Niagara Galleries is delighted to present Defiantly Joyful, an exhibition of new work by iconic Melbourne-based artist Deborah Halpern. This is Halpern’s first solo exhibition at Niagara. Defiantly Joyful features exuberant domestic and large-scale mosaic sculptures and gestural ink on paper works. In Deborah Halpern's latest exhibition, animals, both real and imagined, meet with busts and heads in a bold combination of colour, form and scale. Halpern’s recognisable visual language, which includes flattened perspective, curiously shaped figures and animals and a brilliant use of contrasting colour, connects with her audience in an intuitive and playful manner. Deborah Halpern’s work is underpinned by a love of outsider art and material experimentation. Her process sometimes includes initial drawings or the production of maquettes; other times she works directly with wire mesh, shaping and forming her figures before fibreglassing, then covering the surface of each work with hand-cut tiles to complete the vibrant exterior in her characteristic and singular style.