Landscape is never really about the actual land, it’s about what the viewer wants or expects to find in that particular place. It’s about the lure and mystery of a blurred horizon and the onlooker’s speculation over what some undefined shape in the distance may actually be.

Mark Rodda creates both abstract and figurative paintings. This work often features combinations of both painterly and geometric forms. His recent non-representational work employs handmade synthetic polymer 'tiles' in conjunction with the manipulation of synthetic polymer liquids to form an ultra-flat and unique painting surface..

Mark Rodda's figurative paintings usually take the form of a Romantic or Magical Landscape. These fabricated worlds, although often uninhabited, sometimes become a stage for interactions between people, animals, or enchanted entities.

Mark Rodda was born in Tasmania and lives and works in Melbourne. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the University of Tasmania, Launceston, in 1994 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) at RMIT, Melbourne in 1999. He has held 19 solo exhibitions since 1995 and participated in numerous group shows in Australia, New Zealand and Europe. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Glover Prize (for landscape) in Evandale, Tasmania.

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UPCOMING
Stockroom Kyneton, gallery one
13 August / 18 Septembre 2022

MARK RODDA
Meander Glade

Mark Rodda’s recent exhibitions have featured a strange dialogue between his figurative and abstract works. At times these two forms converge, threatening to become a single entity. In other times, such as in Meander Glade, they seem poles apart. Mander Glade shows little overlap between the figurative and non-representational work featured, it’s as if they were painted by two different artists. The artist could surely simplify things if he decided to abandon one or the other, but, as if choosing between children, Mark Rodda would not dream of prioritising one over the other. If this was an exercise in logic there might be a problem, luckily an art exhibition is a safe place where logic is not a prerequisite.

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Stockroom Kyneton, gallery two
08 May / 20 June 2021

MARK RODDA
Gossamer Trail

Mark Rodda creates both abstract and figurative paintings. This work often features combinations of both painterly and geometric forms. His recent non-representational work employs handmade synthetic polymer 'tiles' in conjunction with the manipulation of synthetic polymer liquids to form an ultra-flat and unique painting surface.. Mark Rodda's figurative paintings usually take the form of a Romantic or Magical Landscape. These fabricated worlds, although often uninhabited, sometimes become a stage for interactions between people, animals, or enchanted entities.

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Stockroom Kyneton, gallery one
09 June / 08 July 2018

MARK RODDA
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral explores the classic role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, its layered narratives and the moral choices and personalities of the many characters within it. Examining the grand scheme of his exhibition experience and oeuvre, Rodda sees himself in this context more as an actor, or the director of a movie, as opposed to someone who is exposing their true soul. Some of his exhibitions are clean and neat, some are brash, some subtle. ‘Chaotic neutral’ is the theme for this group of paintings in which Rodda has decided that "WHIM IS KING” whilst using 'neutrality' to signify that he doesn’t have, and has never had, any inclination to teach any moral, social, scientific, or philosophical lessons to the viewer.

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