Looking West
Martin Quinlan
18 April–5 May 2024

Looking West presents a series of oil paintings completed during the Covid years.

The title of this show references Victoria’s Western District to which the artist has strong familial connections. Yearning for the countryside and space during Victoria’s movement restrictions led the artist to sift through images from experience and memory.

Working mainly on board, the artist represents the landscape in a physical and tactile way, prioritizing the evocative over the literal, the emotional over the representational.

Common to each work, the motif of the horizon line serves both a structural and symbolic purpose, suggesting a sense of time and space.

Through the expressive movement of paint and the emotive combination of colour, texture and form, the artist invites the viewer to experience beauty in not only what is seen but in what is felt.

The isolation of Covid forced us all to confront the fragility of life yet also reinforced our need for connection, our longing for beauty and nature. These works were painted with this in mind.