| As soon as you enter Hobart’s newest luxury hotel, The Tasman, the first thing to greet you is a large slice of kunanyi/Mount Wellington by acclaimed local painter, Faridah Cameron. But she is not the only Handmark artist who has been commissioned to adorn the walls of this magnificent hotel with that honour also given to Mandy Renard and Di Allison.
It will be impossible to miss Faridah’s Forest Flowering in the hotel’s foyer, with its grand opening now just days away: “This is the first thing people see as they walk in, and I felt it was important to create a link between Tasmania’s beautiful natural environment and this new city hotel which will attract visitors from across the world,” Faridah says. The painting was especially commissioned for The Tasman, and Faridah was also keen to convey a feeling of post-COVID optimism by adding the vivid colours of tiny bush flowers that dot Hobart’s beloved mountain.
Faridah will also kick off the New Year at Handmark with the first exhibition for 2022, The Full Sea, which reminisces about the strange days of COVID: “Locked down, we walked the bushland close to home. Then as the situation eased my friends and I explored the beaches. These paintings are not representations of what we found, but rather expressions of what it has been to live through these times, imprinted with strong visual memories.”
Faridah Cameron’s The Full Sea exhibition opens at Handmark Gallery on January 7, 2022 |