Sansom, as ever, stands apart. His paintings may be beautiful, in a mercurial kind of way, yet beauty is but one of their many strengths. These are urgent works of art that dare to describe the workings of the mind. They are large, cacophonous, unstable and sometimes quite terrifying.
—Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic
Exhibition Dates: 2 March – 26 March 2022
Sansom, as ever, stands apart. His paintings may be beautiful, in a mercurial kind of way, yet beauty is but one of their many strengths. These are urgent works of art that dare to describe the workings of the mind. They are large, cacophonous, unstable and sometimes quite terrifying.
—Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is thrilled to present new paintings by Gareth Sansom in a special solo exhibition marking the gallery’s 40th anniversary. Sansom was the inaugural exhibition when Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery first opened in March 1982. Forty years on, Sansom continues to be one of the few truly original voices in contemporary Australian art and has always remained a hardcore iconoclast.
Sansom is one of Australia’s most revered painters, a pre-eminent figure of the Australian avant-garde for over fifty years. Eschewing his traditional love of montage, the artist relies on eccentric mark-making and belligerent colouration. Sansom came to prominence in the 1960s as a radical convention-breaking painter, with influences ranging from Picasso and Jean Dubuffet to Francis Bacon and British pop art. Sansom’s luridly coloured and densely layered paintings explore physical, psychological and material transformation; they begin as one thing but swiftly morph into another.
In this impressive suite of thirty-one new paintings, Sansom rallies against his own control and consciousness in his work – he aspires to constantly surprise and challenge himself as an artist. The psychological landscapes in ‘Gareth Sansom’ marry not only abstraction and figuration but also entirely different visual registers, from photography and stencilling to diagrams, caricatures and writing - the result is a surreal, dazzling cacophony of lyrical effusion.
—Claire Vis-Le
Group Show, The First 40 Years
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2024
Gareth Sansom
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2022
Group Show, A Painting Show
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2020-21
Gareth Sansom It's Now or Never
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2019
Gareth Sansom Transformer
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2017-18
Group Show
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2016
Gareth Sansom Just Painting
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2015
Gareth Sansom Did You Know?
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2012
Gareth Sansom New Paintings
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2010
Group Show
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 2009-10
Gareth Sansom Cross Currents: Focus on Australian art
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2007
Group Show, Christmas show
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1991
Gareth Sansom Recent Work
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1991
Gareth Sansom Out of India
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1990
Group Show
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1990
Gareth Sansom
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1989
Group Show, 7th Biennale of Sydney
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1988
Gareth Sansom
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1987
Gareth Sansom
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1983
Gareth Sansom Paintings... Drawings... Photographs, 1965-1982
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 1982
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