Strange Beauty - Alex Garant, Mahlimae, Adipocere & Courtney Brims

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Beinart Gallery presents Strange Beauty, an exhibition of new works, featuring Alex Garant’s vivid illusory portraits, Adipocere’s visceral post-gothic embroidery, Mahlimae’s sculptural orphaned echo’s and Courtney Brims’ intricate animals.

Opening reception: August 20, 6pm – 9pm. Runs until September 13.

Adipocere (Australia) developed an interest in embroidery as art in 2014, after he cross stitched an homage to the film Alien. From there he has created his own visuals inspired by a fascination with the macabre, combining themes of innocence with an unsettling and sinister melancholy, referring to many of his works as ‘emotional self-portraiture’. An environmental science student, flora and fauna related theory often influence his work as does a desire to utilize materials that are more sustainable. Working predominantly on natural linen, he has occasionally stitched temporary works into the epidermis layer of his left hand. Adipocere has primarily displayed his work in the United States via The Hive Gallery, Light Grey Art Lab, and Superchief Gallery. And, for the first time in his home country this year, with Beinart Gallery.

Alex Garant (Canada), Queen of Double Eyes, studied visual arts at Notre-Dame–De-Foy College just outside Quebec City. After graduating in 2001, she ultimately settled in Toronto, Canada. She decided to truly commit to her passion for Arts after suffering from a heart attack in 2012, changing forever how she would see the world.  Her alla prima oil paintings offer a graphic quality combined with traditional portrait techniques. Garant uses patterns, duplication of elements, symmetry and image superposition as key elements of her imagery.  Alex has shown works all over Canada and the United States as well as Portugal and Australia; she has been featured in publications like Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, Supersonic, Hi-Fructose Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, My Modern Met, The Huffington Post, Mashable.com, Buzznet.com and her story was recently told in a mini TV Documentary on CBC.

Nicole Watt aka Mahlimae (Australia) is an internationally self-taught mixed media sculpture artist living and creating in the wilderness of Southern Tasmania, Australia. Her exquisitely simplistic and emotionally driven characters evolve from a world long forgotten; a world hidden in the shadows of imagination. Finding inspiration in ancient ritual and folklore, Nicole’s melancholic works take you on a compelling journey into the darkness and light of human nature, drawing you in closer to explore the stories hidden within their subtle and fragile expressions. Each piece is carefully hand sculpted using stone clay, gathered natural materials and tattered hand-dyed textiles. The final works are pulled together by a common theme of possibility, a longing for connection, and an aim to intrigue.

Courtney Brims (Australia) is a Brisbane-based artist and illustrator. Courtney creates intricate pencil drawings that seem to stem from a world that hovers between a daydream and a nightmare. She graduated with a degree in interior design from QUT before becoming a full-time artist in 2008. Since then she has had numerous solo shows across Australia and the US and collaborated with national and international brands. Courtney’s work explores her curiosity with the natural world, specifically the interplay between prey and predator through adaptation and metamorphosis. Behind the ornamental and ethereal charm of flowers, animals and beautiful females lies the cunning and unsettling underbelly of nature where it’s survival of the fittest. She depicts scenes where animals become entangled within weaving hair and vines and nest in skeletal remnants, hinting at humanity’s impermanence.

Original Art