MICHELLE BRETON

ABSTRACT PAINTINGS

EXHIBITING APRIL 2012

There can be no present without a past. The past has a place in my work, it engages me and gives me a sense of the future, I want to acknowledge it in order to seek out my place in the present. Painting for me is similar to an archaeological excavation, but in reverse: rather than digging to discover the past, I am building layers to reveal it.

When I first started painting with my teacher Kerry Johns, I was extremely moved by the process. I had no idea what I was attempting to do, but my connection to the paint and the surface (be it canvas, paper or board) provided me with the freedom to express myself. It was a liberating experience, reminding me of dancing, which played a big part in my childhood in Adelaide. There is a similarity for me between dance and painting, they are both forms of expression without the use of words or voice. But what is expressed can be heard just as loudly as any spoken word.

Working in the Blue Mountains was a wonderful beginning, painting still lifes and landscapes in a superb setting. But I wanted more, abstract was calling me. I needed to paint from another source than what I was seeing, and after completing my degree at RMIT in Fine Arts and Majoring in Painting I was on the path of abstraction. In 2006 I had my first solo show in Melbourne. In 2008 I lived and painted in Berlin and Italy.

It’s now 2011 and I have returned to Melbourne from the Blue Mountains – again – where I have a new studio on a different side of town.