Macquarie Group Collection

In 2012 Sydney–based photographer Leila Jeffreys presented a series of 25 ‘portrait’ photographs of Australian birds, which included ‘Neville’ Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo and ‘Commander Skyring’ Gang Gang Cockatoo. Unusually, the birds are presented not as decorative features of the natural world in a landscape setting, but as character-filled individuals.

The result of research across Australia and in other parts of the world, including working with scientists on studies of endangered birds on Christmas Island, these are empathic portraits of creatures whose survival, like that of so many others, is currently under threat.

This painting physically draws the viewer in and captures the quintessentially Australian experience of driving along winding country roads towards the coast but not quite being able to see the ocean. Suddenly you come over a hill and there it is, you can see and even smell it.

The painting cleverly replicates that feeling of elation and excitement, using the foreground image of the white lines on the road to pull the viewer into the picture space. The place it depicts is Winkipop, a popular Victorian surf beach, but it could one of many similar vistas in Australia.

Mackinnon is a young Melbourne painter who studied and lived in London, where he worked as a studio assistant to well-known expatriate Australian artist Tim Maguire (whose early work is also represented in the Macquarie Group Collection).

In 2013 Kate McKay was awarded a first class honours in her Bachelor of Fine Art from Queensland College of Art in Brisbane. In 2014 her work was curated into a couple of group exhibitions in Queensland, and in 2015 she won the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Award with this painting, Sanctuary.

The painting depicts a photorealistic but ambiguous landscape, rendered in monotone colours. The artist’s interest is not so much in specific landscapes, but in the way that the character of a landscape imbues itself in our psyche and can be a catalyst for a memory, emotion and sensorial response to place.

In her own words: “It’s really interesting to see while I have painted these places, people could put them anywhere in the world. I just want to create a world where everyone relates differently.”

Michael Muir’s work explores the simplification and interpretation of outdoor, mostly urban environments. With an emphasis on colour and natural light, the painted works explore a fusion between representation and abstraction, often taking an emotive approach that’s steeped in nostalgia and childhood memories – either borrowed or his own.

According to the artist, “The use of palette knives to apply the paint is done with a deliberate subtlety, from afar the work looks flat and painted with brush, on closer inspection texture is revealed. This discord is deliberate in terms of the construction of the painting using hard edges of interlocking colours to flatten the picture plane. Using tonal variations of colours and in some cases reduced chroma, I try to create depth. The flattened shapes create an ambiguous image where a narrative is unfolding.”

A Sydney-based artist, Muir won the Mosman Art Prize in 2014 and his paintings have been included in numerous major art awards such as the Wynne, Sulman and NSW Parliament Plein Air prizes.