NERINA LASCELLES

Nerina is an accomplished Australian artist, residing in Melbourne.  After completing a degree in Visual Arts, Nerina went on to do a Graduate Diploma in Painting. Since 1993, she has been involved in more than 20 group and solo exhibitions throughout Melbourne and Regional Victoria, Sydney and Queensland.
Nerina’s work is influenced by her travels to, and studies of Asia.

 

Past exhibitions have explored the culture and spirituality of countries including Indonesia, China, Tibet, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.  In 2008, Nerina travelled to Japan, which allowed her to absorb the beauty, colour and design of antique Japanese paintings and screens in the temples and shrines.

 

During this trip, she also collected an array of kimono fabrics & origami papers which she has utilized in this new body of collage paintings on canvas. Other materials used include gold & silver joss papers, metallic cellophanes, oil, bitumen and encaustic wax.

Artist’s Statement: “Throughout this series of paintings, I have included the suggestion of a mist or haze over a number of landscapes. For me the mist represents space or consciousness before or beyond the realm of matter. It suggests a magical, mythical dimension beyond the 3D form that we as humans so heavily identify with.

In some of these paintings, it is as though we are looking down from high above the earth, through the clouds, to view glimpses of daily human life. It is as if we have a ‘birds-eye’ perspective and a greater awareness of life below. 

The mist seems to cover over certain areas of the form – perhaps giving the impression of concealment, or that which is yet to be revealed, and therefore evoking a sense of mystery in that the entire picture or story has not yet been disclosed.  

For you perhaps, the mist may represent a presence that you are not quite able to define by the mind. Perhaps meditating on the mist allows contemplation of the infinite possibilities in the creation of life itself. 

For me, the highest aim of creating these works is to offer the viewer an invitation into the realm of beauty beyond form. The paintings are material objects which arose, through meditation, from the invisible and which, at their highest function, will offer the viewer a doorway to their own invisible realm within.”