Capriccio – Exhibition By Chris Browne
Are there some days when you would love to re-arrange your world a little?
Instead of waking up every day to see the same, shabby film poster plastered on your wall, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could see your favourite Gauguin or Miro hanging there, even for a week? Or on your walk to work, you could choose to walk past the Guggenheim or a beautiful Italian church you saw once passing through a tiny village on a holiday.
Chris Browne, the lucky guy, gets to play God and arrange things just as he’d like them.
This is the meaning of ‘capriccio:’
an architectural fantasy, placing together buildings and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations.
Most of the paintings are scenes inside the Art Gallery of NSW;
if you look carefully at his painting ‘Pagans’ you’ll see his favourite Degas painting, which is actually in the Musée D’Orsay.
I won’t give away any other ‘adjustments’ – look hard and see what you can find.
Apart from the playful self-reflexivity of the paintings, the subject matter is quite ingenious. It’s both a record of a common Australian leisure activity and a study of how the human form has been depicted over time.
Modern figures wander amongst paintings from the past, a visual representation of the history of art. The paintings are almost hazy, imbuing the moments he’s captured with a sense of peace and contemplation.
Genevieve Branigan is also exhibiting her small sculptures addressing the human condition. So you get two artists for the effort of seeing one – what more reason do you need?!
‘
Capriccio’ – an exhibition by Chris Browne
‘When I am in Feeling’ – an exhibition by Genevieve Branigan
September 1 – 19
Bay Village, 28-34 Cross, Street Double Bay
Georgia Booth
georgia_booth@hotmail.com