Green and Black Reflection painting

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BACKGROUND Green and Black Reflection, acquired through the Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists was one that curator Emma Mayall, described as demonstrating the creative vigour and profound sensibilities of contemporary artists working in Australia today. "Reflecting on the often confounding nature of human existence and the complex cultural, artistic, social and political mores of our times, contemporary artists are at the vanguard of current thought and inquiry. In challenging and compelling ways... Works collide, repel, fuse and coalesce, revealing each artist's unique engagement with the prevailing issues of contemporary life and artistic practice. Poetic, experimental, enigmatic, and sometimes ordinary, each work resonates in unexpected ways for contemporary audiences". Thomas' research on reflections in a range of contexts investigates delay and variation in reading, place, time and circumstance both within, and of, the frame as well as beyond. This experience extends the pictorial traditions of colour, surface and scale into real space as it explores themes of temporality and the experience of space, and even art itself. CONTRIBUTION The exhibition placed this work in relationship to other examples of contemporary abstraction, revealing new readings, further exploring ideas of fleeting moments as nuances of seeing, time and space. The work is read by the viewer engaging with it in its space, Reflections enable disparate readings as one's angle of viewing changes. Thus the work's readings are fleeting and unique. This innovation means content is interpreted over time and space as a real time experience of reflection painting as an installation. Reflection puts the viewer 'in the picture' in a double sense, reflecting on time, place art, its meaning and one's role as observer. SIGNIFICANCE A floor talk discussed the role of colour and time in these works. Another Thomas work, Amid History2 was also acquired.