Saint Cloche is proud to present two artists from our stable who first exhibited together in one of our most popular end-of-year group shows in 2018, ‘Casa’. Here they are in a special Pas De Deux in 2022 with a stunning ‘in-simpatico’ curatorial amalgam of their practice, exploring the regenerative beauty of the life cycle, which in creation immortalises an EVER / LASTING timeless beauty that should be treasured.

As many would have gathered by now, Curator Kitty Clark loves to be a conduit for exciting new collaborations between artists and presents in her signature style, the most wonderful pairings at Saint Cloche. This time, sensory Melbourne painter Hannah Nowlan and Brisbane ceramicist Mel Lumb, whose works are a means of painting in three dimensions.

What is born from the blend of this duo’s inspired life forces and unguarded proffering of intention, movement, and a sense of equilibrium in a balancing act between Hannah’s unleashed corporeal paintings and Mel’s restrained forms of equanimity.

‘Inspired by the ancient mythological sages known as the ‘Apkallu’, this exhibition reflects on my relationship with nature, our changing climate, and our connection to traditions. In several contexts, the Apkallu were hybrid gods, part-man and part-fish. Associated with passing down wisdom to humanity, the creatures were often referred to in apotropaic rituals to avert evil or turn away bad luck.

Each painting reveals a central hybrid spectre, fossilised within its reverent frame. Oceanic in being, the spectral guides emerge from the sun, stars, sea, and seaweed. There is a weightless movement, an ebb and flow, a beam of sunlight dancing along the volute of a wave and an unpredictable whisper of wind. A spirit-carrying wind, holding a continuum of the natural and the ephemeral.

The palette of this body of work transcends above and below sea level while shrouds of water continue to cross the raw linen materiality with a shock of electric charge. Evoking the viewer into a mindful mode of solitude to receive the energy of each figure.

Handcrafted timber frames, plinths and objects created for this body of work speak to the traditions of arts and crafts passed onto humanity by the Apkallu mythology. The timber support structures are anchor points within this exhibition, grounded in resilience, an intersection between two mediums: painting and sculpture. A stirring crossroad where a sense of strength and fragility lies, embodying and protecting the artworks like an armoured shell.’

— Hannah Nowlan