Kirra Jamison

By Sharne Wolff

Kirra Jamison is a young artist who grew up in Byron Bay but now resides in Melbourne. She hasn’t held a solo exhibition in Sydney before now but the flamboyant hues in these new paintings look like they’re quite at home in the ‘Emerald City’. Jamison is an artist who has always been interested in colour but her style has evolved over the past few years from one more folky and figurative into the bold abstracts in this show.

Flat backgrounds of solid colour provide the base for Jamison’s tangled and looping lines, each comprised of perhaps a dozen contrasting tones. She draws on a range of palettes from delicate pastels to showy brights. The snake-like loops in these pictures begin as collages of vinyl scraps that Jamison pieces together to invent new compositions. She’s seeking to achieve just the right balance of tone and movement which so effortlessly appears in nature. She then transforms her designs into large striking canvases using acrylic paint or gouache. Jamison’s abstracts present a paradox or two – on the one hand they’re easy and perhaps even “pretty” to look at but simultaneously make the eye work hard. The fluid swirling lines take up little room on their painted backgrounds but energise and fill the space.

Until July 22

Gaffa, Sydney

http://www.gaffa.com.au

Pic: Kirra Jamison Cumulus 2013, acrylic on polyester, 150 x 150 cm

Courtesy the artist, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne & Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane.