Sense of Place Exhibition Opening

You are invited to the "Sense of Place" Exhibition Opening - To be opened by Stewart MacFarlane

Sense of Place - Exhibition Opening

Please join us for the opening event 6 - 8pm Friday 13th March 2026

To be opened by Stewart MacFarlane

Mezzanine 55 Gallery - 55 Rundle Street, Kent Town, South Australia

Exhibition dates - 14th - 23rd March 2026

Gallery open hours - Mon to Fri 2pm - 7pm | Sat and Sun 11am - 7pm

Sense of Place

The paintings in this exhibition explore the idea of place, the subjective emotional connection each artist has to a location involving memories, associations and experiences.

For some artists, like Sophie Dunlop and Ross Harvey, these spaces tend to be more domestic and intimate, including treasured, inherited objects or scenes celebrating the artist’s garden in different seasons.

Brian Budgen, a regular exhibitor at Mezzanine 55, has painted his favourite subject, the Australian outback. The paintings for this exhibition are from a recent trip to the Flinders Ranges.

Aurora Paulina Kay loves to paint en plein air, bringing meaning and emotion to her local environment. Two boats on a riverbank come to symbolise the completion of a journey and the coming together of two souls.

James Stephenson is an intrepid traveller and gathers his subject matter from his travels abroad. The paintings in this exhibition are from a trip to India. They were painted en plein air in the ancient city of Varanasi, a destination for pilgrims where James found rich subject matter on the banks of the Ganges River.

Ryan Daffurn explores the Australian landscape with his intense reverence for European painting traditions. He uses these traditions to deal with the profound problem of how to connect to and feel at home in an external natural world. Some works appear surreal with a feeling of discomfort, and menace while others are more classical depictions of landscapes. The paintings in this exhibition were painted while he was doing a residency in South Australia at Sauerbier House in 2024. They focus on the Fleurieu Peninsula and were painted en plein air and developed back in his studio.