Peter Wegner

PETER WEGNER Paintings in the Studio 11 – 30 May 2021

AU S T R A L I A N GA L L E R I E S MELBOURNE

Artist in his studio, 2021

AU S T R A L I A N GA L L E R I E S MELBOURNE

Invites you to the opening

PETER WEGNER Paintings in the Studio Tuesday 11 May 2021 6pm – 8pm 35 Derby Street Collingwood VIC 3066 Current until Sunday 30 May 2021 Open 7 days 10am to 6pm T 03 9417 4303 melbourne@australiangalleries.com.au australiangalleries.com.au

Front cover: White cover couch (detail) 2021 oil on linen 138 x 244 cm

l have always thought my studio time is like a meditation – it’s just that the time painting goes so fast.

Even if l miss a day in the studio l feel l need to draw, it’s like somehow trying to document your day.

- Peter Wegner 2021

Peter Wegner’s works are compelling and poignant representations of moments experienced.

His revered and renowned oil paintings of the battered and worn armchairs that occupy his work space are masterful renderings of monumental forms that consist of emptiness. Each of these chairs bears the marks and scars of their particular history, and through Wegner’s close observation and reverence for his subject, we feel the sitter profoundly present in the representation of their absence.

As Robert Nelson perceptively writes: ‘Wegner’s way of painting is congruent with the subject matter.

The irregularity of the old chairs is painterly in itself, with tears and incidents riddling their form.

The tendency of the upholstery to break up or gather a patina of grazes and bumps compares with Wegner’s idiom, which is battered by the brush, full of movement and change, a demonstrative give and take with thrust and slide that works happily with the weathered textures of the furniture.’

This exhibition showcases an exquisite series of recent armchair paintings as magnificent large scale portraits in oil.

Brown couch and tapestry cushion 2021 oil on linen 138 x 244 cm

White cover couch 2021 oil on linen 138 x 244 cm

The orange rope 2021 oil on canvas 153 x 122 cm

The house sitter 2020 oil on canvas 168 x 152 cm

Sitters’ chair 2021 oil on canvas 183 x 213 cm

Dishevelled chair 2021 oil on canvas 123 x 92 cm

Disregarded office chair 2021 o il on canvas 123 x 92 cm

Keith Kellar 2020 pencil and beeswax on paper 64 x 48 cm

Myrtle Hooper 2019 pencil and beeswax on paper 64 x 48 cm

PETER WEGNER

Erwin Fabian (detail) 2017 pencil and beeswax on paper 64 x 48 cm

AU S T R A L I A N GA L L E R I E S MELBOURNE: Derby Street 03 9417 4303 Stock Rooms 03 9417 2422 SYDNEY: Roylston Street 02 9360 5177 enquiries@australiangalleries.com.au australiangalleries.com.au Design and Production by Publishing