New Works
Defiance Gallery
47 Enmore Road, Newtown, 2042
+61 2 9557 8483.
Brad Munro's exhibition is a working out of his own spiritual journey in the context of a life long trip. Even though his paintings are a means of self-realisation in his words, "we are left with the painting".
 A small section of painting. | "My work is around energy fields". They are a grid, or map if you like, of the energy of all being, of which everything is composed. It is best appreciated from the position of God or from the perspective of a being who knows itself to be nothing more than energy. |
Munro is a graduate of the National Art School and built his exhibiting career with shows at artist cafes and artist run spaces like First. He was proud to be hung in the Salon Des Refusal and currently has a show of New Works at Defiance and a winning artwork hanging in the Mosman Gallery.
Munro takes inspiration for his painting from traditional Indian art. He begins with the observation that everything, he included, is energy. Munro explains that there are two kinds of art in "Indian Art", the religious and the decorative. To understand the religious art you need to assume the position of God to see what the artist is offering you. From this position you can participate in the painting at every level.
This spiritual dynamic has an existential element in that Munro's canvases do entice you to rove over them. Your eye moves around the colours and forms, you do not assume a static stance.
 Rapture | In this green landscape Munro meditates on the "art of living" (Joseph Campbell), as he paints a Paradise Lost. But as he explains, the way people interact with this fecund landscape depends exclusively on the people who look at it. His personal spiritual journey took a path through the shadow side of his personality, the disowned side of one's self. |
He paints colours and objects that aren't where a man is supposed to go in Munro's culture. He pushes questions like, why do I find it so hard to use pink and green together. He seeks subjects that trespass on manly taboos, like butterfly wings and other things he connects to when he was a child.
