The Last Fleet exhibition by Gold Coast artist Gayle Reichelt will be officially opened at 3pm on Saturday 6th February in the Foyer Gallery at the Gold Coast City Gallery during a Meet the Artist event. The exhibition will feature 22 works, some in oil, but most in an ancient 3000 year old medium called encaustic which consists of beeswax, damar resin and oil pigments.
Gayle is passionate about colour and texture. Beginning in her Honours year at La Trobe University Bendigo in 1996, a recurring theme in Gayle’s work has been of reviewing the fate of abandoned human manufactured constructs in the natural environment.
In this exhibition, four Queensland shipwrecks have been featured. They are: Cherry Venture, HQMS Gayundah, SS Dicky and two anchors thought to be from the Charles Eaton Shipwreck.
These images represent loss, but there is a strange beauty about them as well. The once useful constructs portray evidence of erosion, mould and decay as well as damage inflicted by mankind. Nature seeks revenge in entropy by rightfully returning these objects to their constituent elemental dust.
Gayle’s work is constantly evolving, exploring and making use of new technology and mediums as well as contemporary and traditional techniques. The progression in her work has been from an early focus on realist portraits, buildings and landscapes in charcoal, oil, watercolour and pastel to exploring abstraction inspired by nature. Encaustic is Gayle’s most recent medium, an ancient 3000 year old medium, which consists of molten beeswax and damar resin which is mixed with oil pigments for colour, and is fused after application into a continuous layer and fixed to a support (usually wood) with heat.
Art Classes with Gayle Reichelt
Gayle will be teaching Introduction to Encaustic as well as painting and drawing classes at RQAS Brisbane, Petrie Terrace Gallery in 2016. The first encaustic class will be held on15th February 2016 from 9.00am until 3.30pm. From March onwards it will be the 1st & 3rd Monday of each month.
The Venue for the Gayle classes is at Petrie Terrace Gallery, 162 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, and booking in directly with Gayle is required to ensure your place. For more information on Gayle’s latest exhibition and workshops see her website: www.gaylereicheltart.com