Lloyd Rees has made a significant contribution to the history of Australian landscape painting. His mastery of medium and subject matter continues to mesmerize us, with the iridescent opulence of his oil paintings and the curves of nature in his drawings, defined with the ultimate affinity for natural forms. This current exhibition reflects the artist's moods and moments flowing throughout his entire career until his death at the age of 93.

Dedicated to the representation of light, Rees's early drawings reveal his pre-occupation with portraying the drift of light and shadow on architectural and land forms asserting that it is light which reveals the truth of matter. Hamilton Street, Sydney (1918) reveals a sharp ray illuminating the facade of a Gothic building at the rear of a darkened alley. Two figures provide directional cues in the foreground, one standing in the affecting light, another darkened. Although the artist employs fictional characters to occupy the settings, his subject rarely focuses on the man made, just evidence of man's place within the natural environment to suggest the environment occupies man, not the reverse.

Rees projects his awe of the universe onto paper and canvas with incredible diligence and attention to detail. He was concerned more with the symbolic mysteries of the sun and its effects than with accurate representation of the surrounding elements. The studies on exhibition from the early 1930's are finely worked and resemble drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. In Harbour Foreshore Rees delicately shades the reflections in the water of beautifully rotund and deep pocketed rocks. The ambience of Rees's drawings are quietly reflective and reveal long periods of meditation. The artist achieves a point of oneness with his subject, which leads him to an understanding about the ephemeral character of reflected sunlight. When he had studied and worked monochromatically with light and shadow to give definition to form, he turned to colour with impressive results.

From the 1940's to the 1970's Rees produced his most notable and characteristic paintings. His valley landscapes Gerringong Landscape (1943) and Razorback, New South Wales (1957) investigate cues of perspective with filtered light through shifting rain clouds. Whereas the nocturnal Evening Star (1944-58) has romantic touches of light on rouged hills and teal sky. Although evocative, his paintings are not sentimental with longing, rather they celebrate the joys of colour. Australian Facade (c.1965) is a classic example of the manner of this period. Heavy applications of pigment with scratched and scraped surfaces recall the textures of aged rough rocky cliffs that seem less brushed and more sculptural then his previous work. The paintings have a strong physicality with subdued refractions of light and nuances of colour. Rees captures movement of water along a rocky ravine in Pacific Facade 2 (1969) adding a figure in the foreground, almost unnoticed among the swirling pools of colour. The catalogue notes that Rees sought not to depict topographical realities but to assemble a scene that created certain pictorial effects.

In the 1970's Rees's style shifts again, the palette softening with brushstrokes overlapping outlined backgrounds. Hazy diffused first light of day features in Morning at Omega (1971-72) and Early Morning, Lake Illawarra (1976). The artist is tuning down the incidental circumstances to emphasize the atmosphere of the air and elements. By the late 1970's the artist's gestures have reduced to sweeping lines of suggestion. The palette of this period is more astringent with yellows, aquas and pale pinks that evoke the bright light at Sydney Harbour. Rees takes these ordinarily elusive tones and creates marvellous arbitrary scenes with childlike whimsy. Looking East - Mid Afternoon (1978) is the style of approach which apparently influenced Brett Whitely's interpretation of the Harbour.

At this point Rees's studies were reduced to spontaneous notes on form and colour as he turned his attention to lithography. The Caloola Suite (1980) is a return to the lucid voluminous style of his early studies in black and white. With the aid of lithographer Fred Genis, Rees continued to produce images until his late days, finalizing with a subject of fascination, the Sydney Opera House in Tribute to Jern Utzon in 1988.

There is much to be admired in the work of Lloyd Rees and this exhibition provides an adequate taste of this man's incredible efforts. The concept of the endlessness of humanity that beset the artist's life symbolically continues with the legacy of his life's work. May the mysteries continue to elude us with the teasing illuminations that occur on our path.