Andersch, Joerg The Mercury 24 November 2007

Symbols of Mobility
The Road Show
Colville Street Art Gallery, Battery Point
Price Range $1400 to $7000

There have been few painters in recent times who have stirred me as much as Stephanie Tabram.

Looking at her paintings is not so much a question of déjà vu but of seeing, feeling and recalling long-buried emotions of a journey that even now has not come to an end. Tabram is no doubt well traveled, yet it is her recording of those quintessential moments along the way that triggers memories long forgotten.

These lucid moments are not necessarily pretty, nor are they very important. They just seem to form a moment when time almost stood still, but in the accumulation of one’s life have become a basis for understanding the world around us.

Tabram’s bus painting has obviously struck a cord with viewers ever since it appeared a couple of years ago. It is a powerful symbol, especially for those of us who found little permanence in what others call home. Often it’s a matter of choice, and in the end it seems always the bus that takes us to a new destination.

This time tabram has included a caravan, again a symbol of mobility. Yet haven’t some of the most exciting times come when moving about the country ? Tabram’s heat-laden evening at a motel site is a brilliant glimpse of something we barely recall, yet many of us fondly recall it when confronted with this painting.

Included in this exhibition are several paintings of precious moments we never think of; the boots or shoes tossed lazily under the bed at the end of the day, or that little bit of underwear, suddenly so prominent when viewed in isolation. It’s a great show from an artist going places, in more ways than one.

Andersch, J
Symphony in Colour , Solstice , Salamanca Collection
The Mercury 25 th November, 2006

Solstice is an exhibition of paintings by Tasmanian artist Stephanie Tabram.

With some of the most evocative work to be put on canvas, Tabram has again managed to produce a brilliant body of paintings. Among those in this state who still practice the art of drawing, Tabram underpins her paintings with a sketching prowess few others are able to achieve.

The artist not only composes her subject matter well, she conjures up a metaphorical symphony in colour harmony in vistas that range from the shaded corner of the room to the grandeur of the open landscape at dusk.

In the work titled 4.30 Bus Tabram orchestrates the heart-rending vision of departure on a lonely road junction, the wet intersection echoing the swish of the tyres of the approaching long-distance bus. The ageing solitary building on the corner deepens the mood, and the reflections of the bus's headlights add a sense of inevitability.

In my years of looking at paintings few of them have evoked a response like this work. Perhaps it is all about personal experiences, but Tabram can stir the emotions, and her understanding of the power of light is admirable.

Among the paintings dealing with the landscape are a series of still lifes in which the artist demonstrates once again her ability to handle light and shade. Tabram's jugs and cups have the warmth and depth of the tonal structure of the Dutch master Vermeer, offering an interesting difference in her oeuvre. It's a wonderful show, not to be missed.

Stephanie Tabram
Solstice
Opening Speech by artist Luke Wagner
November, 2006

My friendship with Stephanie began over 12 years ago and was cemented as a lifetime friendship one evening when she, and her husband, Steve had dinner with my wife and I at my home.

The four of us stayed up nearly all night playing favourite old records, dancing and drinking far too much wine.

It was a charged evening and the friendship was instant and powerful.

I remember that for most of the night there was a heavy mist surrounding the house and the mist seemed to isolate us from the outside world.

The following week Stephanie began a painting she entitled “Into the Mist” as a celebration and memory of our night, although perhaps a better titled might have been “Out of the Fog”! Considering the hangovers and lack of memory we all had the next day!

Stephanie and I also have a very close relationship as artists.

We are both somewhat outsiders to the local art world. We enjoy discussing our ideas and progress as some respite from the isolation of our studios.

We regularly speak about the difficult process of preparing an exhibition and we both have a similar pattern of working.

For most of the year we work to prepare a show, at the same time weaving this process into our domestic and personal lives.

There are many emotional ups and downs over this preparation. The nature of focusing on the deeply personal relationship of artist and landscape often means withdrawal from society and the artist can never really be sure that what you are doing is any good until they bring their work back to an audience for a response.

Stephanie and I have both been a support for each other over these times. Often discussing ideas, themes, techniques and the work of our contemporaries.

Those long months have now passed for Stephanie and look around you at what she has given us to enjoy.

A room full of the most engaging and powerful pictures one could imagine.

These pictures are like stories or poems. Stephanie uses paint like a writer, or a poet, uses words. Her paintings are observations and sensitive narratives of every day life.

She lives happily cocooned in a small town and this is where she draws her subject matter. I have often heard artists say “ I don't know what to paint”.

Stephanie has the fundamental characteristic of a great artist. She actually looks and observes her surroundings. Even in simple domestic and everyday subject matter, she finds inspiration and gives us such great evocation.

I can imagine Stephanie walking out her backdoor and looking up above the roofline of a neighbour's house to a late afternoon Wagnerian sky that becomes a painting. An utterly beautiful moment that is transformed into forever.

I have felt the brooding history of human settlement and existence in Stephanie's town. It is not a melancholy but there has been hardship, struggle and lives lived.

This humanity is imbued in the landscape and the buildings of her town. I can feel it most strongly in the early morning or at dusk and to me Stephanie's paintings of the transition of night and day suggest metaphors of mortality.

Stephanie's sensitivity to the implications and possibilities of human presence in her surroundings channel into her paintings and this is what gives them such poignancy and emotional charge.

This is the case not only in her landscapes but also in her interiors and still life paintings.

There is history; these paintings are evocative of a past moment in someone's life.

A conversation, a story, a memory…

It is a very great honour for me to be asked by Stephanie to open this wonderful and arresting exhibition and I ask you all to celebrate Stephanie's achievement.