My aesthetic concerns are focused on trying to capture a sense of in-betweenness and becoming through process and medium that responds to the idea of time. Capturing a trace moment in time, a crescendo, much like a line of music or a verse of poetry. Similar to the here and now, my paintings are small excerpts from a greater continuum.

I am interested in exploring the uncertainty that comes when I surrender control and am unconstrained by conscious thought. With this comes accidental and uncontrollable outcomes, creating opportunities and reactions, that are unexpected and otherwise inaccessible.

For me it is important to embrace my working process, allowing what usually remains hidden and is traditionally not intended for presentation, to be seen. Inviting the viewer to re-enact the process gives the painting openness, energy, movement and space to breathe. Thus, creating a sense that the paintings are never finished and remain very much alive.”

“Good for the Gander is a body of five monochromatic paintings, each of depicting a portrait surrounded by patterned and repeated illustrations of birdlife. The subject matter of my work looks to comment on notions of toxic masculinity, drawing parallels between young men and the locally hated birds of Sydney. Painted in acrylics and drawn with inks my colourful paintings look to question the comfort of young men partaking in toxic behaviour or with a destructive mentality. Likening these young men to the scavenging birds surviving under the loathsome eye of many Sydneysiders I aim to provoke my generation of men to move away from the all too easy stereotypes placed upon them by society. This work was conceived after experiencing some of my most open-minded male friends furthering destructive gender stereotypes, sparking me to want to display how sometimes even the most liberal thinking men can find it difficult moving away from such gendered roles. Similar to the birds of Sydney, young men would find life easier living in harm-free environments, but continue to persist in their toxic circumstances due to the ease of living in these harmful environments.”

Gabe Wahl is a young Australian artist working on Gadigal Land in Sydney’s Inner West. Graduating in 2022 with Honours in Visual Arts and Advanced Studies from the University of Sydney, where he studied biological sciences with his visual arts degree. Wahl’s painting practice is heavily influenced by his study of the living world and his works often explore human relationships with the natural environment. His most recent work focused on the interconnectivity between Sydney’s local ecosystems and their surrounding urban world. Exploring the conversations between native ecologies and urban environments. In his practice Wahl aims to re-frame our scientific understanding of the natural world, providing viewers with a poetic lens through which to observe scientific phenomena.