Ross Creek Gallery proudly presents Victoria in Print, a solo exhibition by Marie Mason.
Marie Mason is a printmaker based in Ballarat, Victoria. Her practice is inspired by places within the Victorian landscape, where she seeks to simplify and isolate the underlying patterns of nature. Through carefully constructed lino prints, Mason explores the interaction of light and shadow, twilight tones, water, and the fleeting moments of change that occur within familiar environments. Several works in this exhibition respond to the brief daily moment when the sun's last light flares across her timbered garden, an event that lasts only a few minutes but offers endless visual variation.
Mason describes her process as beginning with observation, sketches, and extensive photography taken from multiple viewpoints. From these, she develops a collage image that best captures the original inspiration before translating it into a lino print, using either reduction techniques for colour works or a direct approach for black and white prints.
Her influences include the strong patterning and linear qualities found in the work of Claude Flight, Eric Thake, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston, Murray Griffin, Hans Heysen, as well as El Greco, Van Gogh, Picasso, the Fauves, and contemporary Australian printmakers.