Caroline Zilinsky
Spring Never Came
24 November – 22 December 2018
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In this long-awaited exhibition, Caroline Zilinsky makes a much-anticipated return to her distinctive and renowned portraits
Inspired by the real-life stories of local and political identities, these striking paintings bear the artist’s distinctive stylised lines, and muted colours and tones. While they throw the bleak and absurd aspects of human life experience into high relief, an underlying sense of dignity and resilience gives the paintings deeper heart. Zilinsky’s work at once encompasses nihilistic obliteration and triumph of the human spirit, her figures appear defiant, as if steeling themselves against their respective fates
To take from Kristeva’s Powers of Horror “Like a car crash, the viewer is compelled to look”
Zilinsky is an obsessive and reclusive painter. Her work explores the grotesque, absurd and tragic aspects of human nature through narrative imagery, and has been painting social and political work for several decades
She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has had works in major prizes including the Sulman Prize (AGNSW), Portia Geach Memorial Portrait Prize (S.H.Ervin Gallery), Kilgour Prize (Newcastle Art Gallery), Rick Amor Self-Portrait Prize and Muswelbrook Regional Art Prize to name a few