Grant Nimmo
Seldom sorrows
16 November - 17 December 2022

Seldom Sorrows is Grant Nimmo’s third solo exhibition at Daine Singer. Each painting depicts a scene from an Australian forest, with trees and gullies receding into dark unknown depths. Nimmo’s work to date has focussed on Australian and Scottish forests, informed by Celtic and Australian folklore, with dark environs shown devoid of people but alive with other forces. Works are situated in the dark and mossy, dank undergrowth of the forest floor, where only slithers of light penetrate. Nimmo's painted moments capture the shadowy fading light as night descends, giving us storybook beauty imbued with a darker presence.

Nimmo’s painting practice is in conversation with 19th century landscape painting. The Hall of Fernshaw (Wurundjeri land) was painted after Nimmo spent time contemplating an Isaac Whitehead painting from 1880, A spring morning near Fernshaw, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. Most works have been painted to the outer east of Naarm/Melbourne (including Kinglake and Mount Stirling), with the exception of a painting from Tasmania, and a small work painted at Tower Hill near Warrnambool.

Daydream daunted, driven, haunted (palawa land) is a scene from the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, painted from a photograph taken in the Park whilst hiking in 2016. Sunlight is entirely obscured by dense growth, and water flows over mossy rocks into dark pools of black. The ambiguous sense of threat that is often present in Nimmo's work, in this painting is human — the Franklin being the site of one of the country's most significant conservation battles.

Nimmo's works are exquisitely rendered and full of the beauty of wild nature. Formally, they often engage with devices of the sublime, particularly as it has historically been applied in landscape painting of Australian rainforests. The viewer is positioned to be overwhelmed by nature — horizons are obliterated, and the framing cannot contain the trees depicted.

Grant Nimmo has held solo exhibitions at Daine Singer (2021, 2016); Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland (2021, 2019); Fort Delta, Melbourne (2018); Westspace, Melbourne (2014); Chapter House Lane, Melbourne (2014); Sawtooth, Launceston (2013); Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne (2013, 2011, 2010); Stockroom Kyneton, Victoria (2012); TCB Art Inc (2011); Rearview Gallery, Melbourne (2010); and Evan Hughes Gallery, Sydney (2009). He has participated in group exhibitions at galleries including the National Gallery of Victoria, Ivan Anthony Gallery, Spring 1883, Bus Projects, Westspace, TCB Art Inc, Art Athena Athens Art Fair, Seventh, Anna Pappas, Death Be Kind, Korean International Art Fair, Melbourne Art Fair, Salamanca Art Centre and Gertrude Contemporary. In 2023 Nimmo will exhibit in Melbourne Now at the NGV. Nimmo has a Bachelor of Fine Art from Monash University. His work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and Artbank.