7 - 22 May
Tues - Sat: 10am - 5pm
486 Brunswick Street,
Fortitude Valley
Lara Merrett’s colour-rich abstract paintings reveal an intimate and intuitive approach to painting.
Lara Merrett’s colour-rich abstract paintings reveal an intimate and intuitive approach to painting. Working on a large-scale, Merrett apposes blocks of painted flat colour with transparent, amorphous pools of acrylic and ink. These delicately layered paintings evoke senses beyond the purely visual, and hint at connections to memory and place.
“The exhibition title, Petrichor, describes the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. I love this word and even more so learning it was invented in the 1960’s by two Australian scientists. It’s a word that literally comes from an Australian landscape. I’m always trying to make my work cross over to other senses like touch so it’s quite nice to bring the idea of smell into painting.
Returning home and seeing everything charred black was shocking but also strangely beautiful. There were bigger skies and the opportunity to see so much new growth. The constant rain meant lots of crazy growth. It’s work that is very much based in my South Coast bushfire landscape and my personal experience.” – Lara Merrett 2021
