SYDNEY.- Sullivan+Strumpf opened a major new solo exhibition by Paris-based Australian artist Gregory Hodge, presented across both levels of their Gadigal/ Sydney gallery, until 29 March 2025. Created during his second residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Hodge’s latest body of work represents his most ambitious solo to date, informed by his ongoing exploration of painting.

Based in Paris for the last five years, Gregory Hodge has continued to define his signature painting style that devises ways to render material surfaces in paint. The artist’s specially adapted tools and brushes, previously used to create large-scale, expressive gestures in his earlier works, are now applied with a refined, controlled touch, achieving an all-over treatment of the surface that suggests woven textiles – finding inspiration in revered tapestry collections of the Manufacture des Gobelins and Musée d’Orsay. By dragging and scraping translucent layers of color, Hodges reveals bold, vibrant hues beneath a muted, woven-like illusionistic pattern.

Since living in Paris, Hodge’s application of line and form has become more concentrated, the quality of light shifting with his environment. Where previous works saw sharp, masked edges separate painterly territories within the composition, new works witness these divisions soften, allowing colors, shapes and forms to blur and bleed from one motif into the next. The result is a dynamic oscillation between recognisable imagery and painterly abstraction.

Exploring nuanced colour relationships through layers of translucent acrylic paint, Hodge’s new works see colour both embedded within the surface and simultaneously hovering above it, creating a sense of distortion and perceptual shift.

His compositions take form as densely layered images, composed of personal source material, gestural marks and obscured motifs of foliage, interiors and architecture. His subjects—figures, interiors, still lifes, and landscapes—are filtered through a rich array of art historical references.

Hodge’s recent works have focused on depicting his loved ones, illuminating intimate moments at home and explorations outdoors, while others capture abundant scenes of flowers in full bloom.

In Evening (2024), a central sleeping figure draped in patterned fabric is set within a subtly painted interior, evoking the intimate, small-scale Le Sommeil (Sleep) paintings by nineteenth-century French artist Édouard Vuillard, which depict sleeping figures amid simple, muted interiors.

For Bloom (2024), foliage, flowers, and abstract gestures interlock, interwoven across the surface. These motifs appear to transform fluidly, with flowers morphing into gestures and bleeding back into foliage.

The work recalls the tradition of Mille-fleurs tapestries (thousand flowers), in which plants and flowers are spread across the composition, creating the impression of a flowery meadow that evenly blankets the entire decorative field.

Where Hodge’s practice has traditionally obscured representational figures, places and objects, his new works seek to uncover and reveal them, rendering the life around him with refreshing clarity.

In October 2024 Hodge was one of three artists exhibited by Sullivan+Strumpf at Frieze London, alongside Naminapu Maymuru White and Lindy Lee. Select works will also be shown at Art SG in January 2025 and Art Basel Hong Kong in March.

Gregory Hodge holds a PhD from the Australian National University Canberra School of Art (2016) and has completed international residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris (2019-2020 and 2024); The British School at Rome (2015); and Basso Berlin (2011).

Hodge has been a finalist in numerous prizes including the Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of NSW (2023); Bendigo Art Gallery’s Arthur Guy Memorial Prize (2019); The Geelong Art Prize (2018); and the Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of NSW (2016) (2017).

His work is held in several permanent collections including the National Gallery of Australia; The Wollongong Art Gallery; The A.C.T Legislative Assembly; and the Australian National University.