Night Change, 2022, Oil on board, 36 x 30cm
25 April - 25 October 2026
Salon is a painting exhibition. It is also an exhibition of paintings. Some forty paintings, made by an intergenerational group of artists are staged throughout Lismore’s galleries in a theatrical mise-en-scène.
The exhibition’s title describes a formal device, where the paintings are choreographed in a salon-like hang, often in close proximity to one another – as well as alluding to the idea of the gallery as an animated, social space: literally a ‘salon’, a place where people might come together. The paintings are accompanied by an informal gathering of chairs – sourced from both private and public settings in the Lismore community – which visitors are encouraged to make use of.
The paintings in Salon at Lismore Castle Arts are mostly figurative or representational. They are mostly domestically-scaled. If a large-scale painting suggests perhaps a more public intent – for example the declarative ambitions of “history painting” – then the works in Salon operate instead in a more intimate fashion, almost insisting upon closer scrutiny from the viewer.