Island of Misfits | Steve Lopes

Steve Lopes returns with 'Island of Misfits', exploring mysterious, imagined landscapes and their curious newcomers.

A figurative landscape artist, Steve Lopes builds a narrative within the landscape, continuing his emotive exploration of the migratory experiences of peoples to new places.

Anchored by his personal experience, Lopes’ lens looks to the history of migration to Australia and New Zealand over the last 100 years – countries that were considered the end of the world not too long ago.

Balancing the terrain of the familiar and unfamiliar, Lopes depicts unknown figures and empty landscapes accompanied by objects and trails for the viewer to encounter. The careful and curious placement of objects, and figures throughout the works speak of the migratory experience – with family keepsakes and tools carefully transported as memories and aids to these new found places.

Either still, or moving through the landscape, the silent figures represent personal and collective experiences of diaspora and displacement. Situated in the sometimes overwhelming and expansive landscape there is a sense of the epic journey ahead – whether the subjects are en route to a destination or metaphorically in the process of creating connections to a new place.

As a whole the silent landscapes and solitary figures are misfits together, presented in points of encounter. It is this raw, yet subtle expression of the emotive migratory experience that establishes Lopes as an evocative storyteller.

EXHIBITION
Steve Lopes | Island of Misfits
Until 1 July, 2017
Mitchell Fine Art, Brisbane

Courtesy the artist and Mitchell Fine Art Gallery, Brisbane.