A RT GA L L E R Y Sho p 59 , Capi to l Arcade (Bas ement Level ) . 11 3 S w an sto n S tr eet Me lb ou rn e CB D, 30 00 E nt e r v i a Ho we y P l ace. H OURS : Tu e s - S at 1 1am - 5pm in f o @f o rtde l ta .co m .au f o rt d e l t a.co m. au (03) 8804 0888 Please direct all enquiries to info@fortdelta.com.au Iren e Wel l m Secon d Sel f. 30 A p ril - 9 M ay Irene Wellm, She gathers under her shadow, 160 x 114 cm, Gouache on Arches paper, 2014 Irene Wellm’s work is characterized by a surreal and understated darkness. Her emblematic, large-scaled gouache paintings on paper depict figures that blend between recognizable human forms and other animalistic entities extracted from popular folklore and Greek mythology to form collage-like painted tableaus. In her exhibition Second Self at Fort Delta, Wellm’s paintings assert the theatrical convention of the disguise to partially merge and reveal the distinct characters she depicts. The scenarios behind Wellm’s paintings suggest the pseudo-anonymous entities she reveals to us are colloquial to and extracted from the stuff of nightmares - or at the very least our recollected experiences of darkly surreal dreamtime. In her paintings, a woman’s body appears struggling under the weight of a Bison’s head, resembling the fabled Minotaur of Greek mythology. Another depicts the fixed and devoured gaze of a young narcissist, revealed as a predatory wolf. Wellm’s new series of monochromatic paintings have evolved from her interest in shedding light on a deeper experience with reality through her inner psyche – her “second self ” - and plays a key role in linking the various suspended narratives she reveals to us through the strangeness of our own dreamtime and the apparitions that occupy those worlds. -Irene Wellm resides in Melbourne, Australia where in 2001 she completed a Master of Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout a thirty-year career in Australia, and internationally in the United Kingdom, Korea and Germany. In 2001 when she won the Emerging Artist award at the Darebin LaTrobe Acquisitive Art Prize. She has been a consistent finalist in a number of art prizes - most recently the 2014 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize. Internationally she represented Australia as one of three artists in the UBS Art Award 2000, at Whitechapel Gallery, London. In 2012 she was awarded the New Works Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to complete a research residency in Leipzig, Germany. A second Leipzig residency in 2014 culminated in an exhibition there, supported by the Australia Council Visual Arts Travel Fund. In Australia Irene’s work is held in the collections of ArtBank, the Ballarat Regional Gallery, the City of Darebin Art Collection, La Trobe University, and Stockwell Downs; and in private collections in Australia, Germany, Switzerland and the U.S.A.