Image: August Porter
October 25, 2024 - January 17, 2025
Finssage: Friday January 17, 4:30-6:30pm
The Exhibition Space, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Free entry, all welcome
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You can find Between Dream and Reality in The Mill’s Gallery II, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery II is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
The Mill is excited to present Between Dream and Reality, a new Showcase exhibition featuring The Mill studio residents Gough Pitawat and August Porter. The exhibition features landscape paintings by these two emerging artists, whose individual styles create dreamlike, hazy and abstract interpretations of the natural world. We're thrilled to be able to profile these two artists alongside each other, with their distinct practices that compliment each other.
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Artist Statement
I am an impressionistic landscape artist. My work focuses on creating artworks that influence the audience’s feelings through forms, movements, and colours, transporting them to the places I depict not just visually, but as if they were experiencing them firsthand.
To me, a landscape is not just the sky, the trees, or the mountains. The subject matter is only a part of the landscape. My works encompass the entire environment, aiming to make the audience feel the wind blowing, the warmth of the sun, or the chill of a breeze in the air.
Through experimentation, I developed a unique oil painting technique and mixture that leaves brush marks on the canvas to enhance the sense of movement. This technique captures the motion of clouds drifting across the sky and bushes swaying in the wind. I want my works to feel alive.
By using colours to mimic the atmosphere, I evoke sensations such as the feeling of green grass on a hot and humid day, the comfort of being in a particular place, the discomfort of a storm, or the emptiness in your chest when gazing at the evening sky.
The land holds feelings and memories, causing past events to flash back every time you visit a place. To me, landscapes represent inspiration, hope, and sentimental.
Biography
Gough Pitawat was born in a small village in Thailand in 1989 and relocated to Australia in 2014. Although he had a passion for art, considering it initially as a hobby, he began to pursue it more seriously in 2017.
Over the course of five years, Gough has engaged in intensive training and practice, focusing primarily on classical and realist approaches. However, he felt that this focus alone was not enough, so he decided to enrol in art school in 2022.
Gough chose to major in Photography to gain a deeper understanding of the elements that influence the emotional impact of photographs and the techniques used in image composition. His objective was to integrate this knowledge of composition, conceptualization, and development into his own artistic practice.
During the academic year, his work was recognized as one of 'The Australian Top 40 Emerging Photographers of 2022' by Capture magazine, marking a significant step forward in his career within the art world. Unfortunately, due to financial hardships, Gough has been unable to continue his studies. Therefore, has sought alternative opportunities, eventually finding a place at The Mill, where he is now continuing to cultivate his artistic practice and advance his skills.
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When not painting in studio at The Mill, you’ll find artist August Porter getting her hands dirty in the garden. As an abstract and semi-abstract painter and landscape designer, she draws inspiration from her home’s surrounding bushland. After years of observing the environment and being a passionate gardener, August truly understands nature’s rhythm. Her deep connection to the natural world allows her to paint the peaceful and dynamic life force.
Self-taught, with years of painting as a hobby, August took the leap to full-time artist in 2020-and has not looked back. As an intuitive painter, she evokes the elusive and intangible, reflecting what can only be felt or sensed as an indescribable beauty of the landscape.
August’s work explores beyond the surface of what we see and embodies the land’s spirit. She creates depth through layers, and fluid strokes result in dynamic movements within the paintings.
Rarely static, each piece depicts the fleeting yet eternal, continuous cycle of life. She’s currently exploring these themes on a larger scale and is excited to see what emerges.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.