In Rosemary Valadon’s own words, her new body of work celebrates the “joy of life – an enthusiasm – a restarting of optimism and expansion. A flow meandering between objects and shadows. The spaces in-between”.

Alive with colour, Valadon’s new exhibition ‘Almost Everything’ plays to our senses and heightens our engagement, not only with each table arrangement flowing with flowers, fruit and objects – or each arrangement of formal relationships – but also our engagement with elements that might seem peripheral to the picture, such as shadow, light and pattern. These contextual elements or “negative spaces around forms have their own life, however”, the artist puts forward. “Our sensory journey around an object is just as important as the object itself. I’m feeling into that journey around objects just as much as the objects themselves.”

Although Valadon’s work is strongly autobiographical, a set of broad issues underpin her practice. Her paintings communicate her experience and views on feminist identity via pictorial devices such as visual narrative, mythology and iconic storytelling. This captivating exhibition explores contemporary themes in the context of the artist’s own studio, bringing into focus objects that furnish the artist’s personal life, as well as incidental objects from neighbours and friends at Hill End (NSW) that have found their perfect place in a composition via chance.

Rosemary Valadon is a multi-award winning Australian artist. She is the recipient of major prizes such as the Portia Geach Memorial Award and Blake Prize and has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize seven times. Her painting was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize in 2020. Her work is the focus of the ABC documentary, ‘A Sensual World’ (2017/2018).