Press

Solo exhibition at Manyung Gallery Mount Eliza, May 2017

"Manyung Gallery Mount Eliza has its eye on the elements this May with an exceptionally evocative landscape show by oil painter Sharyn McCombe.

McCombe’s art explores the way in which our environment swirls and crashes around us. Layers and scrapes, scratches and wipes work from within her canvas’ to celebrate what lies beneath. Seduction of the senses plays a big part in her art. You want to jump in and play hide and seek.

She explains: “The mist and sea fog fascinate me. I started taking my horse down to Balnarring Beach for exercise and was overwhelmed by the weather patterns around me. The fog falling over Red Hill. I’m always taking snaps of the weather!”

McCombe has been an art teacher (Bachelor of Arts and Crafts), won multiple prizes for oil and pastel work, and has just completed a fine art diploma at Chisholm. “I think I’d be a perpetual student if I could. I love learning as much as I can about the medium. There’s always something new” and technique is what makes these deceptively free-form works of art wander through your soul. Yes, you can see traces of a Turner or Tasmanian artists Philip Wolfhagen or Geoff Dyer (her inspirations) in that they all speak of the hidden, but McCombe’s work unequivocally reveals her love affair with the Peninsula and the inventiveness it inspires."