"Two images, one of a bright summers day with a cerulean blue sky and luminous cloud formations that send shafts of light upward, the other is an overcast day with a sky of deep grey and a cloud mass that hides the sun, ... patches of light yellow hues burst out from behind the massed cloud and project heraldic rays down onto the sea"

The artist describes the works herself, the rays uplift on a summery day, they blaze down on an overcast day, as she provokes our feelings of bliss and despair. In life clouds become us, and in painted form they evoke mood. Apocalyptic and serene, these are the two polarities that Penny Bovell describes in her two masterpieces, The Dreamer Makes a Reverie Work I and Work 2. Leaning toward a metaphor of unattainable or unpossessable desire, Bovell's subject is and always has been the sky.

An artistic descendant of Turner, Constable and Freidrich, Bovell has made it her objective to unveil the possibilities of association that are beheld by the sky. "The subject just keeps opening up, quite literally", Bovell says of her twelve year preoccupation with the sky. Through self-teaching and committed practice she has persisted with this interest and is now studying for her masters, completing public commissions with other media, and fulfilling a major role within the Mark Howlett Foundation (facilitating international experiences for Perth artists).

This exhibition 'crystallizes' two types of sky where Bovell uses opposite types of weather to define an uplifting and a foreboding influence on mood. They are manifest in two large scale oils on canvas, that are sensitively worked to recreate emotional experience, layering delicate applications of colour, sweeping the brush and weaving it at times, to create dimension. Classically rich surface follows from Bovell's research of those old masters who demonstrated effect with attention to atmospheric prophecy that a looming sky exudes the presence of the sublime.

People associate the sky with heaven, therefore with death, it is a symbol for desire as it represents the ether of things lost. The idea of desire is like loss, it's something you can't have. Bovell describes the symbolic relationships that exist between death and the unattainable, and the fact that advertising uses the sky readily as a vehicle to lure desire. "The billboard for Karrinyup Shopping Centre is an example, the advertisement depicted a blue sky with cumulous clouds and a slogan that stretched across the image: 'shopping heaven - without the unpleasant dying bit'." (Insensitive advertising placed near Karrakatta cemetery has adversely affected a travelling mourner.)

The sky is used often to sell products, being particularly easy to relate to. Advertising borrows much from art and vice versa. Bovell acknowledges that she too uses the sky to sell a product, yet her endeavours are positive. "I want to reinforce the idea of transformation, the sky representing the shifts of transcendence. In the act of painting, doing things over and over again, I am acting out an obsession, and like some catalyst this absolves that passion," becoming a small act of creation itself. Bovell is outside, looking frequently to study the movements and subtleties of her subject, doing small studies over and over towards a result. Seven of these studies feature in the exhibition, they are segments and represent fragments of the two greater pictures. One is a link between the two paintings, one half being dense and dark and the other light and fresh.

Sharing the exhibition space at the 'new' gallery is Jon Tarry, a friend and colleague, competitor and contemporary. Tarry and Bovell have a long affiliation, and some similar concerns, within their art practice. Tarry's presence includes three large scale sculptural relief's. With a strong sensitivity to his medium, Tarry shapes lengths of marine plywood and embosses angular lines across the surface which is treated with deep tones of colour. Using light layers of translucent colour, Tarry works it into the grain, and makes contrasts within the abstract landscape, interrogating notions of perspective. His work is equally beautiful, a male equivalent to the female tangent.

I look forward to appreciating more of the work of these quality artists, Penny Bovell and Jon Tarry.

All quotes taken from catalogue essay by Penny Bovell, and interview with the artist.