Sydney Exhibition
April Mountfort
Opens Wednesday 5 July, 6 – 8pm
Runs 6 – 16 July 2023
After undertaking a number of national and international short art courses April Mountfort studied Fine Art full-time. She was awarded a BFA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales in 2021, and is currently a candidate for a Master of Fine Art at the School of Art, Design & Architecture, UNSW.
In her solo exhibition Me, You, Others Mountfort’s paintings subtly explore concepts of underlying personal vulnerability in relationships and vulnerable circumstances of others.
The works are an expression of a personal experience of longing and loss, experienced over a number of years. Minimal, simplistic representation of the body is used to extinguish any embellishments and a pealed back expression of colour suggest a ‘presence of an absence’. The works reach out to the audience touching vulnerabilities that exist in personal relationships and to the more expansive social context of sexual identity or loneliness.
The Scavenger paintings explore the dream of an alternative society where small groups of ‘scavengers’ live outside the confines of mainstream social norms. The figures are sexually ambiguous, possibly androgynous and minimally represented with fading features that reflect homelessness and the subsequent absence of voice that the homeless lack in our society.