For his exhibition at SITE Santa Fe he has titled Gelderland from one of the paintings in the show Australian painter Stephen Bush will present a significant body of new works made since 2000 along with a selection of earlier works. Merging representation and abstraction, his canvases explore serial imagery in an apocalyptic palette. Often appearing to have an intrinsic dichotomy created by constant juxtapositions (old and new; man-made and organic), Bush creates a visual argument within his work in an exploration of Australia’s post-colonial identity. He often pairs hermetic figures or structures with heroic landscapes in vibrant, clashing colors that seem at odds with the silent, introverted activities they depict. This exhibition will feature works from several series, including Beekeepers, The Lure of Paris, and his most recent Cabin paintings.

Enjoying a well-established reputation in Australia, painter Stephen Bush has become renowned for his intriguing landscapes that depict an array of disparate subjects, including potatoes, elephants, farm machinery, and rubbish bins, to name a few. In his recent landscape paintings (known as his Cabin series), the artist extends his surreal world into an exploration of the unconscious. Fascinated by images of the alpine vista and mountain locations, Bush incorporates images of these anonymous, remote locales into works that he considers to be metaphorical expressions for life’s quest for personal or cultural fulfillment.

Bush’s work has been exhibited in Signs of Life: Melbourne International Biennial 1999; Bad Toys and How Say You at the Australian Centre for the Arts. Solo shows include those at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, Goff + Rosenthal Gallery, New York, and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut. His exhibition at SITE is his first major museum show in the United States since 1991. Born in 1955 in Colac, Victoria, Bush lives and works in Melbourne where he received his BFA and Graduate Diploma from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1978.

The exhibition is supported in part by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia; Arts Victoria; and Goff+Rosenthal, New York.