Things Evaporate but Never Disappear
Emily Rae Smith Labuschagne
23.06.2022
Opening Thursday 23 June 2022 at 6pm.
Things Evaporate but Never Disappear is a solo exhibition featuring the work of young artist Emily Rae Smith Labuschagne.
We look forward to welcoming you.
Judas, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 62 x 40 cm
A Pink Tiled Bathroom, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 70 x 90 cm
The Glass Fountain, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 180 x 180 cm
Double Fault, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 40 x 30 cm
One day, if I have a daughter, I will let her swing as high as she would like to (as my mother let me), Oil on Canvas, 2022, 50 x 40 cm
In the Sandpit We Lost Many Things, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 180 x 240 cm
Decapitation in the Doctor’s Waiting Room, Oil on Panel, 2022, 58 x 35 cm
Musical chairs in the church hall, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 30 x 42.5 cm
Blood Orange, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 85 x 60 cm
The Closeness Between Fruit and Their Pips, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 85 x 60 cm
Practicing Serves on a Sunday Afternoon, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 30 x 42 cm
When things fall they scatter, when they scatter they fly., Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 15 x 20 cm
Suffocation on Ward 6, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 41 x 41 cm
Clivia Farm, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 31 x 24 cm
Pool Party, Oil on Board, 2021, 40 x 40 cm
Pregnant Watchdog, Oil on Board, 2021, 25 x 25 cm
Water Balloon and a Floating Flamingo, Oil on Canvas Panel, 30 x 42 cm
Murder of the Housewife (Living Room with a set table, fresh flowers, and a rug under a couch), Oil on Board, 2021, 38 x 50 cm
The Light Weightlifter, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 59 x 42 cm
When the wind takes us both (and other things), Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 30 x 40 cm
In The Park, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 26 x 30 cm
Three dogs and a duck in a lake, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 63 x 80 cm
Playing in the tears of sprinklers, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 90 x 75 cm
The Messy Hostess, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 58 x 40 cm
Dolores, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 43 x 59 cm
Naughtus the Naughty Dog, Oil on Board, 2021, 20 x 20 cm
Dog Park, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 70 x 90 cm
On the lawn, Oil on Board, 2022, 40 x 38 cm
Two well-trained dogs waiting for their food (The unspoken complexities of training and the importance thereof), Oil on Canvas, 2022, 50 x 40 cm
Single Flight, Oil on Board, 2022, 25 x 25 cm
When dogs bark loudly other dogs listen, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 15 x 20 cm
Lousy Dogs III, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 20 x 14
Lousy Dogs II, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 20 x 14 cm
Dog Race, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 45 x 125 cm
Room II, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 24 x 36 cm
Room I, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 24 x 36 cm
Various fruits and a blue bowl on a pink table surface, Oil on Canvas, 2021, 70 x 90 cm
Unfortunate Events Series – Slipped off the cliff, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 35 x 25 cm
Unfortunate Events Series – Murder in the poppy field, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 35 x 25 cm
Endless words but nothing to say, Oil on canvas panel, 2021, 40 x 50 cm
28 Show Guppies, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 15 x 30 cm
Vases and Their Shadows III, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 20 x 15 cm
Vases and Their Shadows II, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 20 x 15 cm
Vases and Their Shadows I, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2021, 20 x 15 cm
Not Pollination Series I, Oil on Board, 2021, 25 x 25 cm
Not Pollination Series II, Oil on Board, 2021, 25 x 25 cm
Dishes next to the sink, Oil on Board, 2021, 36 x 50 cm
A study of Pink Ladies, Golden Deliciousness, and Granny Smiths with wilting flowers, Oil on Board, 2021, 36 x 50 cm
One dead fish in two ponds I, Oil on Board, 2021, 36 x 50 cm
Shorelines, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 85 x 60 cm
On The Merry Go Round, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 85 x 60 cm
Til Death Do Us Part, Oil on canvas panel, 2022, 30 x 40 cm
Fruit and a Vase, Oil on Panel, 2022, 34 x 30 cm
Watering the garden by myself, Oil on canvas, 2021, 36 x 81 cm
A Table with Flowers and Co, Acrylic on Panel, 2021, 10 x 15 cm
Flower Sponges, Oil on canvas, 2021, 180 x 180 cm
The Picnic Blanket, Ceramic, 2022, 20 x 19 x 19 cm
On The Trampoline, Ceramic, 2022, 18.5 x 21 (diam) cm
Green Fingers, Ceramic, 2022, 19.5 x 12 cm
The Peach Orchid, Ceramic, 2022, 25 x 16.5 x 14 cm
Backstroke – 200 Laps, Ceramic, 2022, 16.5 x 10 x 20 cm
The Lawn Mower and Her Lawnmower, Oil on Canvas Panel, 2022, 29.5 x 32.5
A vase and flowers I, Four layer Monoprint on Fabriano Rosapina, 2022, 50 x 34 cm
Another vase and flowers, Four Layer Monoprint on Fabriano Rosapina, 2022, 50 x 34 cm
The Diving Instructor I, Oil on Board, 2022, 60 x 29.5 cm
The Diving Instructor II, Oil on Board, 2022, 60 x 29.5 cm
Things Evaporate but Never Disappear, Oil on Canvas, 2022, 100 x 75 cm
Playing her pastel palette like the pied piper, Emily wanders into a world of nostalgia chasing the ephemeral sensations of childhood to wherever they lead. Dreamy recollections, that with every remembrance, have the potential to shape shift into the world of the reimagined, the reinvented.
An initial daubing of paint on the canvas, the blocking out of colours, set the scene for Emily to discover the details as she works, the images emerging like shapes taking form in the clouds. Deeply rooted within her work and intimated by her pastel tones (a reduction of saturated colour) lies the concept of echoes, of an impression left over from a moment in time, no longer in technicolour but indelible, nonetheless. And then come the words. The surface naiveté of her paintings: the playfulness of sprinklers in a garden on a summer’s day, a pastel inner tube floating in a pool, a pretty poodle, or a tumbling confectionery, hold beneath their innocent layer of frosting and delight, a deeper and sometimes darker sense of the world hinted at by the interplay of her images with their titles. With each word comes the whisper of a story: tales of whimsy touched with sorrow, of innocence giving way to experience, of life walking hand in hand with death. The melancholy of moments that are lost and the anticipation of moments yet to come.
The things that disappear that are never truly gone and the things that remain that were never truly here.
By Lindsay Klein