Four Seasons (2014 – current)

Survey exhibition: Rosemary Valadon – A Sensual World at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 1st April – 8th May 2016. At first you are struck by the grandeur, the lushness, the abundance of the work. Then your eye is drawn into a detail – the fold of a fabric, a bursting flower bud, the fire of a red hot poker, a tiny nestling blue bird. Rosemary Valadon’s Four Seasons series covers the changing moods of the Hill End landscape that she has come to call home and is a crowning achievement in an artistic career that now feels as ripe as summer fruit. Professor Larissa Behrendt These 4 large-scale panoramas celebrate the dramatic changes of season in Hill End, through arrangements of flora and fauna harvested from the artist’s garden throughout the past year. From the dark and brooding Winter Still Life (2015), with all the elements for an evening rabbit stew, to the effervescent beauty of Spring (2016) displaying blossoms of pear, cherry, crab apple, and plum.  The Summer Still Life (2015) abounds with fruits and flowers, watched on high by a superb blue wren, looking down upon this scene of plenty. Autumn (2014) with its quinces, pumpkin, chillies and persimmons, speaks of time passing – as Hill End’s long, frosty winter is about to take hold. Rosemary Valadon – A Sensual World by Professor Larissa Behrendt. Review by Suzi Gibson The Politics of Genius by Suzi Gibson News 3/5/16