Everything Nothing

 “If only, we're nothing at all”                                           

 Josh Homme

Everything, Nothing is the third solo exhibition from the Hobart based artist Alex Davern.  These new paintings continue his investigation into the transformative power of everyday objects into quiet images, inducing contemplative stillness. Sitting on the boundary between minimal abstraction and the figurative, Alex reduces his images into near monochromatic paintings derived from his archive of personal photographic documentation.

Davern explains, “I'm inspired by my immediate surroundings as I find them, I enjoy focusing on the miscellaneous, sundry items that find their way into my daily routines. As such, my work documents my life and functions as an indirect kind of self-portraiture while deepening my understanding of the connection between myself, culture and my surrounds. I consider these works to be distillations of personal spaces, memory and time.” This body of work has been informed by visual artists Agnes Martin and Mark Rothko alongside the teachings of philosopher Eckhart Tolle.

In 2013 Alex won the Tasmanian Portraiture Prize after graduating from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2012. He utilises architecture and colour to create emotional spaces inducing stillness, humour and tension. Alex's practice spans painting, drawing, and video. His work has been shown nationally and internationally and is being collected privately and publicly, including the National Gallery of Australia and the Brooklyn Art Library.