Streaming

Sharne Wolff

Over the past few decades artists have engaged in new forms of organic abstraction in parallel with Australian Indigenous artists. Both forms rely on the artist being connected to the environment in ways unique to their experience. Fascinated by the layers of colour and light in the natural environment, nature abounds in Liz Coats’ most recent display of paintings. Crossing a flooded creek in the forests of south eastern NSW, seemingly insignificant events like “strands of foam and tiny bits of detritus stirred up by the pressure of falling water [circulated] in the current with a continuous visible pulse…” caught the artists eye and inspired her most recent output.

Pictures from earlier years, where Coats worked in kiln fired pigments on float glass, contrast with this newer series of acrylic and pigments on canvas. All appear as visual patterns though, as in nature, Coats’ time-consuming process of layering paint is organic rather than repetitious. Her most recent works employ a meandering palette of pastel colours – somehow immediately recognisable as Australian. Dusty pinks, acacia yellows, and grey greens are punctuated with occasional bursts of rusty red or steel blue. Light and movement feature heavily at a distance while the senses are rewarded by close and leisurely inspection.

Until March 8

Utopia Art Sydney, Waterloo

Liz Coats Streaming #8 (detail), 2012-13, acrylic media and pigments on polycotton canvas 110 x 90cm. Courtesy the artist and Utopia Art Sydney.