Autumn Fire

My latest abstract diptych, "Autumn Fire," draws inspiration from the ethereal transformation of the Nothofagus Gunnii, a rare deciduous beech native to Tasmania. This piece explores the fleeting yet vibrant metamorphosis of its foliage during autumn. Through a fusion of fiery reds, deep oranges, and muted yellows, I convey the dynamic dance of decay and renewal. The swirling, layered brushstrokes evoke the chaotic, wind-swept movement of leaves, symbolizing nature's cycle and the impermanence of life. This painting invites viewers to reflect on the beauty of transient moments and the perpetual rhythm of change inherent in the natural world.

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David Bentley is a landscape artist beginning his practice working in the Tasmanian landscape. His early career was spent responding to wild places through representational, romantic landscapes but he has recently reinvented his art making as an abstract expressionist painter. His most recent body of work delves into an intimate and introspective world of yearning, lost memories and nostalgia. By combining new and traditional techniques of oil painting, David's work tugs and pulls at the viewer's expectations of abstraction and teeters on the precipice between landscape and the representational. It is in this vague in-between where his psychological landscapes provoke the viewer into a state of agitated meditation.