Featured Artist - Marion Pearson

Salmon Galleries is proud to present current works by Marion Pearson.

Please click here for Marion Pearson's Art Resumé.
Please scroll down for detailed images.

As an artist, Marion works predominantly in the media of print and paint however the core of her works rests within her drawing practice. Her experience with drawing encompasses over 20 years of life drawing as well as a sub-major in experimental drawing undertaken in her Honours Degree at the ANU. Over the last few years it has been the delicate austerity of Icon painting combined with the lush surfaces of the gold and jewel encrusted framing devices that have influenced her work. As well, the Romanticism and Gothic sensitivities inherent in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites have influenced the painted surfaces of her current work.

This most recent series looks at the how we use different aspects of ourselves to show to the outside world, the flirtatious, the sombre, the thoughtful, the confident to name but a few. These aspects of ourselves act as masks protecting us from anything that might disturb the fragile surfaces and inner peace of our personalities. We also use different objects to masque our own thoughts while manipulating those around us. In the Twentieth Century we went so far as to use make up and surgery to create the facades we so desired. Historically, some of the most powerful forms used to disguise or create a powerful sense of mystique are masks and fans. They allow us to go beyond the normal bounds of personal concourse, sometimes leading to quite outrageous behaviour.

Often the many selves that make up our personalities have evolved to suit certain situation, at work one might be more considered and contained while the self at home is brighter, more fun. The most personal self we allow to be seen is probably the lover yet there is still a very private and intimate part of the self that is only known and can only be known by ourselves.

Much of the new work also combines large areas of patterning. At a recent visit to Sydney, Marion was moved by the beautiful and complex designs of Middle Eastern weavers, whose work was on exhibition at the Power House Museum. It is their work that has inspired a more complex and colourful approach to pattern making in the most recent work.

Perhaps the viewer will see something of the different aspects of themselves in the works as they journey through the exhibition.

For further information, please enquire at Salmon Galleries.

Current Works Click images for more detailed view.
Fans	Looking Inwards
Mask Series 1	Mask Series 3
Mask Series 5

Technique

Working on a white acrylic gesso ground, meticulous drawings are made of the subject - often worked and reworked to create the delicate yet richly detailed surfaces. Using brushes and other tools to manipulate her work, Marion creates drawings that are almost a mix of liquid and dry media. What emerges in her drawings are the most delicate and fragile greys and blacks. Once the final drawing has been completed, decisions are made as to whether to paint or not, what surface best suits the images, etc.

Many of Marion’s surfaces combine the drawings with Ink and acrylic paint utilising the subtle layering properties available from both media to create subtly complex areas of layering within the image. The transparency of the second layer allows the patterned surface to emerge like a subtle tapestry some areas more defined that others. It is these surfaces that relate most fully to the lush Gothic sensibilities of the Pre-Raphaelites. They also work as a wonderful foil for the more austere surfaces of those areas left without colour.