*Val Johnson, Cork tree walk, oil on canvas, 51 X 51 cm, 2021*

MEDIA RELEASE

val johnson | ‘HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, CANBERRA!’

An exploration of Canberra in oils and mosaics

Exhibition: Strathnairn Homestead Galleries 1 and 2 | 27 July – 21 August 2022

Official Opening Drinks: 5pm Wednesday 27 July 2022. All are welcome to attend.

Guest Speaker: Barbie Robinson

Homestead Gallery 1 & 2 and online | 27 July - 21 August 2022

Val Johnson is a Fellow of the Royal Art Society of N.S.W, a member of Art in Miniature Canberra, and Queanbeyan Art Society. She exhibits widely and has won numerous awards for her work.

Val has spent the last two years during Covid, composing these paintings and mosaics for this exhibition. Most of the oils have been done en plein air, and finished in the studio. The paintings are not photographic versions of the landscape but as she sees it- shape, colour and pattern, and she also uses linear lines which run through the composition.

“I love to travel and paint, but travel restrictions due to the pandemic, have kept me home in Canberra for two years. But what an opportunity! To paint around Canberra. So I have spent the past 18 months doing just that, en plein air, and in the studio. This exhibition is based on my discovery of some of the beautiful natural places we are so lucky to have nearby. Rivers, lakes, suburbia, parks, have all become my subject matter in oils, and I have also added some mosaics to the mix.” Val Johnson

Val’s mosaics also follow her style of painting, to form works of places around Canberra. She calls her mosaics ‘freestyle’ as she uses a non-conventional way of working. The mosaics are made of whatever she can find, plates, tiles, nut shells, stones etc, as well as the usual commercial mosaic tiles. She also builds things on top in places, as she likes texture.

The paintings and mosaics complement each other. and provide two aspects of Val’s art practice. The two galleries separate the works so the viewer will get the full impact of the paintings and mosaics.

The paintings will be on display at Strathnairn Homestead Galleries 1 and 2 from 27 July to 21 August 2022, and will be opened by Barbie Robinson, a Canberra-based arts journalist, photographer, writer and designer, and co-Principal of arts media not for profit website and internet radio station LIVING ARTS CANBERRA, on Wednesday 27 July at 5pm. All are welcome at the opening.

-ENDS-