Southern Nights is a collection of experimental paintings, sculptures and a plein air drawing produced by Otto Macpherson during and shortly after his time in Tasmania. From December 2023 to March 2024, he undertook two Artist in Residence programs at Q Bank Gallery in Queenstown and The Pickers Hut @ Glaziers Bay in Cradoc. Amidst Australia’s housing crisis, this body of work explores themes of home, housing, the rising cost of living and sustainability. Experimenting with abstract expressionism and surrealism, he reflects on previous houses and expresses his personal experiences and concerns with the housing crisis while investigating the separation and detachment from the natural environment. Coinciding themes explored include time, aging, memory, cycles and patterns and strange new places. Moving house has been a constant occurrence in Macpherson’s life, finding himself in-between housing, he contemplates finding a new home in Tasmania. Painting on recycled household surfaces such as cupboard doors, tables and building materials and mixing natural and building materials, through impressions or application, he aims to incorporate his immediate surroundings into the artworks. Colours, symbols and abstract forms are influenced by Tasmanian landscapes, imagination and in response to music, sound and emotion. @otto_macpherson_ catalogue: brunswickstreetgallery.com.au/blogs/exhibitions/otto-macpherson-southern-nights image: Music In Lamplight, Oil, acrylic and ink on wooden panel, 56x44cm