13t^th - 28^thOctober 2001

Richard has had a fascination with bush and surrounds for over 30 years. The first few years of bush paintings were set in Australia, and later, in New Zealand.

This exhibition of 30 oil paintings is a reflection of Richard's artistic development over the last three decades. The style of paintings range from representational, through impressionist to expressionist. It is full of Richard's landmark paintings, many from his personal collection, and all are for sale.

The landmark paintings include:

• 1975 "Entwined in Mist" - one of Richard's first paintings of Australian bush done with a palette knife.
• 1984 "Heaphy Track" - a representational painting, one of only a handful of Richard's paintings which have been done mainly with a brush.
• 1996 "Western Hutt River" - one of Richard's first impressionist paintings to be done with positive palette knife strokes, resulting in decisive texture.
• 1999 "Heaphy Track II" - this impressionist painting with positive palette knife strokes is also saturated with glorious colour.
• 2001 "Elements of Nature", and "Entangled" - expressionist paintings of bush and river, with palette knifed areas of transparent paint and thick impasto paint. Paint is also applied straight from the tube with swirling, sweeping strokes.
• 2001 "Cherie's Bush Song" and "From the River, Bush doth grow, and Birds do sing" - these are similar to the above, except that the paintings are of negative spaces. These paintings were inspired by Cherie Knott's personal endeavour to work from positive spaces to paintings where the implied space takes on an importance beyond form.

During Richard Ponder's painting career he has been influenced by numerous artists, including Peter McIntyre, Arthur Streeton, Van Gogh, Monet, Jackson Pollock, and most recently, to Affandi & Made Sumadiyasa.