The work Lemon and 3 Pears was a finalist in the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery's signature program, Still: National Still Life Award. In 2017, this award was expanded from having a focus solely on still life painting to include artworks in all mediums. This painting however, continues the gallery’s efforts in collecting the highest quality still life paintings for its collection. The still life genre is the specialist focus of the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery’s collection, with still life artworks identified as the first priority in the gallery’s collection policy, Section 2.4.2 (1): “Works in this section reflect the still life genre, as per artworks acquired through the National Still Life Award (Still) as well as through donation, purchase, transfer and bequest.”

Mary Donnelly is an Australian artist who works largely in the still life genre: she describes her paintings and drawings as “landscapes on a table”. Her work is quiet and often spacious, with a wilful naivety and sense of whimsy. She usually works within a restricted palette of colour but this particular painting comes from a series she produced following a trip to Vietnam and began to introduce more intense hues of pink and orange into her work. Its restraint, careful composition, subtle use of mixed media and distorted perspective make it a strong example of her work. As a more abstracted still life, it meets a gap in the gallery’s painting collection, which has tended to focus on strongly realist interpretations. 

[Written by Jo Besley, 4 March 2019]

Still-life painting, mixed media on canvas on board.