Jesus

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Tony Clark that extend his Myriorama series – an endless landscape project begun in 1985. These new works reference gospel stories, alluded to in the small 'staffage' figures on each panel. They employ the ‘grisaille’ painting technique, where the colour palette consists entirely of shades of grey. The use of colour and tone in the work produces a dramatic effect of light and shade and brings a sense of three-dimensionality to the various scenes.

Amid Tony Clark’s paintings, small and inconspicuous figures are placed in the grand landscapes of earth, trees and sky. The figures depicted in the scenes are not the primary subjects of the composition but instead provide an accent and counterpoint to the vastness of the landscape.

The Myriorama project allows the viewer to construct both continuous and discontinuous visual images of nature, and the inclusion of well-known scenes from the Bible permits similar possibilities with the narrative. There is a deliberate medievalism in the bringing together of episodes distant from one another in both time and space.