iManly Art Gallery & MuseumManly
Chromatic Luminosity
Nine contemporary abstract painters explore how light and glow can be crafted on canvas, reclaiming a quality screens haven't replicated.
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Preview: written before the show opened
Kate Vassallo's Five Colours is drawn in coloured pencil: 100 by 75 cm of fine parallel lines in orange, pink and lilac that fan out and pack together into a solid wedge of violet. The show is about an old painter's trick, making a picture look lit from inside.
The gallery traces that glow from Vermeer and Turner to Georgia O'Keeffe, then asks what nine contemporary abstract artists do with it now that our light comes from screens. Up close you see the horizontal ridges in Michael Staniak's casting compound. By the show's own argument, the photo you take of it is the worse version. In the Cove Gallery, Chromatic Collection replies from MAG&M's holdings, with John Coburn, Frank Hinder and Helicopter Tjungurrayi.
Entry is free, Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, four minutes' walk from Manly Wharf; closed public holidays. Artists in Conversation is on Saturday 5 December at 11am, and Dr David Briggs talks colour on Thursday 10 December at 6pm. RSVP through the gallery.
Look for
Five Colours, Kate Vassallo
Look for coloured-pencil lines in orange, pink, blue and lilac fanning across a 100 by 75 cm sheet, closing up into a dense violet wedge.
FBX_044, Michael Staniak
A panel nearly three metres wide in casting compound and acrylic on aluminium honeycomb, its surface ridged horizontally and shading from blue and lilac into green.
Still processing, Tony Curran
On 182 by 167 cm of linen, translucent loops of red, violet and dark green cross over yellow and orange, each layer showing through the next.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Going Solo
- Locals Who've Seen It All
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Image credits
3
- Chromatic LuminosityCourtesy of Manly Art Gallery & Museum
- Portia Geach Memorial Award 2026Courtesy of S.H. Ervin Gallery
- Jordan Gower: Does the moon know the well?Photograph: Jacquie Manning