'Travelling Lines' by Roxanne Lillis & Loren Keir, 20th July to 2nd August

Roxanne Lillis- The Old Quarter I
Oil & mixed media on canvas (45 x 45 cm)

Loren Keir - Linear Necklaces
Sterling Silver

Loren Keir - Oribiting Path 2
Oil on canvas (18 x 20 cm)

Travelling Lines
Roxanne Lillis & Loren Keir
20th July to 7th August

Roxanne Lillis’ lines relate to the continuous. “It’s really the moving dot. The brush comes off the artwork for a period of review, and returns to continue my form of communication. The subject matter or impetus was inspired by the infinite rows of buildings and entangled electrical wires in busy built up areas observed during recent travels.”

Loren Keir’s lines have developed their own lives. “Some are destined to go on forever, some end where they started, some diverge in different directions - travelling and exploring, whilst others orbit the same place, drawn to its familiarity. Some lines begin to blur into others combining to become one while other lines clearly contrast their surroundings or the lines next to them. Some use those around to define themselves while others stand alone making their own impact.”

Roxanne Lillis began her studies at the Julian Ashton Art School in 1993 and achieved her Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong in 1999. She has exhibited regularly around New South Wales throughout the last 15 years.

Loren Keir graduated with honours from the jewellery and object department of Sydney College of the Arts. She has exhibited widely in Sydney and New South Wales and is part of the artist collective Makers Manifold.

Defense D' Afficher. (Loi Du 29 Juillet 1881) A series of work by Richard Denny, 29th June to 17th July

Images clockwise from top Left: Lady travels by tram, Waiter,
Security Dove, Spider All works: Acrylic and mixed media on Paper

A SERIES OF WORK BY RICHARD DENNY. 29th June to 17th July

Once whilst meandering through the streets of an unusually snow-
covered Marseille, Richard Denny discovered an abandoned box of maps.
Upon further examination it was an extensive collection, holding
topographic portrayals of most regions of France.

By deploying the found maps as an actual canvas, and a basis for his
characters, he has found a means of dripping flavours of personality
and territory over the maps. Using the lines of contour, river, border
and road, Denny would paint in his own lines, shapes and textures.

Later, from these cartographic cross-hatchings would emerge characters
representing people, daily experiences or settings, that Denny
acknowledged inhabiting the streets in his new home. He used what
little he had at hand to locate himself in his new culture showing
telltale signs of a bricoleur.

'Fleeting' by Rachel Wells & Dan Capper, 15th to 26th June

Rachel Wells - Cloud Street
Encaustic and Oils (20 x 25.5 cm)


Rachel Wells - Flux
Encaustic and Oil on Canvas (25.5 x 25.5 cm)


Dan Capper - Blad Birck
Acylic on canvas (71 x 111 cm)


Dan Capper - Pod Birpy 1
Acrylic on canvas (84 x 122 cm)



An exhibition of paintings by Dan Capper and Rachel Wells 15 - 26 June 2010

‘Art is long, and time is fleeting…’ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Fleeting is the exploration of embellished memories and the gravity of transitory moments.

Rachel Wells

Rachel’s pieces are inspired by childhood memories and the joy of discovery in a storybook landscape. Her mixed media and encaustic paintings exist nowhere tangible and are pieced together from memories of European, Australian and American towns.

Dan Capper

Dan Capper’s mono-prints and mixed media paintings capture a spontaneous imprint of a fleeting moment in time. He uses the bird as a metaphor for the shifts and flux in relationships.

'Wanderings' paintings by Kristen Lethem, Kirsten Hillard & Verity Roberts, 1st to 12th June

Kristen Lethem- Blue
acrylic, biro and ink on board (35 x 30 cm)

Kristen Lethem - Perisher III
acrylic, ink and pencil on board (71 x 66 cm)

Verity Roberts - Venizia IV
mixed media on canvas


Verity Roberts - Summer Skies over Venice
mixed media on canvas


Kirsten Hilliard - Ratdog Hill
oil, acrylic and ink (50 x 70 cm)

Kirsten Hilliard - Outlook 1
oil, acrylic and ink (40 x 40 cm)


Wanderings 1st-12th june 2010
Kristen Lethem worked as an illustrator in London for 14 years before returning to Sydney where she now lives and paints in Balmain. Kristen’s paintings are primarily inspired by the the landscapes in and around her family home in the Hunter Valley. ‘After so many years in the UK, I was struck by the harshness of light resulting in almost bleached flat colour, with very dark areas of contrast. Solitary gums casting strange shapes on bleached hillsides.’ Kristen was awarded the UNSW COFA prize at the 2009 Paddington Art Prize

Verity Roberts’ paintings reflect her passion for life. With a background in art direction and set decoration, she is an expert of beautiful detail. Observations of daily life and the interiors where much of it takes place are an intrinsic part of her painting. Each piece reflecting an intimate moment in time: a scent, a meal, a place, a memory. Many of Verity’s more recent works have focused on her passion of travel. For an exhibition at Breathing Colours last year, she created a series of ‘postcards’ from around the world. The pieces she has created for ‘Wanderings’ are a continuation of that body of work but this time she has cast a smaller net and is focusing simply on her love of Venice.
Kirsten Hilliard is a Glebe based artist with a background in Art Direction and Graphic Design. Her paintings are based upon the ordinary aspects of life, and often engage the viewer to feel a sense of nostalgia. Kirsten’s palette ranges from very minimal and whimsical to bold and moody, depending on the narrative of the painting. She draws or uses scraffito technique to create her images, often using many layers of paint over a textured base. This is what gives the paintings their translucent feel.

Current Exhibition: 'By The Water' paintings by Fiona Barrett-Clark

By The Water: 19 - 30 May 2010
Working directly from photos, Fiona not only aims to capture the atmosphere of the landscape but also to create a reflection of the emotions she was experiencing when she took the image. Her use of plywood instead of board or canvas gives a fantastic grainy texture to the works reflecting the grit of nature and imbuing them with the feel of old slides and photographs adding further to the reminiscent nature of the works.

"I have a love affair with being by the water and so this exhibition centres around natural water ways, rivers, bays and primarily the coastline. The coast has a freshness, a smell that makes you feel young again, it rejuvenates the spirit and allows you to escape from normal life. Standing on a beach in the midst of winter, that cold salty air blowing through your hair or entering the surf on a hot summer’s day, its visceral effect is instantaneous. I hope when people view these works it reminds them of the tang of the sea, the occasional stillness of the water before the storm and the soft light on the water at the end of the day. Again, I have worked directly from photos and use oils on plywood to give a grainy texture to the works, which attempts to reflect the grit of nature and imbues a nostalgic feeling to the pieces "

Breathing Colours and Fiona Barrett-Clark will be hosting a Biggest Morning Tea event on Sat 29th May to raise money for the Cancer Council. 10% of all sales throughout the day will be donated to the cause. Tea, Coffee and snacks will be available by donation from 10am to 12 noon. Check out our profile on the biggest morning tea website

Current Exhibition: "A Little Bit of Red" from 8th to 24th December 2009

Breathing Colours Christmas show "A little Bit of Red" includes a variety of wall, sculptural and wearable works by some of our favourite Breathing Colourers and is our last exhibition for 2009! The exhibition brief was simply to create an artwork that included a little bit of red. The gallery space is filled with vibrant colour and artworks of all shapes and sizes that are a feast for the eye! Every work sold may be taken away at point of sale, so be sure to come in before they disappear! The opening was a great success with many a cheer for the fast approaching festive season. We have extended our opening hours for the month of December and will be open every day until Christmas Eve.

Artists include: Ashley Fiona, Ben Rak, Catherine Kelly, Chloe Waddell, David Vogel, Emma Hicks, Felicity Peters, Fiona Barrett-Clark, Karin Jakobsson, Katherine Lys, Kate Williams, Khara Burgess, Kirsten Hilliard, Kristen Lethem, Laura Kennedy, Loren Keir, Madhulika Ghosh, Maria Seibert, Melissa Bligh, Nicholas Bouf, Rachel Wells, Rosary Coloma, Roxanne Lillis, Sarah-Jane Cook, Susie Rugg, Stephen McFarlane, Szilvia Gyorgy and Verity Roberts.

Connect 4 – 4th to 15th November 2009

Connect 4 – 4th to 15th November 2009
An exhibition of painting, drawing and photography by four fabulous local artists

Vladimir Pavlovic has been taking photographs for well over 3 decades and has worked in theatre, stills, magazine and archaeological photographic arenas. The 5 photos on show at Breathing Colours encapsulate a certain chronology accessing negatives that were taken almost 30 years ago as well as a sample of current directions which draws upon the manipulation of appropriated details and work that bypasses the use of a camera.

The reading of the facsimile of A Voyage to Terra Australis by Flinders published in 1814, urged Glenda Jones to reinterpret and thus revisit the book's etched prints which were based on Westall’s original, commissioned watercolours of the Australian coastline. The etchings have been photo-shopped, cropped and made lurid with oils on blackened canvas, to contemporise those images which were, in their original form, far more ordered and austere.

Barbara Schaffer’s current body of work has been inspired by a recent trip to Europe in which she was amazed and overwhelmed by the power and beauty of the religious art she discovered throughout churches and cathedrals on her travels. Working mainly with oil pastels on canvas, Schaffer feels this medium offers the possibility for working very directly and intuitively, the colours are rich and intense and the pastels allow for easy mixing and building up of texture.

If there is a dark side, Michael Sagan will detail it out. His small canvases pack an insidious punch with their tightly controlled palette and seemingly innocuous subject matter.
'Suburban madness is only a neighbour away'.

Current Exhibition "Whim Wish Itch" By Loren Keir and Roxanne Lillis, 21st October to 1st November

For their second collaborative exhibition at Breathing Colours Gallery, Loren Keir and Roxanne Lillis explore the whimsical, fantastical world of the artist's imagination. Both artists have been working intuitively on their respective bodies of work and have allowed the art to take them on a journey rather than the other way around.

Roxanne Lillis body of work has emerged through a linear process of exploration. The series began with three elfish figures in white dresses. After contemplating the story surrounding them, she placed these figures into their own personal narratives. They appeared wandering the fantastical streets of the artist’s abstracted cities and towns. Through the painting of these works, a new theme developed when a bright red balloon emerged in the landscape thus beginning a third series. The resulting paintings are whimsical and peaceful. As in all of Roxanne Lillis’s paintings there is a very still contemplative feel to the work.

Loren Keir approached her work from a slightly different standpoint. Beginning with paint, a palette knife and paper, she simply began to work. Letting her intuition guide her, she scratched into the paint, drew over sections, ripped pieces apart, glued them back together and worked back over it with her palette knife. From this process she created a series of small intimate abstract paintings which then became inspiration for her jewellery. Her series of brooches and rings mirror the beauty of working in metal. Although finished jewellery products are usually clean, shiny and smooth, the method of making jewellery couldn’t be more different. Loren has captured the rough, raw beauty of the metal working process.

Roxanne Lillis began her studies at the Julian Ashton Art School in 1993 and achieved her Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong in 1999. She has exhibited regularly around New South Wales throughout the last 15 years.

Loren Keir graduated with honours from the jewellery and object department of Sydney College of the Arts. She has exhibited widely in Sydney and New South Wales and is part of the artist collective Makers Manifold.

Current Exhibition 3˚ from 9 to 20 September 2009

Work by Rachel Wells, Verity Roberts and Maryanne Parry

Rachel Wells is a Sydney based mixed media artist who works predominantly with encaustic (wax) and oil mediums. Her processes involve etching into the surface of the wax and applying paint in layers upon it. Rachel’s current work focuses on the built environment. She is fascinated by European, American and Australian architecture and an (architect) father obsessed with taking photos of buildings.

Verity Roberts’ recent series of work is inspired by her passion for travel. These “postcards” are painted in mixed media and contain acrylics, ink, shellac, bitumen, graphite, oil pastels and acetates. Verity has also used encaustic (beeswax) which helps suggest the passage of time.
This series represents the artist’s interpretation and reflection on these landscapes which she has passed through and over – the delicacy and oftentimes brutality which is reflected therein.

MaryAnne Parry is inspired by a constant fascination with the world we live in. The variety of environments and cultures, the miracle of growth, and the opposing nobility and folly of humanity, never cease to amaze her. Both the landscape of Africa, where she was born, and Australia, where she now lives, are evident in the burnt and intense colour featured throughout many of her paintings.