Previews - Stephen Ormandy

Art Guide Nov/Dec 1/11/14

Tracey Clement

As a descriptive term, abstract painting is a bit vague. After all, both Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock were abstractionists.  But Miro expresses an exuberant joie de vivre, while Pollock seems driven by a seething inner angst. If you had to place Australian artist Stephen Ormandy on Team Miro or Team Pollock, the choice would be clear. Ormandy’s abstraction is uplifting. His colourful canvasses are full to bursting with an almost irrepressible cheer.
“It’s the dynamism of what drives me as an artist,” Ormandy explains. “I embrace good vibes, I guess. And I think that as an artist, I‘m very lucky to live in a society that allows that to take place.” Of course, Ormandy is well aware that there are inequalities and injustices in Australia and elsewhere. But as he points out: “Quite often we forget to embrace just how good things are. And I guess my work is, in a way, giving thanks for that.”
Despite his positive outlook, Ormandy does admit that he had a tough time getting back into painting after a five-year hiatus before his first solo show at the then Tim Olsen Gallery in 2008. As co-founder of a successful jewellery and home wares brand Dinosaur Designs, Ormandy has been putting his artistic energies into the company. “We’d experienced a lot of creative joy and still do, building that business,” he says ‘But getting back into painting didn’t go smoothly at first. “Those first works were just absolutely shocking,” he recalls. “I was continually tearing canvases off stretchers and swearing a lot and throwing things around. But then it clicked.”
Ormandy found his way as a painter and he hasn’t looked back. In fact he has recently added sculpture to his visual language of joyous abstraction. In Digital Organic, he says, there is “a conversation between the sculptures and the paintings”. Whatever they are saying, its bound to be looking on the bright side.

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