The Sensual World

Winner of the 2021 Exploration Emerging Artist Award, Lucy Roleff’s paintings depict everyday items and elements of the natural world, and in so doing seeks to gently question our desire to claim and revere such objects. For her guest exhibition with FLG, Roleff shows alongside fellow artists Jesse Dayan and Elynor Smithwick to present an intimate series of fresh new paintings.

In this collection of work, Roleff, Dayan and Smithwick each seek to define a sense of sensuality in their respective surrounds, as well as in the act of painting itself. Here there is an attempt to find connection with one's environment through the act of observing and recording with paint. Be it still life, landscape en plein air or an interior study, there is a common thread of longing through all their work, as well as an urge to ground oneself in a particular environment or moment. These paintings are essentially about trying to define a sense of intimacy, simplicity and soft sensuality - that may otherwise have only occurred for a brief moment to the painter's eye.

Lucy RoleffLucy Roleff’s practice explores notions of beauty, purpose and the nature of desire. Her paintings are essentially about the act of looking - the internal processes that begin when we look at something we aspire to, or in which we recognise ourselves. She is particularly interested in the space between domestic familiarity and a sense of grandeur, or otherworldliness. Here there is both escapism and a meditation on daily, accessible pleasures. These ideas stem from the historical purpose of paintings as portals for daydreaming and fantasy, even when depicting the most ordinary of spaces.

Roleff’s work is held in a number of private collections across Australia and overseas. She has been a finalist for multiple art prizes including The Blake Prize, the A.M.E. Bale Art Prize and the Len Fox Painting Prize.

Elynor SmithwickSensuality inhabits the act of painting – the action and result of it is both revealing and engaging. It finds poetry hidden in a vase of flowers, in an open window. It frees the poetry living inside me, and the experiences which I’ve held. With the title of this exhibition in mind while creating this work, these new paintings merge recent overseas memories with the immediacy of my studio environment. A tender, emotional state has been captured here; longing for another place physically and mentally while managing to find grounding within the present. There is no fragility without sensitivity, no sensitivity without sensuality.

Elynor Smithwick is a Melbourne based painter who holds a Bachelor Degree (Honours) in Fine Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2020 Smithwick was awarded the Macfarlane Fund Residency with Stockroom Gallery and in 2019 was the winner of both the Buller Arts Residency Award and the Dora McRae Painting Prize. She has been awarded the Sydney Canvas Company Painting Prize (2018), and held residencies at Amelie Maison d’Art’s Summer Arts Residency, Provence, France (2022) and the Buller Arts Residency, Mt Buller, Victoria, Australia (2021).

Elynor is represented by Otomys Gallery in Australia and the UK, and Amèlie Maison d’Art in Paris, France. She currently resides in her hometown of Albury where she is focused on developing her art practice, and regularly delivers workshops at MAMA (Murray Art Museum Albury).

Jesse DayanJesse Dayan’s works shift fluidly between art historical reference and direct observation of present day subjects. An interest in painting moments as they feel, not as they appear, unifies these two approaches. The use of subtly changing perspective points, as well as variations in lighting directions, are intended to create the feeling that each painting contains a small unfolding of time. Central to Dayan’s practice is the the use of colour, which is utilised for expression rather than description. This use of non local colour is not intended to abstract the picture from the subject, but rather is deployed as a way of heightening attention and questioning expectations. 

Jesse Dayan is a Melbourne based artist he has been a finalist in several national art awards including the Arthur Guy Memorial Art Prize, the Len Fox Painting award, the City of Albany Art Prize, the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize and the National Works on Paper Award. He has previously been shortlisted for the Brett Whiteley Traveling Art Scholarship and the Australia Council – Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Residency.