PALMER is thrilled to present NIGHT SWIMMING, a new body of work by Sydney based, New Zealand artist Scott Gardiner from Wednesday 19th April - Saturday 13 May 2017. 

Scott Gardiner’s practice has consistently been engaged with employing strategies that exploit the traditional dialogue between realism, landscape and abstraction. Characteristically involving the examination of force, light and the artists’ personal relationship with the ocean, Gardiner distills the ephemeral qualities of light and motion on water rendered in pigment.

The visual appeal of Gardiner’s abstracted seascapes resides in the contrast between the solid, linear structures and the ephemeral movement of light across a surface. The juxtaposition of these elements evoking both the timelessness of nature as well as the rapid change and industrial expansion that is defining of our times. 

In NIGHT SWIMMING, Gardiner balances the painterly abstractions with faux-collage layers of dark seascapes as each element is sculpted and smoothed into an ergonomic, rhythmically satisfying aesthetic. The paintings, mimicking the oceans surface, are fickle, ethereal, moody and restless; changing colour constantly from cold blue to salmon silver, verdigris, golden polished pewter to the intense sapphire blues of the celestial realm and vertiginous blues of Sublime infinity. As Dr Andrew Paul Wood stated in his 2015 essay, “each painting is an abstract philosophical exercise as well as an extremely beautiful and engaging aesthetic object”. 

ABOUT SCOTT GARDINER

Scott Gardiner (b.1975) graduated with a Master of Visual Arts with Honours in painting from the Auckland University of Technology. He has been a multiple finalist in the Wallace Art Awards as well as the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking and Molley Morpeth Canaday Art Awards. His work 

Please click here to view Artist's page.