Marie Mansfield's 'Prelude' at Nanda/Hobbs

The third show on Thursday night with Christine and Yianni was Marie Mansfield’s. The reduced palette and sombre tones used in these paintings gives them a sort of fin-da-ciecle feel as though you were in a café in Paris in about 1902. End of century is appealing to me, I wrote my bachelor’s thesis on a novelist practicing in the 1890s in Trieste, a city doomed to reduction once the Austrians were shuffled out after WWI. So I can understand the appeal of the aesthetic of darkness.

These paintings were shown in the back room at the gallery, what they call the "project space" and the small size of the works and muted colours suited an intense atmosphere as people crowded in to see the works.