HALF WAY HOME

Half Way Home, etching

6/Oct/2011 - 27/Nov/2011

VENUE: Falkner Gallery

Hug, Wood engraving

Etchings, Wood engravings, Lithographs by DAVID FRAZER

New Life, etching

For centuries the world over, artists have questioned and commented upon the relationship between mankind and nature. In Australia, after years of drought and then recent floods, they question whether we live in harmony or are at odds with our environment.
Does man impose himself on nature and always seem misplaced, lonely and alienated or does he blend easily with the beauty of the landscape and seem to be in balance and harmony?

This is the question posed by two contemporary artists in their exhibitions at Falkner Gallery, 6 October – 27 November.

The works of David Frazer from Castlemaine portray a familiar yet lonely, anonymous world populated by abandoned houses, farmyards and deserted roads. His exhibition ‘Half Way Home’ displays his view of the landscape as being ‘melancholic rather than merely bucolic’. Various misplaced and alienated characters inhabit the environment. A lost dog wanders about near an old deserted caravan and dead trees; an alienated man clings forlornly to a dead tree trunk, longing to escape.
Man and his possessions seem at odds with the landscape beyond.

Four-plate colour etchings, intricately detailed wood engravings and atmospheric lithographs display his mastery of technique as well as his ability to capture enigmatic emotions of longing for something past and something new, often with humour.

David is a highly regarded painter and printmaker who has held numerous solo and group exhibitions since the 1990s. His work is held in international, national and regional collections and he has won major art prizes in Australia and overseas. A 2007 ABC television documentary ‘Artist at Work’ offered a wide audience an insight into his printmaking inspiration and practice.