ArtChat [Blog Interview #46] – Dan Mason

DAN MASON will be exhibiting with emerging Melbourne artist Echo Chai at Red Hill Gallery in Brisbane, Friday 7 -24 March 2014.

Striking colours and urban scenes bring together the harmonious balance of the works by Chai & Mason.
Dan Mason is an emerging Australian artist on the rise. He has a Visual Arts major from Griffith University where he studied a Bachelor of Arts degree. He has been selected as a finalist in several regional and national art prizes, including The Churchie Emerging Art Award and The Cancer Council of Victoria’s Art Prize and national tour.

His abstracted mixed media approach allows him the freedoms to explore differing surface tensions and interactions, even when painting perceivably realistic subjects.

Dan’s work utilizes dramatic, free-flowing brushstrokes; paint pours, swirls, plays with differing levels of opacity and often finds greater resolution by scraping paint away from the surface than applying it.

Luscious oils are interjected by the movement of spray paint, while acrylics and enamels repel and simultaneously find a harmonious balance within each others presence.

Mason’s work captures the kind of movement and energy that is best appreciated in the flesh.

For Red Hill Gallery Director Margaret Campbell-Ryder, the collaboration of Chai and Mason in this exhibition has surpassed all expectations. 

Campbell-Ryder says ‘Mason’s textured paintings embrace his interpretation of our natural environment and simply leap off the canvas.

Artist Statement

“It is my intention, through painting, to share the joys of our existence, to capture the layers and complexities that we face as humans and as custodians of our magnificent planet. I work on several canvases over a period of time – the work is initially intuitive, making a mark, moving to the next, revisiting and responding to their individual energies – essentially allowing them to grow organically, they let me know when they’re resolved with a vibration that I can only compare to looking into the eyes of a loved one. My work is influenced by the ocean and our natural world.  Being a lifetime surfer coupled with the experiences of spending months at sea as a child on-board the ships that my father worked on have shaped my love and appreciation of open spaces and our natural environment. I refrain from a realistic approach and still let the bold gestural movement of the brush or palette knife tell the story.”  Dan Mason 2014

©  Red Hill Gallery