AN exhibition of compelling works by a local artist who sits within an acclaimed cohort of international contemporary abstract painters, is showing at the Wangaratta Art Gallery.
Born in Wangaratta and now living in Cheshunt, artist Fran O’Neill has built a significant international career, particularly in North America, for her evocative and vibrant abstract paintings.
Wangaratta Art Gallery director Rachel Arndt said she first became aware of O'Neill's work when the artist held a solo exhibition in Brisbane where she was living and working at the time.
She said she read a review of it and was intrigued, both that O'Neill hailed from Wangaratta, and that she was forging a significant career among art circles in New York.
After taking up the position of director of the gallery, Ms Arndt met the artist, visited her studio and saw her work - produced using gloved arms slathered in paint - and was mesmerised by it.
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"I find Fran’s work highly compelling," Ms Arndt said.
"Each work is highly colourful and gestural, its own experiment in palette, form and movement, with her fluid marks referencing her own body and the immersion required by the self as an artist.
"For me, her arcs and swirls mirror hanks of long, looped and twisted yarn or the exterior pattern of a thick ply skein, recalling her childhood spent here in Wangaratta with its deep textile affiliation.
"She is also making work under the abstract tradition, that was so heavily male dominated.
"It should not be the case, but it's a remarkable feat that a woman artist, from regional Victoria, would forge such a substantial career amidst the art circles of New York – the very home of abstract expressionism."
Ms Arndt said she was pleased O'Neill agreed to show her work in Wangaratta - sharing it with the local community - and those who have seen it are calling it "exciting", "beautiful" and "stunning".
She said it was also an opportunity for the public to get a better understanding of abstract art practice and how it should be viewed and appreciated.
"I think abstract work can be very enlightening as it challenges us to let go of our need to always understand, to have to think with our mind rather than to feel with our body or our soul," Ms Arndt said.
"Many find abstract work intimidating or distasteful, because it is not easily recognisable as something – a scene, a person or an object – and the psychological depth that is hinted at scares us.
"We want to understand and when it’s unknowable we baulk - and I think that’s what this type of work teaches us - to use our senses in different ways, to relax into the moment, to trust our own intuition and to imagine.
"It’s very powerful."
