Featuring a series of more than 50 works of art and sculptures, Newcastle Art Gallery celebrates Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy’s three decades of creative partnership and evolving artistic practice in a new exhibition from 17 November 2018.
OLSEN ORMANDY: a creative force showcases individual works of art from each artist alongside pieces made in collaboration, drawing on the pair’s substantial archive, but also incorporating new paintings and large-scale sculptural installations.
“For more than 30 years, Louise and Stephen have built a reputation as the artists behind one of Australia’s most iconic brands – Dinosaur Designs,” said Newcastle Art Gallery Director Lauretta Morton. “An earlier significant touring exhibition The Art of Dinosaur Designs showcased the couple’s work in the context of their design success. This summer in Newcastle, we will look closer at these two artists and their bodies of work.”
“Paintings, tapestries and sculptures in marble, aluminium, wood and resin – many of these new works yet to be exhibited – showcasing new mediums or new directions the artists have been exploring. This nationally relevant exhibition tells the next chapter for this artist duo – partners in life, art and work.”
OLSEN ORMANDY: a creative force features joint commissions such as Series 8: Movement (2011) – a set of eight disks in dazzling colours commissioned to mark the fifth anniversary of Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), and Collar Bone (2014) – a wall hanging characterised by chroma clashes from orange to blue rendered in a painterly application.
A highlight of the exhibition is a new expression of Ormandy’s life-sized totems, rendered in signature resin. First shown at London Design Week 2016, these larger sculptures are formed from interconnected pieces to create extraordinary silhouettes and bold interplays of solid colours.
Also on display is a series of mesmerising, never-before-seen watercolours by Olsen, exploring in two dimensions many of the themes of her decades of design and sculpture work. “I have a fascination with balance and the relationship between being bold and the sensitivity of the delicate,” said Olsen.
“I’m constantly inspired by nature; there is something beautiful about the time things take to evolve and perfect in the natural world. Resin, one of the materials we have worked with in this exhibition, has a wonderful viscous fluidity that allows us to cross the boundaries of sculpture and painting.”
“I’m looking for vibration and rhythm, the play of line creating positive and negative space, searching for tonal balance through contrast or harmony, while developing chroma relationships that hug or repel,” he added.
OLSEN ORMANDY: a creative force
Newcastle Art Gallery, 1 Laman Street, Newcastle
Exhibition: 17 November 2018 – 17 February 2019
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.nag.org.au for details.
Image: Stephen Ormandy, Offering, 2018. Oil on linen 200.0 x 300.0cm – courtesy the artist