READ ARTBEAT MELBOURNE REVIEW
Art critic Christopher Heathcote describes the exhibition as "an upbeat show aiming to lift spirits at this grim time," noting that the works by eight figurative artists — Margaret Ackland, Elizabeth Barnett, Chelsea Gustafsson, Bronwyn Hill, Michelle Molinari, Miranda Joy Summers, Nat Ward and Narelle Zeller — are "unashamedly peaceful and positive."
Two artists receive particular attention. Miranda Joy Summers' four landscape paintings, all executed exclusively with painting knives, are noted for their technical distinction. And emerging artist Narelle Zeller is identified as the exhibition's standout — her three meticulously rendered compositions praised for their layers of meaning, compositional rigour, and what Heathcote calls "a high standard of artistic achievement."
Epicurus believed that the purpose of life was to seek pleasure, not indulgence without thought, but the art of living well.
True pleasure, for him, was found in beauty, friendship, nature, and the quietude of a life lived in appreciation of its fleeting joys.
Abundance gathers artists who offer these moments of soulful replenishment. They present beauty without apology — lush, tender, and generous — each work affirming that joy is not a luxury but a vital act of renewal.
In Jacob Leary’s exuberant sculptures, abundance becomes a vivid, tactile experience. Coral-like clusters, crystalline forms, and glossy animal figures create fantastical ecosystems of growth and transformation, delighting in the sheer fecundity of life. Mirror-organisms and synthetic ecologies cluster into radiant, jewel-encrusted formations. Renewal, in his world, emerges from speculative life forms. "What if renewal came from somewhere stranger? My work explores forms of life that don't yet exist: mirror-organisms, synthetic ecologies, emergent structures. Abundance here takes another form—new life offering its own unsettling generosity, growth arriving from directions we haven't imagined."
Elizabeth Barnett invites us into worlds of overflowing gardens and sunlit interiors, where nature and nurture meet in the pleasure of daily life. Roses gathered from her garden — floribunda in their layered generosity — spill across the canvas in thickly worked paint. Her immersive compositions, scratched surfaces and luminous palette honour what she describes as “nature’s gifts,” the splendour of the season returned through labour and care. "When I think of Abundance I immediately think of the garden, especially at this time of year and through until Autumn. Roses fill our garden amid perennials, grasses and native Australian plants.The word “Floribunda” comes to mind when I walk through the garden collecting these resplendent roses. The word’s origin in Latin meaning, as it sounds, an amalgam of the words “Flora” and “Abundance”. The word more commonly refers to a group of modern garden roses with many layers of petals that were created by crossing hybrid tea and polyantha roses, many of which I have planted here. My paintings seek to portray the splendour of the season and the abundance that the garden offers in return for many hours tending the soil and cutting back weeds as thoughts drift from the studio, to family and beyond. In my studio I gather together these riches to paint. I take delight in nature’s gifts and hope to share that joy with the viewer through thickly layered paint, washes, oil stick scratched surfaces, cluttered compositions and an immersive palette."
Chelsea Gustafsson’s meticulously rendered objects capture the charm of life’s small marvels. For Chelsea abundance is time. In Refill, a solitary studio chair cradles books and a disco ball — quiet reflection meeting playful self-examination. In a world saturated with noise, she suggests replenishment is found in stillness, in the freedom to think, unfocus, and allow ideas to grow. "This chair that resides in the corner of my studio is where I allow myself to sit quietly, to read or write or draw, or to just think and gaze out the window. No rules on how to focus or unfocus, just free and random thoughts. In this painting books and a disco ball nestle into the seat referencing a myriad of thoughts and ideas and a playful mosaic of mirrors for self-reflection. The notion of an abundance of time is at odds with a world where there is an abundance of noise and demand for attention. But it’s in the quiet spaces we find time to replenish and letting ideas grow."
While in Michelle Molinari’s lushly detailed still lifes transform symbols of mortality into radiant celebrations of vitality and continuity. abundance arrives staged and suspended. In Cornucopia, the classical horn of plenty spills flowers, seafood and glassware across a pink-striped theatrical backdrop. In contrast, her water dragon still life shifts the register from allegory to observation. The reptile, poised atop a white plinth against a searing yellow ground, occupies the conventions of classical still life with quiet authority. Behind it, a modest landscape anchors the work in lived geography. Here abundance is not theatrical overflow but ecological persistence: the steady presence of life within the ordinary. "Abundance is often pictured as: a full table, the promise of “enough.” But the symbolism of plenty has always carried tension—between celebration and warning, desire and consequence. In the first work I return to the cornucopia—the “horn of plenty”—a classical emblem where overflowing fruit and flowers signalled prosperity, providence, and power. Here, that historical language is re-staged as a contemporary arrangement: a horn spilling flowers across a busy tablecloth that echoes the bold visual rhythm of Margaret Preston’s still lifes. Pattern, colour, and decorative excess lean into abundance as a spectacle. But the scene is disrupted—dead birds are scattered among the spill. In their presence beauty remains, but it becomes uneasy—held in the same frame as loss. The second work moves from historical symbolism to an everyday encounter. A water dragon sits within a still life arrangement, backed by a photograph of the Brisbane River—an image drawn from my daily commute and the steady abundance of water dragons along the riverbank. By placing the animal into the conventions of still life, abundance shifts to something observed, repeated, and quietly persistent."
Through Bronwyn Hill’sStudio at Dawn captures an accidental composition illuminated by early light. Flowers, casually propped after a long day’s work, are transformed by morning glow. Her devotion to interpreting “the poetry of that light” elevates the overlooked into something quietly transcendent. "Light and colour are strong influences on my work and quite possibly the reason that I even paint as realistically as I do, working more and more information in as I try to interpret what I am seeing and translate the poetry of that light. ‘Studio at Dawn’ is based on a photograph taken in my studio after a long day gathering reference material for exhibition work. The studio can get messy during a reference shoot and I’m often placing things anywhere they fit. This scene came about after a day of shooting and the night of editing compositions. The dawn light had started to come through, signaling that I should pack up but this little corner of the room stood out to me in an instant with that beautiful morning light catching the flowers that were propped down without thought. An accidental composition that I keep finding myself drawn back to."
In Margaret Ackland’s richly detailed floral watercolour, the interplay of transparent glass, saturated colour, and patterned backdrop creates an atmosphere of sheer abundance and visual pleasure. Old Shibori and Tulips transforms domestic icons into vessels of memory. "Objects holding memories of past generations, interwoven with invisible threads of love and loss and the intricate patterns that hold my focus and bring joy. (The flowers have mostly been grown on our balcony garden)"
Miranda Joy Summers extends this sensual attention to colour and form. Using impasto oils and deliberate palette-knife strokes, she captures the moment when atmosphere overwhelms form, when distance softens to a pale blur and the horizon seems to fall away. Her Sulphur Crested series vibrates with the tension between spectacle and stillness. Sulphur-yellow treetops flare against cooler tonalities as cockatoos fracture the air before dusk. Using knife-work in oil, Summers distils place through absorption and re-immersion, compressing distance and foreground into a radiant field of lived experience. "Before the day slips to dusk, the landscape hangs suspended — warm and still. Flocks of Sulphur-crested Cockatoo’s wheel through the sky, their calls fracturing the air. Treetops flare sulphur-yellow; the scene turns vivid and electric before the last cry yields to sundown and silence. The Sulphur Crested Series, created for Flinders Lane Gallery, draws a parallel between these presences: the sulphur blaze of feather and the sulphur glow of treetop. Colour becomes the connective force — radiant, disruptive, alive. These works hold the tension between stillness and spectacle, silence and sound."
Guest artist Narelle Zeller’s finely observed portraits bring the human presence into the fold, grounding the exhibition in empathy and emotional truth. Cosmic Weaver, Flutter and Patience, offer intimate, hyper-detailed portrait fragments framed in ornate surrounds. Eyes emerge through cascades of blossoms, moths and petals suspended mid-flight. Here abundance is embodied as inner cosmos, growth woven between vulnerability and power. " Within these works, I find abundance in moments of stillness, beauty, and emotional presence. By combining the human figure with elements of nature, I create subtle narratives that feel peaceful, nurturing, and sustaining — grounded in truth and understanding. My multilayered and detailed painting process allows me the pleasure of slowing down and truly observing and appreciating every element of the work. Through these pieces, I hope to invite viewers into a contemplative space, encouraging a sense of connection and reflection, with the natural world as a source of replenishment and renewal."
Guest artist Nat Ward's luscious oil paintings, spring wattle hums against the subdued greys and blues of eucalypt forest. Built through responsive, divisionist marks, the surface pulses with light, abundance expressed as vibration, as the quiet intricacy of sustained attention. "In my series Glow I explore the luminosity of wattle in spring, set against the cool blues and greys of the eucalypts on Nail Can Hill. The dynamic contrast between these colours becomes a way of amplifying light — the yellow blooms seeming to hum against the subdued tones of the bush. Drawing on elements of Divisionism, I build the surface through small, responsive marks that create a pulse or vibration of light across the canvas. I am interested in painterly contrasts — warm and cool, density and air, presence and understatement — and in the curious, often overlooked forms that reveal themselves through sustained attention. Each part of the surface is considered and worked, honouring the complexity of the environment. Through this attentiveness, the paintings seek to embody both the energy and the quiet intricacy of the spring landscape."
Together, these artists embrace beauty as sustenance — a salve, a source of courage, a reminder that the pursuit of joy, in all its forms, is an essential and life-affirming act.
