Contemporary Artworks in current stockroom

(alphabetically by artist surname)

Winter’s End

Zadok Ben-David (b. 1949)

Winter’s End2008

hand cut painted aluminium

Diam: 148.5cm

edition of 1

Untitled, 2000

Category: Australian Contemporary female

Kitty Kantilla (1928-2003)

Untitled, 2000

natural organic pigments on canvas

78 x 98cm

Except the Run of Rivers

Category: Contemporary

Beth Letain (b. 1976)

Except the Run of Rivers2018

oil on canvas

signed and dated verso ‘Beth Letain, 2018’

220 x 190cm

Five Futures

Category: Contemporary Large Scale Works Women

Beth Letain (b. 1976)

Five Futures2017

oil on canvas

170 x 140cm

Provenance

Pace Gallery, London;

Private Collection, Sydney

Exhibited

Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Los Angeles, US, 25-28 January, 2018

Essay

Berlin-based Canadian artist Beth Letain engages with the history of colour and abstraction. While her works feel minimalist compositionally, they are vivid with strong colour painted on white canvas. Letain’s geometric structures are harmonious and rhythmic, referencing Agnes Martin, Mary Heilmann and the Bauhaus theories of colour. This work is of magnificent scale with lashings of oil and rich pigment, so characteristic of the artist’s style. Her works are simple and enduring.

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Pelican

Category: Contemporary Sculpture

John Olsen (b. 1928)

Pelican2022

glazed ceramic plate

44cm (diameter)

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Mask

Category: Australian Contemporary Large Scale Works Painting

Ben Quilty (b. 1973)

Mask2010

oil on linen

140 x 190cm

Provenance

Private collection, Sydney

Essay

Ben Quilty recalls he conceived this painting as something of a mask – a Captain Cook mask the artist himself could put on to imagine the world through the eyes of the famous 18th century explorer. Having read extensively through Cook’s diaries, Quilty became fascinated by the man’s initial self belief, an attitude that doubtless contributed to him becoming one of maritime history’s most famous navigators, astronomers and sailors. With the passage of time however, Quilty observed violent changes in Cook’s behaviour toward both his crew and the native populations he encountered.

Cook’s bouts of extreme violence, Quilty along with others postulates, was due in large part to debilitating and personality changing gut conditions, the result of chronic disease. In analysing this change the artist states that ‘Mask’ looks at ‘…the good, the bad and the ugly’. The rorschach technique employed is perfect, providing a multiple image which delves into the human psyche, a reflection and investigation of James Cook the man, and his changing psychological states.

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Waterfall

Category: Contemporary International Large Scale Works

Hiroshi Senju (b. 1958)

Waterfall2018

acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper

paper signed and inscribed "Waterfall, H. Senju, 2018" on reverse

130 x 162cm

Provenance

Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Hong Kong;
Private collection, Sydney

Essay

Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue.

Senju’s work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. The Hiroshi Senju Museum in Karuizawa, Japan, opened in 2011 as a gallery devoted in its entirety to the artist’s work.