Lean Towards

Celebrated Meanjin/Brisbane-based artist John Honeywill returns to Michael Reid Sydney with Lean Towards – his first solo exhibition at the gallery in more than two years. True to its title, this luminous new series of still-life paintings is an elegant paean to the painter’s curious affinities – the objects to which he is slowly, almost inexplicably drawn and compelled to capture on canvas.

Working with meticulous precision and masterly control of light and mood, Honeywill casts otherwise unassuming objects as quietly dazzling painterly protagonists seemingly lit from within. From brown paper packages tied up with string to sugary sweets and delicate vessels heaped with ripening fruit or unfolding flowers, these unsentimental yet emotionally resonant subjects exude a stillness and subtle alchemy as they coalesce in graceful and disarming conversations. “I paint the quiet visual conversations between everyday objects,” says Honeywill, describing still life as a genre that links the intimate world with the public.

Suspended against ambiguous, luminescent planes and rendered with astonishing detail, Honeywill’s subjects appear at once intensely present and curiously untethered from the everyday. His paintings speak to the animating interplay of an object’s presence and the artist’s perception – hence the title of his 2023 monograph, Presence and Perception. More than half a century after staging his first solo exhibition, Lean Towards finds one of Australia’s most accomplished contemporary exponents of the still-life genre continuing to follow the instincts and visual fascinations that have propelled his practice from the beginning.

For enquiries, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au.