Deborah Boardman Matthew Fisher Nikki Lindt

This exhibition of three contemporary figurative painters; Deborah Boardman, Matthew Fisher and Nikki Lindt feature works depicting various psychological and physiological states. Each artist addresses, ‘existence rendering’, moments of circumstance and history that are contemplative and poetic portraits of identity and belonging.

Based on historical documentation of French trappers interactions with indigenous Americans, Deborah Boardman’s paintings of the Nation of Miami Indians, presents her subjects in French-influenced dress setting the stage for a provocative investigation into identity, adaptation and assimilation.

Matthew Fisher’s soldiers are seemingly on leave, lost, or deserters of an unknown army in an unknown place. The artist adds a collection of witty, often symbolic objects to these settings. In doing so he challenges assumptions while assigning new meaning to the pageantry of military uniform and circumstance.

Nikki Lindt’s intimate paintings focus on the natural environment; how we have become visitors although originating from nature. Her subjects mostly travel through beaches, mountains and forests and clumsily struggle to understand the relationship but are still one with it. They flounder with their footing, forcing them to let go of everyday problems and focus on and surrender to their surroundings. In this way it is a meditation of the meaning of nature in our lives and a release of self-importance.

These paintings all investigate subjects who seem ill prepared for the circumstances in which they find themselves; indigenous visitors in their own skins.