No comfort in strange creatures

The gossip in the industry is that Patricia Piccinini wasn’t allowed to show her anthropomorphic drawings in Sydney because they don’t “suit dentists’ surgeries”.

The rivalry between the two cities has reached a peak with the recent staging of the Sydney Art Fair.

While most Melbourne gallerists were at the fair gallivanting, Picinini’s whimsical gouaches on paper were showing at Tolarno Galleries in Exhibition St.

They have a similar verve to the paintings on glass by Louise Paramor showing at Void Gallery, just around the corner on Bourke St.

Paramor constructs imaginary creatures out of imaginary objects but apparently, they can be built on request.

Both artists are in their 50s and went to art school in Melbourne before photography had such a pervasive influence on what was permissible in terms of figuration.

Piccinini has travelled from the grotesque to the strange and Paramor has sort comfort in plastic.

Captions: The audience, 2023, gouache and ink on paper, by Patricia Piccinini; Balls, 2023, oil on glass, by Louise Paramor.