This December Boom Gallery will host A Lullaby For Suffering, a collection of 19 works by local painter and art educator Sam Massey exploring the peace that can be found in darkness.
Massey’s works, a mixture of still life floral imagery and curious but dynamic vignettes, all display a heavy, dark palette full of rich greens and reds among the everpresent shades of black.
For Massey, the concept of darkness is linked with calmness, a “quiet, meditative state”.
“An interesting thread through all the works – which wasn’t intentional but became apparent – was a sense of quiet… a kind of dark peace,” Massey said.
“I didn’t set out with a theme specifically, I think it developed. In terms of theme, the palette probably does most of the work there.
“The tone of it, the darkness, I think it sets the feeling for it, that aesthetic came together to give it a cohesion.
“In terms of the title, it was more the title fit the paintings more so than working paintings towards the title. It’s a line from a Leonard Cohen song, ‘a lullaby for suffering and a paradox to blame’, which I think is quite evocative.”
The music of Cohen, Bob Dylan and Nick Cave has been a constant for Massey for much of his career, sometimes acting as a “guide” for his work.
“It’s probably becoming a more abstract influence; particularly through art school and the early years (after), I’ve never strayed from listening to those particular artists.”
“They share a kind of darkness in their work that I find really interesting,” he said.
“I’ve been quite fortunate in life to avoid much of that myself, but their work, and (that of) people like David Lynch, Yorgos Lanthimos, I’ve always found that really compelling to spend some time with, soak a bit of that up and then reflect it in my own work.”
A Lullaby For Darkness is one of Boom’s three December exhibitions, running from December 7 to 22, with an opening celebration on Saturday, December 9.
