views from a speeding train
3 december - 20 december, 2008
Amanda van Gils is an Australian painter whose beautiful landscape paintings offer an interesting and compelling interpretation of the landscape genre.
The paintings in this exhibition derive from van Gils' first trip to Europe in 2006 where she exhibited in Berlin before traveling via Eurail throughout France, Spain and Italy as well as to Amsterdam and London. Struck by the distance of experience between people traveling in the carriage and the actual landscapes outside, the ideas for these paintings began to form.
Views - filtered by windows and blurred by the speed of the trains - were enticing yet out of reach; the sensation of separation and longing are here captured to exaggerated effect.
A sophisticated meditation on painting, photography and high-speed travel, these paintings resonate with the times we live in - a time in which none of us can be sure of where we are heading - metaphorically, spiritually, politically, economically. Such is the fast train we all find ourselves on in the early 21st Century.
This year van Gils has been selected as a finalist in several prestigious National Art Prizes including the Mosman Art Prize, The Tattersall's Club Landscape Art Prize, The John Leslie Art Prize and the esteemed Fleurieu Art Prize.
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