Catherine Asquith Gallery presents: The Dawn Said Something Strange to Me, an exhibition by: Andrew Mezei.  Andrew Mezei has been a professional practising artist since the early 1990s. He has participated in numerous art prize exhibitions, most notably, as a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize on several occasions, winning the prize in 2008; a finalist in the The ANL Maritime Art Prize (2008); a finalist in the Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize (2009) and finalist in The Archibald Prize (2011) for his portrait of Prof. Penny Sackett. In 2011 he was included in the curated group show, Boundary Lines (Aug-Oct) at the Tarrawarra Museum of Modern Art. He is represented in the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, and the Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong.

"We no longer hear the signals nature sends us. Our relationship to nature is fractured: last year, leading scientists warned that we are probably the last generation that has enough time to avoid a likely mass extinction event. Yet our society seems strangely unresponsive to these warnings.

The paintings run the course of a single day, from dawn to evening. Within this short day, I search with measured urgency for our place in nature; a way to reconnect with the rich ecosystems which support our lives.

Our hope, or our potential destruction are contained in our choices around such things as technology, ideology and policy. The paintings explore this duality through objects which could be either ruins or jewels in a landscape where humans might ultimately be reconciled to nature, or entirely extinguished from it.

I seek a spiritual footing on shifting ground. For guidance, I look not to prophets, but to the knowledge bearers of our age, and I turn to a creation story more ancient and complex than imagination could conceive.

In summary, this exhibition is my attempt to absorb the metaphysical implications of our civilization in transition. The journey begins with a red dawn and becomes a race against the darkness."

-Andrew Mezei