By Jed Lanyon
YAVA Gallery and Art Hub’s latest exhibition follows the journey of Margaret McLoughlin’s artistic career.
The exhibition, aptly named ‘Journey’, opened on Thursday 20 May and highlights Ms McLoughlin’s works exploring colour, texture and materiality.
The Yarra Glen resident is celebrating 40 years of joyous expression as her home evolved from South Africa to Australia, with travels in between.
Ms McLoughlin said she “loves” to work with colour and bright red trees have become a staple of her work. A feature that was inspired after successfully defending her home from the Black Saturday bushfires.
“I was just in complete denial it would happen,” she said. “We live up in Yarra Glen on the hill and we watched with horror as these flames started coming across the ridge above us.
She recalled seeing all of the fence posts in the area alight and likened them to candles.
There was a wind change and we were out in the courtyard and this huge wall of flames came right over the place and it sucked out all the oxygen.
Ms McLoughlin said they had built the house with fire in mind and managed to defend it from the flames with a mop, a trough of water and her Blundstone boots.
While Ms McLaughlin’s rural subjects are very recognisable to her dedicated following, Journey shows the breadth of her practice and highlights an artist’s commitment to evolving her craft.
Ms McLaughlin explains her love for colour, which she describes as “uplifting”, and how her artwork incorporates many colours.
“I love colour. Colour is alive somehow and it just comes naturally to me I suppose. These days instead of just putting mass colour down and blending it, I now do layers and layers of colour then I’ll scratch back to what’s underneath and allow the under part to come through.”
Journey features many of Ms McLoughlin’s sketchbooks including early designs of current works on display. Some sketches feature portraits of passengers on trains who happened to be sitting in the artist’s view.
For more information, visit: https://www.yava.org.au/journey
