Nicholas Blowers

Savage River

4 August — 14 August 2015

Born 1972, UK
Lives and works in Hobart

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Represented by nanda\hobbs

In 1821, the great English Romantic painter John Constable exhibited The Hay Wain at London's Royal Academy. The painting was to become one of the iconic allegorical works of the 19th century. With grace and acuity, both metaphysically and technically The Hay Wain marked Britain’s transition from a rural-based economy to an industrialised powerhouse. One can see the subject as an idealised partial arcadia—or the viewer can peel back the layers to discover Constable’s deeper concerns and interests.

Tasmanian-based artist Nicholas Blowers draws on his native British aesthetic sensibilities to deliver the powerful exhibition Savage River at Art Equity. Blowers, ever the weaver of exquisite technique and universal themes, shows the Savage River, Tasmania, landscape metamorphosed almost to abstraction through the world’s economies’ appetite for mineral wealth. The remote Tasmanian west coast mining town, perched on the end of the Tarkine Wilderness, provides Blowers with the raw material to explore beauty in the face of industrial and technological reconfiguration of the landscape.

Blowers's previous close investigation of the temperate rainforests of Tasmania—Tolkien-esque, dark and brooding—has given way to a lighter palette in this exhibition. However, there is no less intensity of execution. While the mystery of the undergrowth may have been surrendered, in Savage River we find beauty in the haunting silver-grey tones of the collapsed forest and the still waters’ reflections. Blowers has painted an elegy but in his exquisite mirroring of the toughness intrinsic to this challenged landscape he has celebrated Beauty’s defiance of destruction.

Blowers, like Constable, is a subtle commentator. He is not waving a flag for the contemporary Luddite; he is, rather, reminding us of our inheritance, precious beyond the riches that lie below the surface.

 

Ralph Hobbs
August 2015

\ Exhibition featured works

Nicholas Blowers

Cold Shadows, Track Edge, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on panel, triptych \ 40x90cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Collapsing Tree Reflections, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 82x59cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Creeping Shadows, Felled Tree Study, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on panel, diptych \ 40x60cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Creeping Shadows, Felled Trees, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 100x110cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Felled Tree Debris Under Blue Sky, Edge of Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 110x150cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Felled Tree Reflected, Sound of Water Birds, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 59x76cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Felled Tree Study, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 59x65cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Felled Trees Arrangement, Sun, Shadows, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on panel, diptych \ 40x60cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Flattened Branches, Sound of Water Birds, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on panel, diptych \ 40x60cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Last Standing, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 89x98cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Late afternoon track edge savage river tailing ponds

2015 \ Oil on panel, diptych \ 40x60cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Partly Submerged, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 89x98cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Partly Submerged, Silent Expanse, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 85x190cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Reflected Debris, Tree Contortions, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 100x100cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Track Edge, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 85x142cm

SOLD

Nicholas Blowers

Water's Edge, Diminishing Light, Savage River Tailing Ponds

2015 \ Oil on canvas \ 59x65cm

SOLD

\ Other exhibitions

Hubert Pareroultja

"When the rain tumbles down in july"

21 March — 6 April 2024

PEOPLE,

Group Exhibition

29 February — 16 March 2024

Jonathan Dalton

MELBOURNE ART FAIR

22 February — 25 February 2024

Contact Us

to find out more about Savage River.

12 - 14 Meagher Street Chippendale, NSW 2008
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday, 9.00am - 5.30pm Saturday, 11am - 4pm Closed Public Holidays (and Easter Saturday)