Follow the Line - Maria Owens + Susanne Khouri

Follow the Line

Both of these abstract artists approach colour and shape with energy and confidence.  Susanne Khouri explores colour blocking and the relationship between overlapping, overlayed colour and the texture this process achieves. Geometric shapes rest in the foreground of her work, some suggesting depth, a space existing beyond the surface, while others act as guardians asking us to push into the surface of the work for entry.

Maria Owens

Maria Owens takes the energy inherent in the action of painting a line and she amplifies the movement. Her frenetic gestural mark-making is also overlapped and overlayed but has a very different outcome. We are caught up in the energy of her day, the outpouring of the captured moment in time.

Follow the Line is a show which celebrates a fearless approach to the printed and painted line.

Exhibition Wednesday 26th June - Saturday 13th July

Opening Event Saturday 29th June 3-5pm. All welcome.

View Exhibition

Susanne Khouri

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 Maria Owens - Artist Statement

My recent body of work is inspired by my walks in the Waitakere Ranges, the autumn colours, the rainy days, the movement of the leaves, the wind on my face and how the walk makes me feel afterwards. In the last six months I have been drawn to explore movement in my paintings, which has emerged both from noticing what I enjoy in nature but also my love of dancing, something that always gets the happy endorphins going; hence the many works, where pink is present. 

I enjoy the unexpectedness of beauty that can emerge from a quick movement, when things are not perfect; I have a hard time with a straight line. 

The process of the last layers, adding, taking away, feels like solving a problem, the complexity, the struggle which occurs, can feel devastating, but when the painting feels resolved, it’s like a wave of relief, a feeling of falling in love making me want to do it all over again.

 Susanne Khouri - Artist Statement

FORMULATING DIALOGUE

My aim with these works is to articulate two ways of expressions.

The larger works are formal compositions of light and dark. I am drawn to colour-field work because for me, the simplicity of form and line evoke emotional landscapes as well as an invitation to quiet and stillness.

The smaller works began as playful investigations into how letters can be used as abstractions. This led to other abstracted forms, all winding in and out of each other, creating narratives in which the colours sing together.

I like to think of my works in this exhibition as an interplay and conversation between these two groups, the formal and the playful.

Bio

Susanne Khouri is a Swedish-New Zealand printmaker. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland University, majoring in printmaking.

Susanne has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand, in both solo and group exhibitions. Most notably Gus Fisher, Tauranga City Art Gallery, Pataka Art Gallery in Porirua, Hamilton City Art Gallery, the Depot Art Gallery and previously in Railway Street Gallery both in Auckland.

Her work is a mixture of abstract and realistic nature, using Aquatint Zinc-plate printing which allows her a subtlety of tonal variations.  Lately she has been using Gelatine plate Monotype printing for an immediate approach. She works in her studio at home.

She is a member of Print Council of New Zealand.