Liverpool Street Gallery is pleased to announce a new solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Sydney-based artist Steven Harvey continuing his long-held interest in abstraction, titled Little Bird Prophecies.

“Painting to me is an adventurous and intuitive practice.” (Steven Harvey, 2014)

Diverse landscapes, places, and personal experiences – particularly those related to the human heart, and the physical embrace – are the central focus of Steven Harvey’s new body of work. With heightened colours influenced by trips to India and Papua New Guinea, and simplified forms, Harvey endeavours to “convey the essence of being enveloped by the landscape, or ‘held' within it like an embrace”. Large-scale paintings such as Held – Island (2014) and Held – Dream Tree (2014) feature strong gestural markings subsumed within their surroundings. Little Bird Prophecies references an earlier body of work titled Night Bird (2004), in which dynamic brushstrokes of thick impasto paint suspend mysterious configurations within their frame or window.

Harvey’s painting practice explores his own personal philosophy. Rather than a literal depiction, his abstractions are open-ended interpretations of the human condition. Harvey is “inspired by isolation, love, sorrow, light and dark, the landscape and it's diversity”. Heavily impastoed surfaces are characteristic of Harvey’s work. The layers upon layers of oil paint become sculptural forms in themselves. In a topographical sense, his process relates to landscape as paint is applied, sanded back then reapplied, like the erosion and build up of sediment. Working mainly with oils, as well as inks, pure pigment and acrylics, Harvey’s paintings wield a strong material presence. They exude physicality, not only in their scale, but also in the grit, rasp and coagulation of paint.