With paintings by Geoffrey Falk and Andrew Scollo, and installation by Sally Vivian. GEOFFREY FALK This group of paintings and drawings are a personal view of the Victorian landscape where rows of trees define “rooms” for occupation by cattle and sheep which have displaced the original owners for the profit and livelihood of the colonizing community. These paintings explore the graphic impact of “occupation” and prompt work that goes towards refugee displacement worldwide by colonization. People moved through this landscape for many thousands of years treading lightly on the land and taking care of it. Contrast the impact of human development on landscape, the tilled fields, the urban landscape of the city, the cleared hills of regional Victoria where native vegetation has been replaced by imported grasses and windbreaks of Cyprus trees. The severe impact of a few hundred years of anthropogenic climate change, compared to millennia of humankind walking lightly on the land which is a part of them, taking only what is necessary, taking care of the source of all being. Image 1 – On Country, Geoffrey Falk, oil on canvas, 151 x 76cm Image 2 – Black Angus on Country, Indian ink and oil on canvas, 76 x 76cm Image 3 – Leaving Home, Indian ink and oil on canvas, 100 x 100cm Image 4 – Wombat State Forest, Indian ink and oil on canvas, 100 x 100cm Image 5 – Lights of the City, oil on canvas, 51 x 51cm ANDREW SCOLLO Drawing a line defines a boundary. A metaphoric position not to be crossed; a past to be forgotten; or a Rubicon once crossed to an irreversible position. The use of line in these paintings has no such symbolic meaning. Sometimes a vector between two arbitrary points, at times bunched in proximity creating a plane floating over unidentified ground. Similar to previous works by the artist, the line is a vehicle for experimentation with colour. The inherent energy of each colour that attracts or repels its neighbour also lifts it above or buries it below the ground. The immanent energy of each hue is transformed when taken from isolation and juxtaposed with another. In some works the line may hover placidly or imply kinetic or perhaps electrical energy. No representation is attempted or implied in any of these abstract artworks. However, the process of making is not purely Platonic despite a formalist intention. Images often challenged the process. It is not difficult to imagine superimposed landscapes or seascapes or cityscapes. The artist may exorcise the vision of a real world but ambiguous evocations of a physical world somehow persist. Image 1 – No Plan, Andrew Scollo, acrylic (synthetic polymer) on linen, 149 x 143cm Image 2 – No Air, Andrew Scollo, acrylic (synthetic polymer) on linen, 100 x 54cm Image 3 – Acid Rain, Andrew Scollo, acrylic (synthetic polymer) on linen, 156 x 87cm Image 4 – Traces, Andrew Scollo, acrylic (synthetic polymer) on linen, 202 x 54cm Image 5 – Slice, Andrew Scollo, acrylic (synthetic polymer) on linen, 99 x 44cm SALLY VIVIAN Working across disciplines, Sally Vivian’s practice is installation based, using mixed media and sometimes incorporating video. Her work reflects interests in time, materiality, ephemerality and metaphysics, often exploring the interaction of light, surfaces, reflection and projection. Vivian is an emerging artist, albeit late in life, graduating from the VCA Master of Contemporary Art in 2023. Her graduate exhibition work Reflect won her an exhibition at TCB Gallery Brunswick, where Your Melting was held Dec 2023-Jan 2024. Recent installations have referenced the passing of time, transformation and climate change. Website: sallycevivan.weebly.com Image – Drip 1, Sally Vivian