[caption id="attachment_90" align="alignleft" width="128"] Seine[/caption] Sydney based artist, Paul Davies, showcases work produced and inspired from his three month Paris residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, prestigiously awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The exhibition, ?Flattening Sublime,? will open on Wednesday 5^th, 6 -8pm and will run June 6^th through June 23^rd at the newly combined Olsen Irwin Gallery. Acknowledged for his depiction of modernist architecture, Davies studied Le Corbusier?s French modernist icon, the Villa Savoye or ?machine for living? during his stay and the building features throughout the exhibit. Davies work in part, responds to Le Corbusier?s revolutionary 5 points of architecture, still used today: free fa?ade, strip windows, garden roof, pillars and open plan. Elements of the architect?s structures are juxtaposed in the paintings with diverse examples of natural surrounds, which act to contrast, in a current manner, the buildings frozen ideals. Central to Davies method is the use of stencils, delicately cut by the artist, which led him to investigate and respond to examples of Pochoir, French for Stencil, a hand made yet short-lived technique, popularized by artists and designers such as Picasso and Matisse in Paris, during the turn of last century. Davies also sites Howard Arkley?s use of stencil, which flattened the subject to mimic r eproductions of well-known work the artist witnessed as a student. ?The viewer looks at a painting, however through a stencil, and in my pictures I am attempting to paint the space between subjects.? Paul Davies. [gallery ids="85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92"] Davies work derives from photographs taken at various locations, which are then collaged on the picture, to create a dialogue between what was documented and how it can be manipulated. ?In Paris I also made location sketches of the photographed scenes to contrast my recollection of the site, with that of the camera.? Davies. These fictitious utopias incorporate bright block colour, as a means to draw the viewer?s attention, yet hold at a voyeuristic distance, due to their stenciled flatness. Whilst living abroad Davies was chosen as a finalist in the Art prize La Guna and his work exhibited in the March exhibition in Venice. Since 1965 the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, has attracted artists from all over the world.? Australians artist who have been awarded the residency in the past include Michael Johnson, Ann Thomson, Wendy Sharp, Ben Quilty, and Michael Zavros. Additional information: Flattening Sublime refers to Davies employment of the stencil as a tool with which to translate the boundless natural environment into a two-dimensional painting. However these landscapes are contrast with bold manmade structures that investigate the relationship between the two, and remain devoid of human form, inviting the viewer to project their own interpretation.