Floating dog heads, children and sublime floral representations are just some of the unique imagery that Louise Hearman brings to Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in her new exhibition.

Hearman continues to transfigure ordinary objects into supernatural entities. Her technique of combining impressionistic light with realistic figurations makes the viewer feel both uneasy and spellbound. Hearman’s pastels and oil paintings place the subject in twilight and test our ability to distinguish between the familiar and the strange.

Hearman pays exquisite attention to the detailed rendering of forms, be it a horse’s hoof or a school shoe. Paintings which place the head of a Chihuahua in the centre of a flower, or put a set of teeth in the sky, present us with situations that create a sense of threat. Hearman depicts an illusory reality that we can comprehend but never experience. Her pictures seduce us into thinking about what’s possible and directly appeal to the power of our own imaginations.

—Peta Bryant

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Louise Hearman was recently included in Uncanny (the unnaturally strange), curated by Rhana Devenport at Artspace, Auckland. Her work has appeared in a number of significant survey exhibitions of contemporary Australian art including, Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968 – 2002, National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square in 2002 and Uncommon World - Aspects of Contemporary Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia in 2000. Hearman’s works are held by most major public collections in and numerous private and corporate collections both in and overseas.