Drawn principally from the Bundanon Trust Collection, ‘Landscape of the Soul’ explores the Australian landscape and a sense of place through the complex genius of artist Arthur Boyd.
From light-filled early landscapes to tormented figures in the bush, the paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and archival material in this exhibition expose an inner landscape and an artist’s creative odyssey.
From never-before-seen early, youthful en plein air paintings of the Mornington Peninsula in the 1930s celebrating light, to the final phase of his career depicting the Shoalhaven on the southern New South Wales in the mid-1970s – encompassing the artist’s journeys from Australia to England and Europe – works in the exhibition present the landscape as a theatre for his deeper explorations, both topographic and cognitive.
Arthur Boyd, Peter’s fish and crucifixion, 1993, oil on canvas. Bundanon Trust Collection
‘Boyd’s profound delirium of light and dark, swinging between euphoria and apprehension through diverse notions of landscape over almost half a century, is the focus of this exhibition. The story of Arthur Boyd is one of genius evolving out of childhood innocence to which in some ways, through extraordinary complexity, it returned at the end of a long productive life. His was an artist’s odyssey through landscape both seen and imagined.’ – Barry Pearce, Curator
‘Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul’ premieres at Sydney’s National Art School Gallery on Thursday 17 January 2019 from 6-8pm before touring regional institutions across Australia until 2021.
National Art School Gallery
10 January to 9 March, 2019
Sydney
Ipswich Art Gallery
8 June to 1 August, 2019
Queensland
Shepparton Art Museum
12 August to 24 November, 2019
Victoria
Cairns Regional Art Gallery
3 April to 21 June, 2020
Queensland
Glasshouse Regional Gallery
3 July to 13 September, 2020
New South Wales
Tweed Regional Gallery
11 December, 2020 to 28 February, 2021
New South Wales
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre
12 March 2021 to 2 May, 2021
New South Wales
Lake Macquarie Art Gallery
24 July to 26 September, 2021
New South Wales
More venues TBA.
