“Both pieces, for different reasons, needed me to literally stop and take a step back in ways I haven't before.” Bravo Domino in GIGANTIC

Gallery visitors’ favourite Bravo Domino is one of the amazing artists in GIGANTIC at Tyger.

We are so excited to welcome gallery favourite Bravo Domino for GIGANTIC - our upcoming show of artists working on a grand scale.

Join us to celebrate the opening of this spectacular show on Saturday 26 April, 1-3pm. Register now to secure your spot at this FREE event - you'll be first to see all the works in GIGANTIC, and you’ll get to meet the artists involved.

Bravo is a Sydney-based expressionist and abstract artist whose street art-influenced works are vibrant and deeply detailed. Her paintings are big favourites of Tyger visitors. Her works in GIGANTIC are the incredible pair The forest for the trees (Sunrise), and The forest for the trees (Sunset). Each of them are acrylic and pastel on canvas and 91x121cm.

They are absolutely beautiful paintings, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

Ahead of the show opening, Bravo told us about the meaning of these works grew over time, using a stick to paint a tree, and finding detail in large works.

Tell us the story of this work. What inspired it? 

“When I paint tree trunks and wider landscapes, I generally use solid blocks of colour or very minimalist textures in the background. There's often so much detail in the focal points, particularly in the linework, I like offsetting that with a really striking contrast. For these pieces, I wanted to focus on the relationship between the background and the foreground.”

“For Sunrise, I wanted to blur the lines between details of the branches and the shapes of the background and create a fluidity through the depth of the painting. For Sunset, I wanted to explore transferring the detail and complexity of textures from the trees to the background - almost the way a photographer blurs the subject and refocuses the lens on an obscure pocket of the frame or an unconventional perspective depth.” 

“The meaning of these pieces to me evolved over the course of making them. Originally, these pieces were about taking a step back, and looking at the bigger picture. They have also come to represent finding moments in unexpected places and being open to things not being as you would initially expect.”

Tell us about how you created your work.

“It probably goes without saying, the two works were created with very different approaches. The one thing they both share was the application of unusual techniques (at least, for me) to create texture. I've used anything from clingwrap to wire brushes and toothpicks. I have admit, I broke a paintbrush handle before it occurred to me to go outside and find a stick!” 

“Often when I paint wider landscapes, I like playing around with depth - warping proportions, intentionally flipping atmospheric perspective or tucking foreground layers behind something that sits further back to the eye. For these pieces, I wanted to push that notion so, rather than adding linework as a final step, I painted those colours first. I then painted over the top of them and scratched away so highlights and features are actually set further back in the layers. It meant there was a time that large sections of the tree actually looked like a reverse colour palette of its final iteration. To the same end, when I had finished the imprimatura, I protected a few moments with interesting textures to later contribute to highlights and the final textural narrative.”

What particular challenges came from working on a piece of this size?

“I think I accidentally foreshadowed this one in the title! Both pieces, for different reasons, needed me to literally stop and take a step back in ways I haven't before. For Sunrise, particularly through its first layers, I was working so closely in a given section, I kept losing sight of where the trees ended and the background began.” 

“Sunset needed to be much more controlled in its linework. It was meant to be very pared back so I couldn't move through the branches focused only one section at a time the way I usually would - I couldn't just fall down the rabbit hole. I needed to continually pause and take a step back to audit the balance of complexity and minimalism. And paint markers work best when the canvas is flat, so for Sunset, given its size, this meant repeatedly moving the canvas from lying down to up on the easel after every couple of strokes.”

“In my work, I put a lot of importance on 'ma' - a Japanese principle of the space between the detail, the white noise, the breathing room. Working on this scale added an extra layer of this. Usually, it's easy to get a sense of this across a smaller canvas. For larger pieces, it meant balancing this at a micro and macro level simultaneously in a scale I hadn't before.”

What do you hope people feel when they see your work?

“I would love for people to gravitate to different sections of the painting that really jump out at them. I know that sounds a bit mechanical but, to me, it would speak to the greater meaning behind the pieces. If people find small moments that resonate with them, then that detail can become the focal point of the artwork in their eyes - almost like different spotlights on the same stage. Whether it be in the background or the foreground, or even a moment of relativity between the two, the artworks take on a different shape for everyone. I hope that serves as a reminder to take a step back and look at the big picture. I hope they bring a calmness, and help people feel a sense of perspective and breathing room in a restorative way.”

Register now for the opening of GIGANTIC on Saturday 26 April, 1-3pm.