Adam Galic: Where the creek meets the sea

I believe Adam’s purpose in painting is to create meaningful landscapes that communicate a love for nature and an increased awareness of the often unnoticed and unseen beauty all around us. He paints landscapes because he loves to do so. He does this in the belief that the desire to create beautiful art is a good thing and should be encouraged.

Adam Galic feels a strong connection with the land and spent his early years exploring the creeks and waterways that run through the bush near his home. His works are executed well and capture the dramatic light and shadow that transform the uncultivated vegetative south coast landscape. Adam describes his style as ‘Impressionist with moments of realism’. He wants you to stand back – be engaged and drawn into the landscape. Adam’s goal in painting is to convey the way he observes nature – with a tendency that has a focus on the serene; developing a body of artwork that relates his experience, and takes time and patience.
The process, or experience of painting is important to Adam – enjoying the moments of actually being present. He loves to talk about the ‘experience’ of painting – not to close out the energy of the dance of the painting, or the viewer’s gaze. “It’s just as much about the brushstroke as the place”. He loves to travel and see inspiring new vistas, enjoying both the moments of actually being present with them and the anticipation of the time he will spend getting to know them further through painting those scenes.

The persuasive power of Adam’s art is broad and it is through his close observations of the natural features of creeks, rocks and vegetation that allows him to communicate through his paintings. He wants the viewers to find resonance with his depiction of actual scenes and find encouragement to look more deeply at the natural world around us.

Painting landscapes in this manner is a way of looking closely at the scene and its parts, developing awareness of environmental issues by painting the beauty of wild spaces. This way he establishes a way of approaching both landscape painting and the natural environment. Adam advocates understanding nature; regarding the landscape as a subject worthy of painting, and by incorporating techniques that capture the true spirit of nature, its rugged beauty and its moments of imperturbability and serenity.

Adam draws attention to the natural beauty of Australia’s South Coast by skilfully depicting the natural scenery as beautiful or intriguing. Perhaps unintentionally, he expresses an awareness of his need to be connected with wild spaces thereby extolling the virtues of nature’s beauty and serenity. He communicates through painting how he sees the land, water, greenery and sky. Adam paints with oils on canvas and his palette is soft, muted and untroubled. He used the recent lockdown periods to escape and create. The result is a collection worth visiting. I invite you to enjoy these exemplars of south coast landscape vistas. Adam completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2011 at the National Art School majoring in oil painting.

Visual art, like poetry and music, expresses a deeper level of thinking about and sensing the world around us. Paintings thus bring us enormous pleasure and fulfilment.