FireWorks Gallery’s upcoming exhibition program, titled Matches 2019 is a series of 8 paired solo as well as small group exhibitions, featuring over 35 Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists based locally, interstate and overseas.

Matches 1 showcases two solo shows by Queensland painters David Paulson and Samantha Hobson. Whilst the artists are miles apart stylistically, as well as in background, lifestyle and geography, the exhibitions are thematically connected. Both artists explore similar subject matter (water and its integral role in nature) through their confidence in colour and the fluidity of artistic reflection.

In the downstairs gallery David Paulson, a long time resident of Maleny and stalwart of 9 FireWorks Gallery exhibitions since 1994, presents Little Mysteries. These recently completed 17 large and small oil paintings feature a return to perhaps his most popular subject - the infamous Maleny creek.

David Paulson, now 74, is a most discerning painter of light and life; he continues to focus on the simple magic of image making. Whilst one may recognise moments of clarity, including allusions to water, stone, leafs or twigs, the artist views nature simply as a brilliant convenience to recreate his cropped abstractions, his world view. Within this intensified zone the viewer is forced to reassess both the minutiae of any perceived real world, and the acuity of the actual object in front of them.

The upstairs gallery will show Lockhart River/Cairns based painter Samantha Hobson who again revisits the familiarity of saltwater themes and their lurid tropical colour through 16 new paintings befittingly titled Reef/Life.

Samantha, now aged in her late thirties, remains essentially an action painter using pure colour pigments and high gloss estapols.  Her practice is concerned less with traditional Indigenous design and more with artistic expressions of life and an immediate responsiveness to her physical environment. The artist’s dramatic style often harnesses cultural tensions as she explodes such narratives into vivacious representations.

Samantha is unlike most artists of her generation or geography. Her method of painting is mostly about risk taking, toying with colour and gravity, energy and saturation. Many of these works are modest in size, painted in her Cairns studio, augmented by some key large works painted in recent Brisbane workshops.

FireWorks Gallery Director, Michael Eather comments, “Both artists share a gravity towards the uncomplicated truth of colour and composition. Whilst they completely contrast stylistically, both artistically use the edges of their canvas, the whole composition, as much as the centre, relying on audience intuition to complete these enigmatic puzzles”.

Preview Samantha Hobson - Reef/Life here

Preview David Paulson - little mysteries here

Artwork prices range from: $900 - $25,000