Opening Reception:
 March 9, 6-8pm
Exhibition: March 7 – April 10, 2018

Olsen Gruin is pleased to present Only Dancing, an exhibition of new abstract oil on linen paintings and resin sculptures by Australian artist Stephen Ormandy. Only Dancing marks Ormandy’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Of his practice, Ormandy notes “my work is born of the subconscious mind.”

Ormandy’s works explore his visual language by means of new motifs, triptych panels and wall-hanging sculptures. “I’m looking for vibration and rhythm, the play of line creating positive and negative space, searching for tonal balance through contrast or harmony, while developing chroma relationships that hug or repel.”

Though Ormandy’s paintings are contemporary and personal, his imagery evokes Hans Arp, and Calder. This is perhaps born of Ormandy’s interest in past artists’ methods. One immediately registers a sophisticated assimilation of Matisse’s use of paper collage into Ormandy’s own compositional approach, evoking otherworldly figures and landscapes.

His sculpture extends the formal and chromatic relationships of his paintings into sensual yet architectural forms. The result of a practice that is both rigorous and playful, they move and enclose the viewer in an imaginative and dynamic space of Ormandy’s fancy.

The ‘only’ in Only Dancing implies both a freedom – ‘dancing and nothing else’ and a defense of the act of creation – ‘I’m only dancing.’ The works move sinuously through rhythms of shape, space, and color, art history, and abstract design.

All images are subject to copyright. Gallery approval must be granted prior to reproduction.