Oct 13 - Dec 24, 2016 at FORM Gallery, Perth, Western Australia.

A shared solo exhibition: 'Fitzgerald Biosphere' by Amok Island and 'Doreen Chapman' by Doreen Chapman.

"Fitzgerald Biosphere is new work related to Amok Island’s recently completed commission for CBH silos in Ravensthorpe, within the Fitzgerald Biosphere, an area of internationally significant biodiversity situated at the border of the Goldfields-Esperance and Great Southern regions. Like his silo mural, the exhibition works — which include a commissioned mural on the gallery wall — depict a selection of flora endemic to the Biosphere, which contains 20% of Western Australia’s native plantspecies.

A self-titled solo exhibition by one of WA’s rising Aboriginal art stars, Pilbara-based painter Doreen Chapman, co-presented by FORM’s Spinifex Hill Studios and Martumili Artists. Chapman is distinguished by the freedom of her brushwork and her ability to work large canvases at speed, sometimes switching hands to maintain her frenetic pace, lending her canvasses a distinctive and compelling energy. As a deaf woman, painting is an important means of communication for Chapman, providing vital insight into her experiences. This is an exciting opportunity to view new work from ‘the fastest brush in the West’.

Though Chapman and Amok Island each have a very different aesthetic sensibility and relationship to landscape, the pair are linked by their vibrant pastel colour palette, the inspiration they draw from Western Australia’s regional landscape, and their distinctive eye for capturing the unique qualities of the State’s flora and fauna with humour and charm. Read together, these two solo exhibitions reimagine some of the State’s most remote landscapes, while showcasing the diversity of FORM’s ongoing regional programming."

Text: FORM