gemma lynch-memory

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Bibliography 1992 - Bachelor of Visual Arts (Painting Major) University of New England 1994 - Master of Art Admin - University of New South Wales 1995/6 - Traveled to Africa, Egypt, U.K., Europe, U.S.A 1996 - 'Testimony' ARDT Gallery - Sydney 1997 - 'Postcards' Lyall Burton Gallery - Melbourne 1998 - 'Search for Meaning' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 1998 - 'Journey' Greenaway Gallery - Melbourne 1999 - 'Duality' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2000 - 'Little Kingdom' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2001 - 'Waiting for Rain' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2002 - 'Earthworks' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2002 - 'Urban Paddocks' Chifley Plaza - Sydney 2003 - 'Brand New Day' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2003 - Sydney Art Fair 2003 - 'Daylight' Chifley Plaza - Sydney 2004 - Melbourne Art Fair 2004 - 'Under a Sunlit Sky' Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery - Sydney 2004 - Sydney Art Fair 2004 - 'East to West' Gullotti Galleries - Perth 2004 - Finalist - Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale Art Prize 2005 - 'Travelling Without Moving' Gullotti Galleries - Perth 2005 - Sydney Art Fair 2005 - 'Landmarks' Libby Edwards Galleries - Melbourne 2006 - 'Terra Firma' Libby Edwards Galleries - Sydney 2006 - Melbourne Art Fair 2006 - Sydney Art Fair 2006 - 'Incandescent' Libby Edwards Galleries - Brisbane 2006 - 'Off The Map' Gullottti Galleries - Perth The artwork contained in this publication is held in both private and corporate collections throught Australia, America and Europe. Contributors, acknowledgments and special thanks to: Terry Memory, Sandra Lynch, Libby and Katie Edwards, Paul Gullotti, Natasha Wilde, Amelia Douglas, Trevor Harvey Steve Constantinidis (Chapman and Bailey), Graham Baring (GB Photography), Neale Robinson (International Art Services), Jonny Felbel - (X-press Graph-X) and Brad Purvis (Art Wise Investments). www.gemmalynch-memory.com
'Little Mining Town' Installation Gullotti Galleries - Perth 2006 gemma lynch-memory selected works from the last decade 1996-2006 Foreword Gemma Lynch-Memory's paintings are widely celebrated for their unique engagement with the Australian landscape; a project underscored by a keen sensitivity toward both the land's materiality and its emotive capacity. This publication tracks the development of Lynch-Memory's practice from 1996 to 2006, a period that saw the artist rocket to national recognition whilst continuing to tease apart her formal and conceptual fascination with the complexities of identity, space and placement. From fragile works on paper to bold panel installations, Lynch-Memory consistently anchors her landscapes with recourse to the personal. The link between land and self owes much to biography. Lynch-Memory's formative years were spent in country New South Wales. Under the influence of dizzy skyscapes and expansive horizons, her most immediate reference points were the tropes of rural Australia: fences, paddocks, stockyards, gates, shacks and waterholes. During the course of the last decade, Lynch-Memory has developed a highly individual iconographic system for the organisation of these 'landmarks'. At times she gestures toward only the barest indication of forms (gates are abstracted into cartographic symbols). Elsewhere, she deploys figuration to render specific features recognisable (the texture of a tin roof, a scratch of scrub in a parched field). After graduating with a Masters degree from the University of New South Wales in 1994, Lynch-Memory held her debut solo exhibition at ARDT Gallery in Sydney. Entitled Testimony, the exhibition featured nearly a hundred works, predominantly on paper. Although the series bore witness to the burgeoning of Lynch-Memory's signature style, landscape was surprisingly absent. Rather, the tenor of Testimony was one of soft melancholia. Awash with dark abstractions and deep hues, these small compositions were arranged in discreet grid formations against the gallery walls. Works such as Now and Big Picture Little Picture appeared poised to manage emotion through the imposition of geometry - smudges of black oil and charcoal inscribing concealed relationships. Testimony's weighty introspection was abandoned in subsequent exhibitions. In 1998, Lynch-Memory turned instead to her experiences of travel, drawing from memories of journeys through Africa, Egypt, America, Europe and the UK to produce works such as Journey (1998) and Melting the Iron (1998). Now painted predominantly on canvas, the high key palette of these new pieces relished in the play of pastel across light structures. A similar chromatic levity was evident in her 1999 exhibition Duality, wherein the spiritual iconography of Angels and Guardians (1999) was tempered with painterly streaks of raw umber and rose. The trajectory of this stylistic progression culminated in 2000 with the opening of her exhibition Little Kingdom. An autobiographical celebration of childhood, Little Kingdom adapted the light palette of Search for Meaning and applied it to spacious, quietly nostalgic rural scenes. It was at this time that the compositional strategy so prevalent in her most recent work first became visible - space is segmented into sections and held together by strong, horizontal colour chords. Carrying tinges of both Rothko and Kandinsky's investigations into spirituality, colour and psychology, these works fed directly into Lynch-Memory's subsequent exhibitions of 2001. It was at this time she produced the first of her tripartite landscapes, fashioning space into a three-part harmony and introducing the horizon line as a central motif. Formal innovations were matched with a shift in the process of production. In 2003, Lynch-Memory began to integrate her canvases with works painted directly on wooden board, building up the surfaces with thick impastos and luxurious swathes of paint. In addition to brushes and palette knives, she also began to shape her surfaces using power sanders - smoothing the layers before adhering organic materials such as sand and gravel. The physical, tactile traces of her artistic process were not only evident on the surfaces of the works, but extended outward to inform her exhibition strategies. After adopting diptych and tryptich formats, Lynch-Memory settled upon her own system for multi-panel display. The Little Mining Town installation at Gullotti Galleries in 2006 elegantly exemplified this approach. Here, the viewer was encouraged to consider their physical movement through the gallery as part of the work itself, linking separate panels as space was traversed. Over the last three years, Lynch-Memory has gradually replaced the softer hues of her earlier works with the fiery reds, shimmering yellows and deep, cool blues synonymous with her practice today. Red Rock Paddock No. 4, (2006), is one of Lynch-Memory’s largest works to date. Spanning an impressive two and a half meters, the painting resonates with a chorus of luminosity, gritty textures dance across the terrain. Reminiscent of Anselm Kiefer’s stratified palimpsests, Red Rock Paddock No. 4 tests the limits and possibilities of both mark making, and making one’s mark. This project entails an acknowledgement of the proximity between territory and language, a relation made explicit by Lynch- Memory’s return to text in recent exhibitions. Although inscriptions have featured throughout Lynch-Memory’s oeuvre, during the past year their appearance has been enriched. In works such as Ignite (2006) and Submerge No.1&2 (2006), textual inscriptions are employed to initiate a literal dialogue between landscape and identity. Scratched across the surfaces are tiny fragments of sentences that trail like flight paths above the land, a reminder of the necessity for dialogue in the search for equilibrium. As one of Lynch-Memory’s current dealers Libby Edwards has noted; “there is a serenity about the works, a spiritual quality that is emphasised by their almost perfect balance.” Amelia Douglas Amelia Douglas is a Melbourne-based curator and writer. She is currently completing her PhD at the Department of Art History, University of Melbourne.
Page 1: 9606 gemma lynch-memory selected wo
Page 5 and 6: 'Big Picture, Little Picture' No.1
Page 7 and 8: 'Melting The Iron' Oil and Mixed Me
Page 9 and 10: 'Angels and Guardians' Oil and Mixe
Page 11 and 12: 'Mirage' Oil and Mixed Media on Can
Page 13 and 14: 'Dusty Dwelling' Oil and Mixed Medi
Page 15 and 16: 'Red Rock Paddock' No.5,6,7 & 8 Oil
Page 17 and 18: 'Ignite' Oil and Mixed Media on Can
Page 20: Produced and Published by the ARTiS

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