Jan Learmonth is one of Gippsland’s great artistic treasures. Based at Inverloch on the Bunurong Coast, Learmonth is an enigmatic artist whose fascinating and tactile sculptures are an alchemical response to our romance with the natural environment. Working predominantly with weathered wood, metal and found materials, Learmonth imaginatively translates her journey through natural space and time, charting the environment’s changing moods and rhythms.

A series of delightfully peculiar small sculptures conjure visions of fantastical watercraft, many with the appearance of mythical creatures, while large scale pieces are totemic artefacts from eras and cultures that have never existed. The works are lashed, knotted, woven, and welded into being with natural and found materials gathered on Learmonth’s travels around Gippsland. Their scale and intricate detail give them an intimacy, while their forms and apparent utility suggest castoffs from lost mythologies

Learmonth’s works gather the elements of air, water and earth to comment on the environment and how it is being used. The visual strength and elemental construction of her forms, combined with a playfully delicate handling, create a sense of the precarious, and sometimes uplifting, relationship between people and land. As such, the works become a vehicle and platform for the artist’s thoughts and explorations of making, time, memory, and landscape.

Passage is Jan Learmonth’s first major solo exhibition at Gippsland Art Gallery, and brings a wide range of art and objects into its orbit. Sprawling through Galleries 1 (the John Leslie Gallery) and Gallery 2, Passage will take visitors on a fantastical ride through an uncharted and unforgettable cosmos.

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