The colour of sandstone, the colour of falling in love, the colour of aching, the colour of loss, it’s all in the mix. Lush is a show where I’ve loosened up, created an abstraction that is a balance between space and gesture.

“I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve so for this show I’m unashamedly open to what comes on the spur of the moment. Gesture, graffiti, text, circles and hearts repeat as memories of the Hawksbury River fill my senses with luscious candour” - Philip Stallard

“Stallard’s paintings are big abstract letters, poems conveying something serene amongst all the action. Some images relate to recognisable objects - wharves or factories or landscape fragments. Marine settings - Bobbin Head shark nets, swimming pools, the quietly heaving turquoise surface of the harbour - recur, and so do oblique recollections of the Hawkesbury River, where he spent his childhood. There is a stream-of-consciousness waywardness about his compositions. They are discursive rather than defining” - Peter Pinson