The art of transformation

By Kath Gannaway
EVANESCENCE, an exhibition of works by New York-based, Australian-born artist Denise Green opened at the TarraWarra Museum of Art in Yarra Glen last month.
The exhibition focuses on works created between 2005 and 2009, to explore motifs developed over time, which are of both a personal and universal nature.
Set in the museum’s beautiful North Gallery it features the evocative, richly layered paintings, dense with personal and symbolic meaning, which have built Green’s reputation over the last four decades as one of the Australia’s most respected international artists.
“Green has developed a form of art which explores her belief in the concept of ‘metonymic thinking’, the belief that the creativity of an artist flows from a blending of the inner state of mind and the outer objective world,” said a spokeswoman for the museum.
“Painting then becomes the vehicle for a transformative process for both the artist and the viewer, allowing the expression of the imperceptible spirituality which surrounds us all, through a series of unconscious connections.
“Green’s works hover deliberately between the boundaries of abstract and figurative art, often using a single continually worked motif, set against a glowing ground of brilliant colour to produce paintings that demonstrate the fusion of both Western and Eastern art practice and philosophical beliefs which distinguish her oeuvre.”
Denise Green was born in Melbourne and has resided in the US since 1969, but considers herself to be a resident of both continents.
At the age of 17 she left Australia for Europe to study art in Paris followed by further studies in New York with the celebrated artists Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell.
Green has held over 90 solo exhibitions and participated in 215 group shows worldwide, her writing on art has been widely published and her work is represented in a significant number of major public and private collections in Australia and overseas, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.
In 2007 Green was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to art through her promotion of Australian art and artists internationally.
The exhibition will run through to 24 May.
TaraWarra Museum of Art is at 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Healesville. Phone 5957 3100.