Night Music

The first solo exhibition from India Mark since joining our stable of represented artists, Night Music forms a sequence of perfectly composed, intimately formed still-life paintings that shift between moments of quietude and tension in much the same way that a single piece of music might strike different chords and invite subtle variations in tone and textural nuance. “The same piece of music can be experienced in a variety of ways and interpreted differently depending on the interests of the conductor or musicians,” says the artist. “Composition notates the same objects, experiencing them in new ways. I am always fascinated that the same few objects can, with even the slightest difference in arrangement, be completely altered in feeling and nature.”

Working through the night hours to give her greater control of the light in her studio, Mark imbues her bijou canvases with velvety depth, glinting details and a featherlike haze emerging from fiery underpainting.

“This series leans mainly into my love for the paintings of Giorgio Morandi,” says Mark, who received the top award for an emerging artist in last year’s Lester Art Prize and was shortlisted for the 2023 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and Portia Geach Memorial Award. “In these works, I take reference from [Morandi’s] tendency to arrange objects in distinct units that draw emphasis on the connections and tensions between objects and the space around them.”

For information regarding acquisitions, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au