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| The Apricot Vase 2026 by Julie Bradley |
It would be hard to curate a more compatible double exhibition than Chroma featuring stunning works on paper by Julie Bradley and striking ceramics by Susan Buret.
The artists clearly agreed on a joint approach to developing their works for this charming installation celebrating spring in Canberra, their gardens and Floriade.
The complex curvilinear forms used by both artists feature circles, ovals and sensuous line. The interplay of colours is joyful, with tonal layering in the two-dimensional works and shadow play in the three-dimensional works. But rarely are the colours blended. They are juxtaposed to create often startling effects and dimensionality.
Bradley’s work has evolved to almost pure abstraction, where previously detailed overwork embedded natural forms in outline. In these Chroma works, the overlaid lines feel like light caught in glass edges. Indeed, her Chroma set feels like light captured and refracted through layers of crystal.
This feeling is clearly intended with titles like Reflections in a Glass Vase and the two large works featured in The Q Gallery’s front windows, A Harlequin Vase and Jar Full of Light. These works are exceptional and delight the eye.
At other times, Bradley’s composition is themed around a chosen colour. The Pink Halo Vase was one of three such compositions. The colours are achieved with layers of coloured papers and prepared papers, overworked with sophisticated solid gouache lines.
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| A work by Susan Buret |
By contrast, Buret’s sculptural vase and container forms have solidity but work as a set of fluorescent colours bouncing off each other as you wander around the gallery space. Each hand-shaped ceramic piece tends to feature two (or on occasion three) vibrant matte underglazes, reminiscent of the intensity of anodised metal though without the sheen.
Green and Blue Bowl was particularly successful, as was Red and Blue Vessel.
Many of Buret’s forms have oval pieces added in a contrasting colour, like exotic grafted elements. On occasion there is a clear link to spring petals opening or emerging from the base form.
Three of her works featured circular “tabs” cut from the main form and folded out, making windows that reveal the interior colour of the form. Orange, Blue and White Vessel was such a one.
Bradley’s works are similarly layered, but with significantly greater compositional complexity. They often have a similar intensity of colour to Buret’s, and with their oval and petal forms, feel like gentle references.
That’s what made the pairing of these two artists so successful here.
