• Julian Meagher, Rapid Eye Movement #5, 2021, oil on linen, 51 x 41 cm
  • Julian Meagher, Slow Wave Cycle (Barragga Lake), 2021, oil on linen, 245 x 198 cm
  • Julian Meagher, Slow Wave Cycle (Marrickville), 2021, oil on linen, 245 x 198 cm
  • Julian Meagher, The small hour #2, 2021, oil on linen, 183 x 152 cm
  • Julian Meagher, The small hour #3, 2021, oil on linen, 183 x 152 cm
  • Julian Meagher, The small hour #5, 2021, oil on linen, 183 x 152 cm
  • Julian Meagher, The small hour #6, 2021, oil on linen, 183 x 152 cm
EXHIBITION

Julian Meagher

The small hours

18 Nov - 18 Dec 2021

Yavuz Gallery Sydney
86 George Street
NSW 2016
Tue to Sat: 10am to 6pm

“For the past few years I’ve been painting ultra romantic landscapes in an attempt to make sense of everything. The arrival of my children pulled me into a fast-flowing tidal current of darkness and blinding light, from which I felt strongly connected to all the cycles in nature. Another sunrise. Another generation. Another tide. In the liminal space of the small hours I hold in my hand the most hope for the future.” – Julian Meagher

Julian Meagher’s works evoke a sense of the sublime, capturing ephemeral and ever-changing moments that sit between reality and comprehension. Pared down and minimal, his oil paintings act as a mirror into the artist’s introspections and ruminations on the world and its condition. Paintings that appear to be landscapes at first glance unravel as self-portraits, capturing Meagher’s feelings towards them, portraits of his family melt into fields of colour and abstract landscapes; both encapsulating his larger hopes for nature, his family and the future. Neither one nor the other, Meagher’s paintings collapse the divide between genres.

This ambiguity is at the forefront of The small hours, Meagher’s solo exhibition in Sydney after three years. A suite of new works, the show debuts some of the largest paintings the artist has created. Swathes of pinks glow at a horizon, suggesting the early hours of dawn and of renewed hope, departing from Meagher’s blues and depiction of dusk.

Meagher’s thick vertical gestures and bands of colour – now regarded as the artist’s signature technique – are more visible than ever, carving out a space in alluded landscapes that underscores liminality, and all the in-between matter that connects us to everything and everyone.

A key piece in The small hours is an intimate and dreamy painting of Meagher’s infant daughter, eyes closed with a band of light from the new dawn shining through. In recent years, the artist became a parent, a development that has shifted his contemplations on legacy to more immediate matters. ­­Experiencing life through the wonderous eyes of his children has given him pause – and a pensive new outlook that has also altered his relationship to painting.

Julian Meagher (b. 1978, Australia) has been a finalist in the Glover Prize 2019, Archibald Portrait Prize 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2021, the Wynne Prize 2015 and the Gold Award at Rockhampton Art Gallery 2016. He has also been a finalist multiple times in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize, Salon des Refuses, Metro Art Prize, Blake Prize for Religious Art and the RBS Emerging Artist Prize. He has exhibited extensively across Australia, Asia and America, and his work is included in numerous public collections including Artbank, Sydney; Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery; Bega Valley Regional Gallery; The Australian Catholic University Association; and The Australian War Memorial, Canberra.