A sneak peek at Gallery Pejean's November shows of 'disparate' artists

The walls are Gallery Pejean's, the artists are Joh Osborne and Dallas Richardson, and their respective works could not be more different, nor could they offer a more unique contrast.

What links the artists, aside from sharing the walls, are their drives to express.

The print and painting are a portion of the upcoming, disparate solo shows Flights of Fancy and Beautiful Beasts, composed of nine works by Richardson and 12 by Osborne, opening at the gallery on Friday, November 3.

The couplet of exhibitions will take over Pejean's foremost room as well as its alleyway until the end of the month, with Osborne's collection of large paintings - which she calls "a diary" - the first that viewers see.

"They usually come from stories of my own life that become paintings," said Osborne, who grew up in the Northern Midlands and now lives in Launceston.

"All of the strange, humorous, ugly and beautiful parts of my life."

Her acrylic works are almost Neo-expressionist - intensely subjective with rough handling of the painting materials - where figures can look somewhat primitive.

More importance is granted to emotion and expression than to traditional values of perspective and realism, like in her piece Flying Prawns at Royal Park, where the Tamar river flows through a human, while another male figure wears a crown and a ruff for his "princely attitude".

"I don't have to tell people the exact story [that inspired the paintings]; they can bring their own energy to it," Osborne said.

Next are Richardson's nine representational linocut prints in Flights of Fancy, which take up the gallery's alleyway section.

The pieces depict feathers falling, processions of geese in flight, the playfulness of magpies and native hens on parade in works akin to Japanese minimalism.

"It's part of me, a part of my locality and my place," said Richardson, pointing to her piece Magpie antics where five birds twist in a circular sky.

"They go off into the air, in my back garden in Legana, and I watch them play and fly. The lightness of them meant I couldn't resist expressing that in this way."

Gallery Pejean will host a free opening night for Beautiful Beasts and Flights of Fancy on November 3, at 6:00pm. All pieces are on display until November 25.