Deborah Marks explores identity, fragility, strength and vulnerability in her paintings. She translates the experience of migrants and their dislocation and fragmentation from homelands and integration to the new.
These works depict multiple figures moving back and forth between losing and finding themselves. Placed in improbable and awkward spaces that restrict and confuse with many false ends, ladders become paths to uncertain places. These occupied spaces are dimly lit with a warm glow; the ambiguity of place impedes easy passage and traps the figures within their psyche.
Deborah Marks, Displacement, 2016, oil on canvas, 100 x 110cm Photograph: John McRae. Courtesy the artist and Stanley Street Gallery, Sydney
Stanley Street Gallery
Until 22 April, 2017
Sydney
