Pennie Pomroy

21 March - April 24    sacred garden - at first glance

Pennie Pomroy is a neighbour living a couple of streets away from Slot. Her life is at once an ordinary kind of thing and the charmed existence that many of us can only dream of. After a BA at Sydney University she was a star student at the National Art School and then became a high school art teacher. Marriage followed, then children and then one day her husband said – “I married an artist, not a teacher, follow your passion”. Pennie joyfully now combines motherhood with her art making.

At first glance 1 & 2, 2016. Oil on linen , 91 x 91 cm

The clarity of Pennie’s life is reflected in her art where she aims to capture a sense of whimsy that is a reflection of childhood – “an uninhibited imagination that marries the ordinary with the unexpected” as Pennie describes it.

A conversation about texture, feathers and the emotional power of animals cuts across the polite deference to suburban social behaviour. This connects Pennie’s own childhood to her children’s. On the way she touches on the question of our belonging and not belonging in this place – Australia; a place she describes in “images of people, doing unusual things in a usual manner”.

Pennie is comfortable with the surreally absurd even whimsical edge of this life that is thrown up when the experiences and expectations of succeeding generations rub up next to each other. Here, in Pennie’s view, political dogma and preconception give way to a child like stare where there is reason in an imagined construction.

Sacred Gardens on Botany Road