• 'Tender' is a term often associated with notions of care and femininity. We liken tenderness to the body, our gestures,...
    "Tender" is a term often associated with notions of care and femininity. We liken tenderness to the body, our gestures, and the way we feel or express ourselves. We impart the term on places, objects or surfaces to describe how they arouse our senses or how an object yields under pressure; it softens, loses shape, and gives way.

    This term has rich and varied meanings, and the aim of this exhibition, which takes Tender as its title, is to explore its significance beyond a gender lens. Instead, the exhibition seeks to understand how tenderness is woven into the human form and its integration into all aspects of lived experience through the diverse painting practices of Australian artists.
    • Sally Anderson Self and still life (shared garden, future nurture), 2024 acrylic on polycotton 183 x 198 cm
      Sally Anderson
      Self and still life (shared garden, future nurture), 2024
      acrylic on polycotton
      183 x 198 cm
    • Sally Anderson Middle Brother Mother Mountain Fountain (PP Nude in a Garden, BT Mother and Child), 2024 acrylic on polycotton 183 x 197 cm
      Sally Anderson
      Middle Brother Mother Mountain Fountain (PP Nude in a Garden, BT Mother and Child), 2024
      acrylic on polycotton
      183 x 197 cm
    • Sally Anderson November bells, BT mother, birth banksias, PP nude in a garden, 2024 acrylic on polycotton 183 x 197 cm
      Sally Anderson
      November bells, BT mother, birth banksias, PP nude in a garden, 2024
      acrylic on polycotton
      183 x 197 cm
    • Sally Anderson PP Mother and Child, Face Embrace, Chartreuse Sky, 2024 acrylic on polycotton 168 x 137 cm
      Sally Anderson
      PP Mother and Child, Face Embrace, Chartreuse Sky, 2024
      acrylic on polycotton
      168 x 137 cm
    • Sally Anderson Nat Silk's Seatown Still Life, PB Nude Quilt, Bromeliad Washdown, 2023 acrylic on polycotton 153 x 137 cm
      Sally Anderson
      Nat Silk's Seatown Still Life, PB Nude Quilt, Bromeliad Washdown, 2023
      acrylic on polycotton
      153 x 137 cm
    • Sally Anderson PMB's Seated Reclining Mother and Child Mirror Maze, Two Truths, 2023 acrylic on polycotton 137 x 168 cm
      Sally Anderson
      PMB's Seated Reclining Mother and Child Mirror Maze, Two Truths, 2023
      acrylic on polycotton
      137 x 168 cm
  • Bio.

    Bio.

    'Deep within, her paintings carry autobiographical elements heavy with memory and meaning...'

    Sally Anderson’s work draws heavily on personal domestic, maternal, and relational experiences, as well as second-hand encounters with landscapes, to explore how meaning and memory are held, stored, and carried. She is particularly interested in the concept of ‘the souvenir’ and the ways we authenticate experiences and navigate notions of reality and truth. 

     

    Anderson recontextualizes and arranges personal and intimate experiences with art historical references to address how motherhood, domesticity, and creative practice are, for her, reciprocal and ultimately entangled. Her paintings deliberately oscillate between abstraction and representation, using still-life and landscape motifs as symbols of containment and care. Stella Rosa McDonald writes that Sally’s paintings are 'like wombs or libraries—where gestation and digestion are tacitly implied.'

     

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