Alexandra Lawson Gallery is presenting a pop up exhibition at 196 Margaret Street, Toowoomba showing work by Queensland artist David Usher titled The Afternoon Mile. Gallery Director, Alexandra Lawson said “I’m thrilled to be able to present this small exhibition which is part of the larger body of work that will be shown in Brisbane later this year.”
Usher creates abstract landscape paintings that evoke the landscape of Western Queensland, the Currumbin Valley, and Toowoomba City on a small and large scale. Usher’s work has been influenced by the 2019 drought, and spending an extended period in the COVID-19 lockdown. This has seen the paintings become an amalgamation of multiple places depicted through colour and imagery.
“’The Afternoon Mile’ represents a wandering through these landscapes of the mind and the memory.” Usher reflected, “I am seeking new ways of interpreting and revealing the landscape. My work is entirely about seeing the environment anew and finding new ways of being immersed into the Australian landscape. These paintings are part of a never-ending series that directly responds to memories of landscapes I have passed through and absorbed over the past 30 years or more.”
Place and landscape also feature in Usher’s hand thrown ceramics, which are both functional and beautiful. 2020 has been challenging for the arts, especially for fine artists. Peter Snow from Peter Snow & Co said, ‘We’re delighted to host an exhibition of an esteemed local artist, David Usher and make these artworks visible on Margaret Street’.
Usher is the USQ lecturer in ceramics where he is undertaking his doctorate. He has received awards including the Churchie Painting Prize, and is in the collections of the Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank, and Brisbane City Hall Gallery. The works will be on display from Friday July 31 until Sunday August 9, 2020.
Readers also enjoyed our story about Outback Film Festival
