EXPLORING THE ARTISTIC PARADOX: LLEWELLYN SKYE'S "CHASING ROMANCE" EXHIBITION
EGW GLOBAL MAGAZINE
By Monica Lofstrom
Llewellyn Skye, the acclaimed and award-winning artist, is set to captivate art enthusiasts with her latest collection, "Chasing Romance." In this exhibition, Skye's paintings take viewers on a journey into a liminal space, where the boundaries between reality and abstraction blur. Her work beautifully balances structured compositions with the unpredictable beauty of decay, creating a productive tension that challenges the traditional notions of art.
Llewellyn Skye is not your ordinary artist. She is a dynamic and passionate visual artist who brings a soulful dimension to her work. Her unique and expressive abstract paintings have captivated public and private collectors around the globe. Skye draws her inspiration from nature, with a particular fascination for florals. But her art goes beyond the surface, delving deep into the paradoxes of life – the interplay of pleasure and pain, infatuation and betrayal, joy and despair, and, most profoundly, love and loss.
Born in Gosford, NSW, and raised in Sydney, Llewellyn Skye's artistic journey has been nothing short of remarkable. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at the National Art School and furthered her studies in painting at the Sydney Gallery School. Her artistic evolution has been shaped by her exploration of various mediums, including oil paint, acrylics, and sprays. It's within this exploration that she finds the tactile and expressive nature of paint, revealing shapes, colors, and textures beneath her brush, as well as the myriad of stories that unfold.
Skye's current collection, "Chasing Romance," is nothing short of dramatic. Her canvases are large, commanding attention and inviting viewers into her world of paradoxical emotions. As Tai Mitsuji beautifully puts it, "Skye’s paintings hover in a liminal space, on the edge of legibility." Her art challenges you to question what you see, to wonder whether it's a flower or something more abstract. This ambiguity is a deliberate choice that speaks to the heart of her work.
Skye's art is a journey into paradox. It begins in an ordered manner, a structured composition, but that order is unapologetically undone. She finds beauty in this chaos, capturing those moments of shift in life, and that fragile beauty that exists before change takes hold. Skye's intuitive approach, the dance of her body as she paints, imbues her works with a unique energy and depth.
Skye actively seeks this tension with her brush. She knows that the moment she feels something isn't quite right in a painting, it's time to leave it. Going beyond that point risks ruining it. Her art is a celebration of imperfection, where questions still linger on the canvas. She embraces mistakes and lets them shine through, allowing her paintings to breathe. They are not mere records but living, breathing entities, each with its own story to tell.
Llewellyn Skye's "Chasing Romance" is an invitation into a world of paradox, of beauty in art, and of imperfection embraced. Her art captures the essence of fleeting moments and the emotional complexities of life. As Skye eloquently puts it, "Florals represent the abstract beauty of life to me." Her journey through paint and canvas is a poetic exploration of the human experience, and "Chasing Romance" is an exhibition that promises to leave a lasting impression on all who encounter it.
To experience Llewellyn Skye's captivating art firsthand, visit her official website at llewellynskye.com.au. Explore her captivating collection and immerse yourself in the world of "Chasing Romance.”
Upcoming Work: Llewellyn Skye is set to take the art world by storm with her highly anticipated solo exhibition at Lethbridge Gallery in Queensland, Australia, scheduled for March 2024. This exhibition promises to be a captivating exploration of emotions and artistic expression. Additionally, her upcoming residency in October 2024 will undoubtedly lead to new dimensions in her work. As a dynamic and passionate artist, Skye continues to push the boundaries of creativity, offering a profound and thought-provoking perspective
A SHORT ESSAY:
Skye: Relinquishing PhysicsI
If you were to visit Skye at work in her studio, there is a great likelihood you would discover her wearing a floral print not entirely dissimilar from her paintings. It’s a telling image—not just of sound sartorial choices, but of a painter who very much embodies her practice and subject matter, a painter who lives her work and whose work lives and moves and breathes as a result of the steadfast conviction that in aflower is the heart of life.
In the work is an urgent, even painful need to express the vitality that is Skye’s persistent source of inspiration. The most powerful articulations of the world’s beauty are often shot through with pain: loss, lost love, love unrequited, the uncertainty of change. The artist confronts these dangerous times with luminous bursts of creativity that wrest from the darkness a light of grace and salvation.
In this manner, Skye’s abstract works distance themselves from a canon of floral still lifes and landscapes and instead seize upon the rebellious energy of rock and jazz funk along with the lush, soulful atmosphere of modern R&B. Employing the sufficient amount of iconoclasm, vibrant pinks and shimmering marines can be recognized in parallel with deep, mysterious blues and greens, but all flattened and purified as they achieve distance from objective subject matter. Equally, while there are present on occasion serene patches of calm, there are also frenetic yet elegant whirls of pure light—as if a particle accelerator relinquished physics to paint flower petals.
Stillness in motion, tranquil turbulence: in the chaotic beauty of Skye’s painting practice are those golden paradoxical moments ever ready to guide us.
Written by Pennylane Shen
Artist Consultant