OPENING NIGHT Thursday 4 September 6pm to 8pm
Jonathan Nix and I began our creative journeys working side by side in the Graphic Investigation Workshop in Canberra – a legendary department under the direction of Petr Herel and Dianne Fogwell. Our paths took us in different directions, but the exquisite detail of the etchings he made at the culmination of those four years of study stayed with me as a beacon of quality and subtle artistry, made all the more poignant by his passing.
We shared a love of drawing in nature and the compositional language of geometry. Jonathan absorbed nature’s forms into his unique imaginative realm while I sought a poetic interpretation of the natural world mediated by a dialogue with the Classical tradition.
This exhibition brings together Jonathan’s etchings, beautifully restored and editioned by the master printer Monique Auricchio, and a selection of my own works with an emphasis on drawings but also monotypes, watercolours and oil paintings, including some previously unseen early existential cityscapes. Recent works trace an evolution towards a contemporary interpretation of the sublime and the pastorale, from a waterfall amidst remnant rainforest in suburban Sydney to a moon rising in a local park, a gorge in Tasmania or the ruins of Rome.
– Michelle Hiscock, 2025
