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Helen McCullagh

AnnMaree Clarke

A Painted Garden

 

‘Summer Cumquats’ depicts a housewarming gift - a cumquat tree I planted early this year in my new garden. Executed over several weeks - whenever the smoke haze from nearby bushfires lifted enough to go outside - I had in mind to call it ‘The Painted Garden’. I later learned of a fresco of the same name painted in the first century BC for the Villa of Livia, parts of which bear an uncanny resemblance to my small cumquat painting. The garden is common ground, connecting us to ancient gardeners, and also, apparently, ancient garden painters. Thematically speaking, gardens are about as timeless a concept as I can think of. Along with artists of every era, we find ancient scribes and modern poets equally likely to wander their paths. In the words of T. S. Eliot: “Other echoes inhabit the garden..”

 

In late 2019 I decided to produce ‘garden paintings’ for my show at A.K. Bellinger, and of course I could not have foreseen then that many would be retreating with me, each to their respective gardens. The restrictions placed on us by this year’s pandemic hindered my plans to paint in the gardens of friends and neighbours, but encouraged me to get to know my new garden, to tend it, and to be revived in it. Foraging in forests beyond the garden gate provided some more exotic subjects but I made just as many pleasing discoveries going down the back steps.  I hope this collection conveys some of the fruitfulness of the season it was painted in, but also that different, somehow restorative sense of time with which a garden walk can imbue the soul.

Ann Maree Clark

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B. 1975

Ann Maree Clark lives in Canberra, Australia. Inspired by nature and working directly ‘from life’, her work explores timeless themes through a careful observation of form and light, using the oil painting techniques of the Classical, Realist and Impressionist traditions.

 

Education

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2019  Andrew Bonneau: Portrait Painting
2012  David Costello: Classical Figure Drawing
2012  David Costello: Classical Portrait Painting
2011  David Costello: Classical Still Life
1998  Canberra School of Art

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Awards and Prizes

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2018
Finalist, EMSLA Still Life Award

2017
Finalist, Lethbridge 10000
Finalist, Kilgour Prize

2016
Finalist, Mosman Prize

2014                                   

Finalist, Mandorla Prize

 

Exhibitions

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2020

Reverence, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane

2019

Les Petits Travaux, Aarwun Gallery, Canberra

2018

Life, with measure, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane
Floral Display and Art Show, All Saints Anglican Church Ainslie, Canberra

2017

Les Petits Travaux, Aarwun Gallery, Canberra

Floral Display and Art Show, All Saints Anglican Church Ainslie, Canberra

2016

Floral Display and Art Show, All Saints Anglican Church Ainslie, Canberra

2015

Floral Display and Art Show, All Saints Anglican Church Ainslie, Canberra

2014

Alembic, The Getting Group, Yarralumla Gallery, Canberra

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