This is the final week to experience our first Orbit exhibition of the series: Gabrielle Martin's Through the Long Grass, which must end this Sunday 4 September.
Featuring landscapes near her home in the Goldfields town of Malmsbury, this exhibition proffers a transformative view of Martin's memory, imagination and observation in landscape painting.
Wild fruit trees, weathered pines and dry fields of grass; as well as endemic gorse, blackberries and briar rose that resist the best efforts at control. It is compromised landscape, but one Martin feels deeply connected with.
This is the first exhibition in this year's Orbit Program; a series of exhibitions showcasing artists who live and work in Central Victoria. Supported by The Besen Family Foundation.
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Gabrielle Martin, Landscape with River II, 2022, oil on linen. Image: Ian Hill
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Gabrielle Martin paints the landscape near her home in the Goldfields town of Malmsbury. This land was reshaped in the 19th Century by civic rail and water projects, and grazing that serviced the goldmining industry. There are parallels between this landscape and the orchards and paddocks on the outer fringes of Melbourne when she was growing up in the 1970s.
Watching children playing in the long grass unlocks memories of her own childhood play. As children we inhabit landscapes around us imaginatively as well as physically, and as we leave childhood these landscapes inhabit us. Martin develops her paintings in the studio from sketches done on site. This process allows for a distancing from the literal, which frees her to seek visual expression for feelings, as first perceptions are transformed by memory and imagination.
Sometimes her images include figures. These are inspired by the children around her, but they also exist as an entry point into a poetic space, which is as much an inner as an outer landscape.
Gabrielle Martin has held solo exhibitions and has been a finalist in many national art prizes, including the Archibald Prize, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Award, Len Fox Painting Prize, Maldon Portrait Prize and Metro 5 Award. he is this year’s winner of the Maldon Portrait Prize and is currently included in Archie100, an exhibition celebrating 100 years of Archibald Prize history, which is touring nationally from 2021-2024. Her work is represented in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the State Library of Victoria and Deakin University. She tutors part time at Art Pathways in Castlemaine and lives on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Malmsbury.
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Gabrielle Martin, Olive and Plum with Cypress Hedge, 2022, oil on board. Image: Ian Hill
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CAM acknowledges with respect the Dja Dja Wurrung as the Traditional Owners of the land on which Castlemaine has been established.
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Free entry
Thursday 12pm–4pm
Friday 12pm–6:30pm
Weekends 12pm–4pm
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Supported by
Creative Victoria
Mount Alexander Shire Council
Besen Family Foundation
Art Guide Australia
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