This tiny but beautiful gallery in Darlinghurst is currently displaying a sister-brother exhibition. Jo Nolan is the painter. She has a Master of Art from the University Of New South Wales. Her brother Paul is a journalist and poet who has printed seven of his poems in ink onto aluminium for 30×20 cm wall pieces. She didn’t paint to illustrate his poems and he didn’t write poems to describe her paintings. The two Nolans just realised that some of the poems and paintings worked together. The poems help you see more in the paintings and the paintings make you think more about the poems. It’s a neat combination I’ve not seen before.
Jo overlaps layers of transparent, opaque and glaze acrylics to create one of the best examples of this style of abstract expressionism I’ve seen recently. The early works of Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan from the 1960s New York school of abstract expressionism ruled supreme for decades. Jo has brought the style to Darlinghurst in a new and exciting way.
You are drawn right into the canvas through her technically precise layers of paint. One of the works includes crushed glass. Two others are a mix of acrylic and oils, a rarely used technique that she has mastered. Some of the works have a touch of collage in them where she has attached skins of dried paint onto the canvas. The exhibition catalogue includes several paintings that aren’t in the exhibition, which makes you want to see more of Jo’s work.
Not all of the paintings have an accompanying poem. For me, Paul’s poem that relates the most to a painting is titled ‘Celestial’ which accompanies the painting titled ‘Caelestis’.
Here are some of Paul’s poems:
The Disorder Gallery is a ten minute walk from Hyde Park. It’s a tiny space with one bright orange wall, opposite the original beautifully chipped brick wall and two white walls. Somehow, the orange wall lifts the space and brightens the mood. Double doors open to a very small courtyard with orange seating, giving the gallery a sense of being outdoors and being larger. Disorder opened in 2017 and has had fifty exhibitions to date. It exhibits paintings, prints, posters, photography, objects and sculpture.
Gallery hours are 12pm till 6pm Wednesdays to Sundays.
SUN AT MIDNIGHT is on view at the Disorder Gallery until the 5th June, 2021.
Featured image : Jo and Paul Nolan. All photos by Ben Apfelbaum