Mackay artist Lyn Laver-Ahmat has spent over three decades establishing her practice, responding to personal connections to nature and place.
Shifting in style from layered linework and classical landscape compositions to more innovative image-making, Laver-Ahmat’s recent works reflect an adaptation to life events that had the artist moving between locations in South Australia and across Central, Outback and Southeast Queensland. These pivots prompt new expressions in her choice of colour and gestural markings, including tactile layering and thick, angular blocks of colour.
Her mark-making becomes more abstracted, capturing the essence of the light on these beloved landscapes. Her works also take inspiration closer to her Slade Point home. In a scene overlooking Lamberts Lookout, Pandanus curtain 2020, she uses colour to capture the cool light of morning.
Laver-Ahmat’s recent drawings and works on paper also reveal experimentations with composition, slipping between flat planes and deeper renditions of horizon-less space, including studies created at Hamilton Island and Mackay. Together, the works are new expressions of colour and composition speaking to the artist’s recent experiences of place.
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Distant line of Peak Range Mountains I, 2021 Acrylic on canvas $950 Travelling along the highway between Emerald and Moranbah, I was intrigued with the flat brown land that contrasted with the distant blue hills of Peak Mountains. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Distant line of Peak Range Mountains II, 2021 Acrylic on canvas $950 Travelling along the highway between Emerald and Moranbah, I was intrigued with the flat brown land that contrasted with the distant blue hills of Peak Mountains. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat East McDonald Passage, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $2,145 I was interested in the gums growing sideways out of the gorge |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Emergent to the Light, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $2,145 The palms and vigorous growth compete for the light and contrast to the velvet black of the Broken River. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Grazing paddock, Summer, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $2,145 Afternoon light on the bare paddock | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Hamilton Island Billabong, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $1,790 Hamilton Island boasts big vistas of turquoise blue however, there are a few quiet areas of water reserves where waterlilies and Melaleuca forests are to be found |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Kimberley Red, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $1,350 Recollections of our trip through the Kimberleys, W.A. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Light shafts on a quiet creek, 2020 Acrylic & ink on canvas $2,145 The light penetrates like shafts from behind the Melaleucas to light up areas of the creek. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Little Duck Pond, 2020 Acrylic on board $2,400 Watching the water and little ducks on Pedler Creek, which runs through vineyards, S.A. |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Low Tide, 2019 Oil and mixed media $875 This is an abstracted landscape of the place where I walk every morning, as I watch the ever-changing tide that gives a feeling of space | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Mangroves at low tide, 2020 Ink & mixed media on paper $1,575 Sometimes, through the process of painting and its subsequent layers, my paintings can become an abstracted translation of landscape, but they always hark back to that sensory memory of a place that I have experienced. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Melaleucas, Illawong Beach, 2020 Ink & mixed media on paper $1,050 The twisted trunks of these trees are quire renown in Mackay |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Nindaroo Pastoral, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $1,575 I lived for a short while in Nindaroo, which is a little country pocket north-west of Mackay | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Quiet Lagoon (creek), 2020 Acrylic on board $1,500 This painting is developed from a plein air study of a little pond along Island View Way on Hamilton Island. It is a quiet and cool repose away from the bustle and spectacular that is Hamilton Island. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Rushing River, 2019 Oil and mixed media $875 This is an abstracted landscape of the place where I walk every morning, as I watch the ever-changing tide that gives a feeling of space. |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Sideling Creek, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $2,145 Late afternoon light that cast a rosy glow on the little creek near Petrie | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Standing Stilts, Slade Point, 2020 Acrylic & mixed media on canvas $1,790 The mangrove creek where I walk most mornings is a microcosm of everchanging wonder of plant life, water ways, and little sea creatures. The mangroves sometimes seem to hover above the water. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Suburban Summer I, 2018 Acrylic on paper $1,700 Always a riot of colour in Brisbane in summer. |
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| Lyn Laver-Ahmat Cows come home slowly, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $1,790 The cattle move along the fence line in the pastoral landscape under the imposing presence of the mountain. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Tidal Creek, 2020 Acrylic on canvas $1,350 The scruffiness of the mangroves and the golden-brown water made nice colour combinations. | Lyn Laver-Ahmat Tranquil Waters, 2021 Ink & mixed media on paper $1,050 I love nothing better that exploring wild places and responding to these natural landscapes through drawing plein air, and through the feelings, memories, and drawings of a place, then taking these into resolving a painting. |