Landscape study in textured Ochre. A particularly good example of Brutalist decorative art from the 1970s, finished with a wide and beautifully made limed and gilded cedar frame.

Intense colour and deep texture. This work generates glowing warmth on the wall. It sits really well among other works and can handle colour saturation around it.

It has a level of quality and taste in the framing choice that makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. There's a nice shadow line around the mounted work on board, then a fine gilt champher and a wide flat plane of limed cedar, beautifully chamfered to the outer edge.

The frame makes the whole work sit off the wall and casts a nice shadow line itself. Beautifully conceived work and beautifully framed. It looks like it just stepped off the pages of a 1970s copy of Architectural Digest. Yum.

About the artist:

Aina Nicmanis is an Australian artist of Latvian heritage. Her work can be found in public and private collections across Australia. She was most active from 1959 to the end of the 1970s. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, pottery, and weaving.

Her paintings have been included in major prizes in Australia, such as the Wynne prize. The Wynne Prize (established 1897) is an annual Australian art prize awarded by the Art Gallery of NSW for the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or the best example of figurative sculpture by an Australian artist. It showcases artists' responses to the land.

An entry to the Wynne prize by Nicmanus was acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW in 1975. Her works primarily explore the Australian landscape through materiality, texture and bold, direct colour, setting a mood that is immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the Australian landscape.

CONDITION:

A light scratch or ding to the frame here and there, indicated in the images supplied by pointing with a sharp pencil. This work is about 50 years old and has some wear but still presents impressively well.

MEASURES:

80cm H x 65cm W x 5cm D