Mary TONKIN
Ramble, Kalorama (detail) 2017-19
oil on linen
180 x 1890 cm
Photo: Matthew Stanton
16th May – 29th Jun 2025
Bennett Gallery
Rambles is an exhibition of large immersive paintings and the pencil, charcoal and ceramic drawings that underpin them. Made in the bush over long periods they capture responses to changing light, seasons, viewpoints and sensations.
“I currently work entirely en plein air in the damp, fern-rich bush of Corhanwarrabul / Mt Dandenong, Victoria. Tucked in the bush on the farm where I grew up, I am most at ease, most able to be open and present, fingertips tingling with awareness — most able to convey sensations as they arise. I need to be able to touch the nearest forms, to have a sense of moving in and between as I find and re-find how they intersect and interlace in space. I would like my work to proceed, to reach out and embrace, to convey a visceral sense of being present to the forms and the other senses that animate them — the temperature, sounds and smells, thoughts and memories. I hope my work conveys an ever-present moment, an elastic or at least complex sense of time and awareness.” Mary Tonkin, 2025
About the Artist:
Landscape painter Mary Tonkin completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 1995 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2002 at Monash University, where she has also lectured. Mary has held solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney since 1999. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery and internationally in New York. She was awarded the National Gallery of Victoria Trustee Award in 1994 and 1995 and Dobell Drawing Prize in 2002. She was the recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant in 1998 and Australian Postgraduate Fellowship Award in 2000. Mary’s work is held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria and several regional and tertiary institutions.
Mary is represented by Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney.