IT ALMOST feels like spring at Beaver Galleries this week, with the opening of three shows.

Alexander Boynes is naturally excited about the opening tonight of his first solo exhibition, “Body / Time / Light”, showing works of acrylic and pigment on aluminium incorporate his love of painting, photography, print media, light-based work and video installation.

Using a palette of bright colours and sharp linear patterns within the figurative image, Boynes hopes he has captured the movement and dynamism of the human form.

Graduating from the Canberra School of Art in 2004, he held his first solo exhibition in 2009 and is well known in the Canberra arts community as a curator with Canberra Contemporary Artspace.

Boynes says this exhibition has evolved from periods spent working and researching two collaborative projects, “Arnhembrand”,  promoting healthy country and communities in the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area in Arnhemland, and  “Praxis”, an art collaboration  with his sister, dancer/choreographer Laura Boynes, and the cellist/composer Tristen Parr, soon to be showcased at the State Theatre Centre of WA.

Also at Beaver is work by ceramic artist Maria Chatzinikolaki, previously a finalist in the Waterhouse Natural History Prize, showing beautiful forms decorated with finely detailed patterns found in nature and in art history.

This exhibition is intended to explore the idea of “humans as living vessels that choose what they want to carry throughout their lives.”

Finally, David Frazer, through his finely detailed woodcuts, linocuts, lithographs and etchings, explores the themes of truth, despair and often the emotional and fragile state of the human condition.

Frazer’s work is represented in many collections including the NGA, Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Australian War Memorial and the Chiang Mai Contemporary Art Museum of Thailand.

At Beaver Galleries, 81 Denison St, Deakin, Tue to Fri 10am – 5pm & Sat and Sun 9am – 5pm until July 3. Opening 6pm today, Thursday June 16, all welcome.