FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: News from Elements Art Gallery - 131A Waratah Avenue, Dalkeith. Ph: 9386 2000

‘Skin Deep’

a new collection of oil paintings, charcoal and pastel work by
BRIAN SIMMONDS
26th June -11th July

Brian Simmonds, Happy Opportunity, charcoal & pastel on paper

Opening Saturday 26th June 6.30 -8.30pm
Guest Speaker artist Bill Hawthorn

Western Australian artist Brian Simmonds continues to explore the quiet beauty of the world at our feet. The surface qualities of the ground are often inadvertently missed yet carry a plethora of textures and stories. Through his art Simmonds is calling us to look more closely, to take a breath and bear witness.

At the age of 15 Simmonds trained as a Photo Engraver & Lithographer. His studies in drawing, painting and printmaking led him to his first solo in 1975.

Brian has won numerous first prizes and resulting commissions for his entries in both the Stirling Art Exhibitions and Melville City Annual Awards spanning the past 19 years and in 2009 his Burswood Exhibition was a sell out.

His illustrative contribution to a children’s story on the history of Albany, ‘Lighthouse Girl’ has recently been shortlisted for the 2010 Crichton Award for New Illustrators.

Most of his oil paintings focus on the natural world, where the leaf littered earth seems to dance and decay in lilting layers of colour and light.’

Simmonds creates a sense that ’we can step into these paintings and walk through an enchanted atmosphere’

In his contrasting urban ground scapes, Brian’s use of dark tonal charcoals with the weightless reflections of his pastel work, invite us to consider another kind of beauty. As the slick patterns on a city pavement catch the blur of a step ‘the ordinariness in these images becomes strangely interesting… when seen through an artists lens.’

‘Skin Deep’ engages the viewer in an alternative perspective of the earth’s complexion, linking the parallel worlds of nature with human nature and their fascinating disparity.

BRIAN WILL BE CONDUCTING A ‘MEET THE ARTIST’ SESSION SUNDAY 4TH JULY 2-4PM

Brian Simmonds, Nocturnal, oil on canvas

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For further information, please contact the gallery manager Deborah Howlett on
M: 0410 081 697 E: deborah@elementsartgallery.com.au PH: 9386 2000