Harbourside is an exhibition of oil paintings by Femantle artist Jane Tangney and encompasses the theme of the Fremantle Harbour.

Tangney is aware of the imposition that commodification of the Fremantle Port represents, and seeks to articulate her concerns for the maintenance of the Port's original essence.  This original essence or 'soul' is undeniable hard core working class, industrial, a major location of international exchange for Australia's highest earning export state, and yet isolated from the rest of the world.

Tangney perceives fragility in the current state of Fremantle Harbour, using the paint as a metaphor for a delicate balance.  The paintings are striking for their materiality, emulating the markings on the environment made by the permanent structures of buildings, storage vessels and bitumen ground. Tangney effectively beautifies what may normally be regarded as 'ugly' - the obtusity of industrial construction.

By contextualising the Port we can see that beauty already exists at Fremantle Harbour, so why the need to manufacture some idealistic aesthetic which consequently negates the original essence of the Port?  This is the message that comes across in Tangney's paintings.  She shows us ways of looking into nooks and crannies, or from above (as in Harbour Aerial) that reveal the wharf's core.  We are reminded of childhood fascinations, in the days when fishing boats cluttered precariously near the nominated site for the new Maritime Museum.

Tangney's use of colour, which at once conveys her emotional sincerity, is sometimes as frightening as teetering on the edge of the wharf, or as sublime as the coastline looking South to Rous Head.  What emerges is continuous elemental spaces, the water and air, that envelopes man made structures, which are reduced to finely constructed lines arranged pragmatically with the skill of a crane driver.  All of the physical characteristics of the Port exist within relative, clever networks.  Containers, the silos, petrol vats, dockings and cranes are simplified into thin lines, squares and gentle shifts of colour on scratched, chalky or distressed surfaces.

This exhibition embodies every particle of the artist's integrity and is visually beautiful and poetic.  These paintings are an absolute must to view.