Liz Coats & Eva Heimer
Sir Hermann Black Gallery
June 25 to July 13 2002

This exhibition has its origins in the relationship that has been steadily building
between The University of Sydney Union, Sir Hermann Black Gallery and Galerija Equrna in Ljubljana Slovenia. The exhibition of paintings by Liz Coats and Eva
Heimer, was curated with a view of building cultural links between Slovenia and Australia. It was presented initially at Galerija Equrna, Ljubljana and this is the return showing.

In Australia we are familiar with Liz Coats' work, as she has spent nearly thirty years of her career here. Not so with Eva Heimer, who has spent the past twenty years of her career in Ljubljana. A chronological similarity, but hardly enough to link two artists. The real link lies in their work.

Both Artists in this exhibition deal with abstraction in colour and purpose as a
mathematician deals with the proposition of an intriguing equation. There is a certain geometry embedded in the composition of their paintings and goes deeper than the golden mean and refers to an organisation of space, whether symmetric or asymmetric, that is quiet universal.

Artist, Liz Coats (left) and Melita Jazbec, Secretary, Slo Aus Institute

 

Images from the Opening night

Artist, Liz Coats (left) discussing her paintings with some guests

Combining her own sunken geometry with carefully chosen tertiary colours Eva Heimer produces small, sensual triumphs of structure and harmony. Her works, that initially appear to have a random nature, are laden with concentration and are so carefully balanced that there is a sense that each colour has its own level and weight without which, both form and structure would be lost. Liz Coats' work create an immense shift from those of Eva Heimer. Her paintings are more obviously constructed with layers of colour organised geometrically across the whole plane. The working process is balanced between predetermined layering methods and combinatory outcomes that are uncontrived so that accidental correspondences emerge, particular in the integration of 'wet' colour. An issue for both artists, is how to convey an experience of colour apart from line and perspective that is a pervasive shaping of space that the ey recognises.

Within her whole practice Liz Coats has applied a rigorously cerebral and meditative discipline and observes that '... An images is recognised in its active capacity in the moment and depending on the ability of the viewer to remain steady within an experience of surrounding flux (as in meditation - to be within the experience)... Hanging on a wall, the painting may simply be a reminder of one's interior connectedness to things 'outside' of the self.

Nick Vickers, 2002.

Liz Coats is represented in Australia by Utopia Art Gallery, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo, NSW
Website: www.lizcoats.orcon.net.nz

Eva Heimer is represented in Slovenia by Galerija Equrna, Gregorciceva 3, 1000 Lljubljana

Acknowledgment: Ministry for Culture, Government of the Republic of Slovenia.

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