Sim Smith is pleased to announce Vanessa Garwood’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Story Circles. Vanessa Garwood’s paintings explore the progressive nature of matrilateral storytelling, whilst also mining the psychological dramas that unfold behind both speech and action. Each painting becomes an investigation into the hierarchies that play out in this instinctive, subconscious world, where the imprint of childhood wrestles with adult desires and contemporary influences.
There is no ‘correct’ ending, or clear morality message; instead, each painting establishes a cyclical world with no beginning or end, where allegory and narrative become transformed and, at times, obfuscated by play and power. The protagonists appear caught in time and place, unbound by laws of nature, they are suspended, yet choreographed, as if in some distorted, dream-like dance, where both light and colour appear otherworldly.
