En Plein Air: Works on Paper

Acclaimed West Australian painter Carly Le Cerf presents En Plein Air, a spectacular constellation of works on paper created at the coalface of the untamed landscapes that shape her practice.

Showing exclusively at Michael Reid Berlin, En Plein Air offers collectors a rare opportunity to experience and acquire original, accessible works by an artist firmly at the forefront of Australian landscape painting and one of the most sought-after names within our broader gallery network.

Bringing together a significant suite of gouache and watercolour sketches, drawings and annotated field studies, En Plein Air offers a direct and immediate connection between the landscapes in which Le Cerf immerses herself and the richly textured, large-scale encaustic paintings they ultimately give rise to. Together, her works on paper trace an evolving response to place across several immersive forays undertaken during a period of remarkable creative efflorescence and rising acclaim.

As her practice pushes towards ever more expansive and heroic terrain, Le Cerf’s work remains grounded in prolonged encounters with the land. “My creative process comes into being through immersing myself in the landscape and absorbing what the essence of that landscape is to me,” she says. This philosophy sees her walking, sketching and recording colours and sensations over long stretches before returning to the studio to translate those experiences into works of formidable emotional heft.

As writer Sarah Hetherington observes, Le Cerf’s paintings strive to express awe – “that universal human emotion… of reverence, admiration, even fear, in response to that which is grand, sublime and powerful.”

En Plein Air brings viewers closer to Le Cerf’s process, offering glimpses of the attentive looking, intuitive mark-making and physical presence underpinning her lauded practice.

For more information about the material on view and for acquisition enquiries, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au (Sydney) or colinesoria@michaelreid.com.au (Berlin).