Canberra Contemporary Art Space in Furneaux Street Manuka kicked off  on January 19 with “Psychedelia & Sexuality,” paintings by James Rowell and psychedelic flashback paintings by Ralph, until January 29.

At the opening, a collaborative event between ArtsAbility and CCAS which was also the first 2012 AccessibiliTEA catch up for GENERATE artists, the two painters talked about their work in the mentoring process they had gone through with staff at the outset, while cellist David Pereira performed haunting works in the background.

James Rowell, who employs wording over the top of his colourful dot-style paintings rendered in both conventional and metallic media, said that during the mentoring process he had been advised to produce his paintings on a larger scale. A keen gardener who belongs to a community garden in Kaleen, Rowell explained that plants in the garden had played an important role in the brilliant colours that characterize most of his work.

Director of the CCAS, David Broker, said that during the creative process, Rowell had been encouraged to modify the wording and build up the colourful backgrounds. Nonetheless, he said, it was important to retain the concepts the informed his artistic work, a very good example being one painting in which metal and mining were contrasted with the natural environment. Others drew  attention to the liberating aspects of sexuality.

Ralph, by contrast, turns his natural colour-blindness to advantage in a series of smaller format works that have been described as   psychedelic flashback paintings. He is pictured with a painting of a man in space that seems to suggest a circumstance where colour is not as relevant as it may be elsewhere.
“Psychedelia & Sexuality,” at  Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 19 Furneaux Street Manuka until January 29.