Un-Regional, Gippsland Art Gallery 2022

Kevin Chin’s new exhibition is inspired by unprecedented sea change and tree change. Last year Australia witnessed the largest internal migration away from capital cities in twenty years.

Kevin explains, “I’ve been influenced by the greater fluidity between metropolitan, regional and rural Australia, as more people have been working - and daydreaming - remotely from home. I’ve always been interested in how migration has sparked hybrid ways of seeing geography, and now that’s even more relevant on a wider scale. I think this feeling of being somehow in between places is now something we can all directly relate to.”

These atmospheric paintings intersperse farmland with open ocean, suburban houses with waterfalls, Western Australian rocks with Victorian barnyard haystacks and Queensland tropical rainforest. Elements from all over Australia are mixed together with other parts of the world, to remind us that our sense of belonging begins in our imagination. Through a meticulous process of building up oil glazes, they evolve into shimmering dreamscapes.

This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Outstation 138 x 199 cm
oil on Italian linen

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Finalist in the Fisher’s Ghost Award 2023,
Campbelltown Arts Centre Sydney

Afield
138 x 199 cm
Oil on Italian linen

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Finalist in the Len Fox Prize 2022, Castlemaine Art Museum

Sneaky Guest
199 x 148 cm
Oil on Italian linen

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Come Through
138 x 107 cm
Oil on Italian linen

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Wide Open
138 x 199 cm
Oil on Italian linen

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