RICHARD HEALY

Exit Wounds is a series of works by Richard Healy exploring the deconstruction and fragmentation of the figure to create an unnerving moment of tension. Unfinished or incomplete compositions provoke a sinister sense of unease, leaving the viewer to feel they have arrived late to a scene. Like a physical exit wound, a gaping void is left behind; with no beginning and no end, the eye lingers on the canvas and a new narrative forms.   

Influenced by Australian impressionists, Healy’s works depict the harshness of our native landscape, layered with family portraits, analog relics of the artists’ childhood holidays. For every piece, Healy combs through personal albums and the web to source his images. A form of therapy for the artist, the process is deeply introspective. Using digital collage as a starting point, Healy recontextualises his source material to construct cinematic scenes of ambiguous situations; the intersection of reality and fiction onto a single canvas. His interests lie in reassembling each frame; challenging the traditional aesthetics of portraiture and landscape art, Healy seeks to toe the line somewhere between figuration and abstraction.