Still together
27 March, 2026
150 years ago train travel and the invention of the paint tube had French artists outside for the first time to document a newly mobile populace. In 2026 Tasmanian Rebecca Watson pays similar attention to the recreational habits of her mountain bike riding peers. Warm and lavishly textured her oils depict a liminal space as family and friends wait for the rider to hurtle across the finish line. Have they taken a stack? Are they wheeling a damaged bike? Is the victory a few seconds away?
Different here from European painting is the light where high tones and planar palette knife work make the figures move, reinventing an accessible Impressionism in sneakers and shorts rather than tea gowns and parasols.
Trained in Newcastle as well as the University of Tasmania Watson is a sculptor and painter who makes work that asks the viewer to contemplate the nobility in the everyday.
