Spirit Birds 2013

There is a layering of meaning in the work. It is created with the physical layering of her art practice, through her drawing and painting, and also through the appropriated imagery infused with her symbolic subject matter.

These subtle yet defining components in Fairfax’s work are symbols of a personal journey layered with appropriation of meanings, compositions and figures referenced from master painters.

Glimpses of text and appropriation overlap through the layers of paint, blurred and distorted on purpose. These figurative developments in Fairfax’s work mark a poignant shift in her painting career.

Spirit Birds was opened by distinguished Australian artist Lucy Culliton on Tuesday 5 February at NG Art Gallery, Chippendale. NG Art Gallery hosted a Feast for the Senses dinner with editor of Artist Profile Magazine Owen Craven in conversation with 3 highly distinguished artists; Imants Tillers, winner of the Osaka Triennale Prize, Beijing International Art Biennale Prize for Excellence and the Wynne Prize. Aida Tomescu winner of the Sulman Prize, Wynne Prize and the Dobell Drawing Prize and exhibiting artist Rachel Fairfax on: Transforming the Material – the act of Appropriation and Abstraction.