Love, Loss & Intimacy

Editorial

For those of us who struggle to draw a passable tree, the idea that the subtlest of human emotions could be captured in pencil strokes is extraordinary. This exhibition displays prints and drawings in which the artist has engaged with life's most joyful, saddening and intimate moments.

For all the complexity and depth of large artworks, the sketch is to visual art as the poem is to literature - the most potent distillation of the human condition. It is no accident that drawings feature heavily in this exhibition. In no other media is the artist's own soul glimpsed so readily - the sketch is like an unguarded comment, revealing the artist caught in the moment.

The expression of intimacy is of primary importance in these works. While loss is palpable in Jon Cattapan's tender sketches of his father at the end of his life and love exudes from William Orpen's portrait of he and his wife embracing, both show the artists at their most intimate, drawing not mere sitters, but subjects whose lives are inextricably bound to their own.

Over sixty works are on display representing the work of artists from the past four centuries. Giants, like Rembrant, Picasso, Munch and David Hockney, sit alongside might-be-giants such as Vernon Ah-Kee and Joy Hester. What binds them together is their willingness to intimately observe then truthfully record brief moments of love, loss and intimacy.

Robert Stevenson, Citysearch