It’s a nocturnal scene characterised by blues, greens and yellows. The shapes and lines accommodate each other, alluding to staircases and torchlight. Painted by Emily Ferretti, the picture partly recalls the stairs and their iron railings leading towards friends’ flats. Ferretti also draws on found images and her imagination in the captured moments of her show Windows.
Spanning paintings, drawings on wood and installation, Ferretti’s exhibition continues her characteristic blend between figurative scenes, alongside a tendency towards abstraction. “On a formal level I think it’s more interesting to have both,” says Ferretti. “But also when it comes to the imagery I like to make, there’s often an internal and external in the one image. So it could be a landscape you’re looking at, but you could also be inside a house looking out of the window into the landscape.”
“I think growing up in country Victoria there is sometimes a rural vernacular in my work,” explains the artist. “I also think the work is about light and because of that, I think about landscapes. I think of the light in the studio, the light in the picture and the light in the paint.”
Even though Ferretti’s paintings are devoid of human presence, they ultimately gesture towards a human element through the framing device of windows. “It’s a portal into someone’s house, or looking out of your house into a landscape,” says Ferretti. “It’s about home and how when I’m jogging or going for walks, I’m often drawn to people’s windows, especially if it’s night and you can see the lights coming through, and you’re wondering who’s in there.”
Windows
Emily Ferretti
Sophie Gannon Gallery
11 July – 28 July
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