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Below are a series of recent paintings created as a part of a group exhibition. 'Conversations with Clarice Beckett’ Exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery is showing from December 2024 to March 2025, presenting the works of eight artists from across Central West NSW. The Artists were invited to visit the National Gallery of Australia, to study the atmospheric, minimalist paintings of pioneering Australian artist, Clarice Beckett. The Artists were asked to respond to an element of Beckett’s work or life and reimagine it in their own work. Showing concurrently to this exhibition is the NGA’s touring exhibition, ‘Clarice Beckett: Paintings from the National Collection’. The first six paintings below feature in the exhibition. The other paintings have been inspired by the works of Clarice Beckett. Artist Statement: For Jane Tonk the familiarity of the landscape and sense of connection to place, was a shared experience with Clarice Beckett. Like Beckett, Jane visits and revisits sites across the Central West where she has lived for most of her life. The depiction of the road in Clarice’s work was a key element that Jane was drawn to, symbolic of a spiritual seeking of the existential questions of life. Studying Clarice’s tonalism was a creative challenge for Jane to play with. As she writes, “this tonalist approach has challenged me to look differently, to seek the transient moments in time, the raw elements of colour and form, the feel for landscape...and our place in it.” Chasing misty mornings and ephemeral moments of dusk, dawn and twilight, Jane’s paintings respond to Beckett’s ability to capture moments of light. Working en plein air and in the studio, Tonks has created soft, muted paintings of landscapes that capture the distinct shifting light of Orange.

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