Hayley Megan French, Hints of things we know

Hayley Megan French -Hints of things we know

6 April - 1 May 2016
Opening night Wednesday 6 April, 6-8pm

Thinking about what to write about Hayley Megan French's paintings presented me with a challenging problem and a simultaneous, wonderful, solution. I couldn't decide which aspect of her work was more important. Was it abstraction? The slowness of those beautiful forms dancing in her work? Was it the landscape, and its fascinating contemporary transformation from colonial hangover (somebody call the art police) to a means of genuine spiritual enlightenment and even, at its best, a way of transcending cultural and historical barriers? Or was it simply French's painting's virtuous calm, the marks, the colours, and their satisfying, somehow quiet arrangements? A hard choice, but that is just it. All of these aspects are important, and perhaps that is why I find French's work so compelling. It operates between moments, between paradigms, between thought and action, and that is exactly why I like looking at them. They refuse to be tethered to one idea.
Jonathan McBurnie, 2015

Hayley Megan French received a PhD (Painting) from Sydney College of the Arts in 2015. In the same year she was awarded a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship and returned to the Warmun Art Centre in the East Kimberley to continue her research into the ability of painting to inhabit the land imaginatively and move between different experiences of being in Australia. French is a committee member at MOP Projects and has exhibited in Sydney at MOP Projects, AirSpace Projects, Articulate Project Space, and Sydney College of the Arts Graduate School Gallery; interstate at Watch This Space, Alice Springs, Constance ARI, Hobart and Raygun Contemporary in Toowoomba. Her work is held in the collection of Artbank Australia and private collections in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The works in Hints of things we know have been created with the support of the NSW Artists' Grant, the Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship for Painting, Parramatta Artist Studios and the Penrith Regional Gallery Summer Studio Residency.

Further exhibitions in 2016:

The Red House

Lewers House, Penrith Regional Gallery (solo exhibition)
27th February - 22nd May
Official opening Saturday 12th March (and Art Month tour/ talk)

Interiors/ Exteriors

Grace Cossington Smith Gallery (group exhibition)
12th March - 16th April

Auckland Art Fair

With Galerie pompom
25th - 29th May