BRUCE EARLES

CONTEMPORARY FIGURATIVE PAINTINGS

EXHIBITING AUGUST 2012

The art of Melbourne based Bruce Earles projects an enthusiasm that is infectious. A combination of elegant complexity and playful sentiment, his paintings present a different response to the urban environment. Landscape and culture intersect, form their layers, complicate one another and then resolve.

Life in the city's streets, parks and beaches- along with all the inevitable signs of urban progress and development- are portrayed as neither hostile nor indifferent. Although recognised as a figurative painter, Earles is increasingly interested in the nuances of the painted surface. Shape demarcation is not so pronounced, boundaries blur as colours are dry brushed into one another; the totemic-looking motifs shimmer within their compressed spaces.

His latest works are characterised by an emphasis on "part of the story" rather than the complete narrative. In this way the artist invites the viewer to interact with the works and the artist's suggestions. The paintings present as a lateral development by the artist recalling his earlier work: subsequently shifting away from recent graphic formulations to a more painterly application.