice is concerned with the recording and interpretation of natural habitat that has been preserved or protected in line with conservation objectives. Her vibrant floral compositions are animated with bold pinks and radiant purples, imbuing her paintings with an ethereal and dreamlike quality. The result is a body of work that feels at once rooted in place and touched by imagination – offering viewers an experience that is as reflective as it is transportive.

Paintings by Anita West are available to preview at our Sydney Gallery and appointments may be scheduled by request. For more information, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au

Michael Reid Murrurundi is thrilled to announce our inaugural exhibition in collaboration with RM Williams. Speaking to an ongoing legacy of life on the land, images and objects on loan from the archive of the iconic Australian marque will form the scenographic backdrop to a specially curated presentation of new work by five leading female artists whose practice similarly – albeit in dazzlingly contemporary ways – reflects on intrinsic connections between people and the Australian landscape.

Navigating rural and First Nations interpretations of the show’s titular theme, Land and People assembles artists who explore how enduring connections to Country and immersive forays within the natural environment shape memory, identity and visual culture. Please register below for early previews.

We are delighted to announce the return of contemporary painter James Lai to Murrurundi with a spellbinding new series of expressive landscape paintings. Titled Of hues and constructed spaces, Lai’s latest series builds on the eye-catching visual language established by his solo exhibition Nature Theatre, which dazzled audiences in August last year and was an immediate hit with collectors and gallery visitors.

Conjuring his scenes with a distinctive, gesturally loose style and lashings of brilliant colour, Lai’s canvases see night and day beautifully intertwined as star-dusted and cloud-streaked skies sweep into tumbling, colour-soaked pastures. “Of hues and constructed spaces presents a series of figurative abstract landscape works that explore the interplay between theatre and the natural environment,” .

“Viewing the landscape as theatre, the works depict natural and atmospheric elements as characters within constructed, performative spaces,” says the artist. Lai brings his pastoral scenes to life with an added narrative dimension, reframing them as a stage for an energetic interplay of natural and abstract elements.

To discuss an acquisition, please email: colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

We are delighted to announce the imminent return to Michael Reid Murrurundi of celebrated contemporary painter Jane Reynolds with her latest series of dynamic and dazzlingly constructed still-life paintings.

Now available to preview in person at Michael Reid Murrurundi, the artist’s new suite of paintings builds on the stylistic flourishes of her Small Works series from last year, and brilliantly displays her distinctive pairing of compositional playfulness and painterly precision.

This new collection reveals a fresh evolution of the artist’s palette, as blush tones introduce a graceful counterpoint to her more characteristic autumnal hues. Building bold tableaux from intersecting geometries and clustered vessels spliced with organic elements, her works transcend straight realism to conjure an illusory, dreamlike space where clean lines and graphic, Memphis-like details are offset by elegantly rendered drapery and voluptuous fruit.

Reynolds’s deft hand with colour and controlled light sees her paintings move seamlessly from the quiet elegance of domestic scenes towards flights of imaginative fancy. Graphic, angular and organic elements all coalesce beautifully in compositions awash with blush, saffron, grape and peachy tones. Please contact us below for previews and priority access to the artist’s new paintings.

For assistance with an acquisition, please email colinesoria@michaelrei.com.au

Murrurundi favourite Brooke Dalton returns to the gallery in with a new series of paintings that transport us to a world of interiors lined wall-to-wall with beautiful clothbound tomes. Shelves of Memories celebrates the warm nostalgia and emotional pull of spaces that teem with colourful books, painted ceramics, fresh-cut flowers and collected curios amassed in a spirit of eclecticism and whimsy.

Brought to life with a loose and energetic painting style that perfectly matches the sense of exuberance, more-is-more abundance and bohemian insouciance of the libraries Dalton depicts, paintings from this exhibition are now on view at the gallery.

For assistance with acquisitions please contact colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au

South Australian contemporary artist and globally celebrated crochet maestro Trevor Smith will bring a kitchen cabinet of woven wonders to Murrurundi with the opening of his latest solo exhibition, Counter Top. 

Available to view and shop online ahead of its arrival at the gallery next week, this new series of bold and ebullient crochet sculptures cooks up a lovingly nostalgic tribute to the quirky accoutrements that memorably furnished mid-century-modern Australian homes and now seem redolent of that era’s optimism and élan.

Like a 1950s Women’s Weekly cookbook come glittering to life, this collection turns the colourful utilitarian objects that covered our Formica benchtops in a bygone design moment into totemic works of woollen art whose fabulous fuzzy forms are threaded with more than a soupçon of wistfulness and wit.

Woven with pure wool yarn, the retro visions of Counter Top range from toasters, kettles and fondue cookers to spice racks, kitchen scales and rotary phones – all immortalised with the extraordinary craftsmanship and lashings of irreverent style that have garnered Smith international acclaim over his decades-long career.