Browse and purchase original artworks by Sherylle Dovaston to complete your home or workspace.
Lingering reflects on our physical and metaphysical connection to the elements in our natural environment, including the earth, flora and fauna, air, and water.
We are inextricably bonded to the physical world, and our sensations and responses to it linger beyond specific experiences. We understand the sensation of rain, the feel of the earth under our feet, the smells carried on the air. These connections reach beyond any particular moment to reside in our memory and imagination as personal truths. The shadows of these experiences always linger within us; our connection to the naturalenvironment has both physical and emotional or meta-physical components.
After a long, hot, dry summer, the first measurable rain fell on 1st May. It signified our deep reliance and impact on the earth's natural cycles, and I gathered a small precious amount to include in this work.
I also included a deep red clay that was excavated from the site of my soon-to-be-built art studio. While we move the earth to suit our needs, I was drawn to the rich history contained in those soils.
In the final layers, the work also includes a stunning amber glaze made from the resin of native grasstrees.
My garden is a source of endless inspiration. It is filled with energy and movement, and every day I find wonder in the colours and shapes, and the feelings that arise for me when I spend time outside. As I recall and translate both the memories and sensations of leaves, bark, flowers, berries, birds, and water they have already been through emotional and psychological processing which reflects, but is never an accurate depiction of, my experience. Bold colours dance across the canvas, referencing the seasonal energy of flowers and berries, while the colours of earth and water peep through from earlier layers, anchoring the composition and enabling some sense of permanence and nature's endurance.
This is one of a trio of small works that recall the histories held in the deep red earth and turquoise waters of north-western Australia. In a convergence of memory and imagination, the interplay of colour and form is overlaid with organic lines, referencing our gentle wanderings on the land and the endless movement of the ocean.
This is one of a trio of small works that recall the histories held in the deep red earth and turquoise waters of north-western Australia. In a convergence of memory and imagination, the interplay of colour and form is overlaid with organic lines, referencing our gentle wanderings on the land and the endless movement of the ocean.
This artwork is one of three inter-related pieces - available separately or as a trio.
During recent travels, while I was waiting during a routine stop and keen to reach the next destination, I saw something extraordinary that I would otherwise have missed.
My eyes wandered beyond the edge of a rest stop in a rambling coastal area, where creamy dunes were topped with low shrubs. The pink pom-pom flowers of Melaleuca Ryeae, endemic to WA’s south-west, fade as they age creating a dreamy palette of pinks dotted across the undulating sands.
As I squatted down to take a closer look, the landscape flattened, the vast sands became thin shimmering ribbons, and the pink clusters condensed under an altered perspective to form an extraordinary, mottled blanket.
I was reminded that while we are waiting for the next ‘something’ we might miss what is going on in front of us. In ordinary moments, extraordinary things are waiting to be revealed.
This is one of a trio of small works that recall the histories held in the deep red earth and turquoise waters of north-western Australia. In a convergence of memory and imagination, the interplay of colour and form is overlaid with organic lines, referencing our gentle wanderings on the land and the endless movement of the ocean.
One of my favourite paintings was a larger work called Murakami, based on my response to Haruki Murakami's book The Wild Sheep Chase.
I loved that painting and when it sold I hadn't anticipated how much I would miss seeing it.
Although I can never reproduce a painting, I chose to paint a smaller canvas in honour of the original Murakami. This little sister guided me intuitively and consequently has its own distinct character while referencing some of the elements from the original painting, and echoing my love of Haruki Murakami's written works .
Deep greens surge along and beyond the canvas, originating from an unknown point. The work investigates the self as place, offering colour as a resonant force that reflects the flow of sensations, experiences, and beliefs that situate us within ourselves, yet exist within and arise from a locatable externality. Small, barely perceptible geometric spaces offer small refuges, linking these inner sensations to the external environment and acknowledging the influence of socio-cultural sites on identity. I, as an internal place, resides within the us of location and community.
It is a deep irony of our character, that for all of us some of the time, we carry barely perceptible impositions like the weight of the world on our shoulders, while at other times, when truly monumental burdens threaten to flatten us, we endure stoically.
This textural work questions the tenuous division between our inner and outer worlds, and investigates the interplay between introspection and experience. With a bold palette evocative of rich earthy landscapes of the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia, Partly Obscured recalls the often overlooked details of rock, sand, and water.
Making Tracks, acrylic and earth wash on canvas, 45 x 45cm (unframed, ready to hang)
Making Tracks plays on the phrase to ‘make tracks’ – to hurry towards our next destination. On a recent road-trip across the country, rather than hasten the journey, the artist took time to ‘make tracks’, to gently wander, to listen to the language of colour in the landscape, enabling fresh interpretations. Rather than dull and uneventful, the experience is alive with colour, giving rise to a fusion of sensations amid encounters with land, water, and sky. These colours undulate across the canvas, convoluted and indistinct yet keenly evocative of the landscape, and intertwined with metaphorical and emotional tracks of the experience.
Meeting Place recalls time spent on the banks of the Helena River (Mandoon Bilya) and Swan River (Derbarl Yerrigan). In the shade of the sheoaks and with the sun low in the sky, these special meeting places resonate with contemporary and ancient histories and continue to play important social and cultural roles.
Reflecting the subtle complexity of human identity, this work pauses in the space where barely discernible shifts in perception move us from one state of being to another; where bold becomes subdued, where simmering love begins to scorch, and where calm lives on the edge of fury. Painted on four separate but visually connected panels to emphasise these discrete but fluid transformations, A Subtle Shift evokes movement and depth to emphasise the multiplicity of self. The work encourages viewers to roam visually across and between the four panels, held momentarily by fluctuations in colour and tonality before being urged gently along.
At moments of apparent equilibrium in our lives, it takes a mere feather's touch to bring down our carefully constructed masquerade of stability and control. Sometimes I can't feel my toes for all that balancing, but just touch me gently and watch me topple.
This textural work questions the tenuous division between our inner and outer worlds, and investigates the interplay between introspection and experience. With a bold palette evocative of rich earthy landscapes of the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia, Barely Noticed recalls the often overlooked details of rock, sand, and water.
If I Could Be Anywhere, I Would Be Here combines memory and sensation to recall impressions of water, earth, and sky; and the impact that our connection to external spaces has on shaping our perceptions and our unique selves.
Evoking passion, excitement or danger, vibrant reds, oranges and yellows pulsate on the canvas, merging amid infinitesimal variations and subtle tonal shifts.
This work and others from the Intangible series asks viewers to accept the unfamiliar or unknown. It proposes that powerful human impulses can arise from what we don't yet see, or understand, and there lies an untapped richness in that which is overlooked. Viewers are invited to look harder, with an implied connotation of increased engagement with the artwork, and the self.
All that is truly worth having in life requires you to invest pieces of yourself, and to be open and vulnerable. Letting go can feel treacherous but liberating. Or is it just me?
This texturally rich painting evokes drama and energy through a striking palette of oranges, deep blues, and blood reds. The composition is organic and restless, heightening the intensity and lending a theatrical atmosphere to the work.
This artwork is one of three inter-related pieces - available separately or as a trio.
During recent travels, while I was waiting during a routine stop and keen to reach the next destination, I saw something extraordinary that I would otherwise have missed.
My eyes wandered beyond the edge of a rest stop in a rambling coastal area, where creamy dunes were topped with low shrubs. The pink pom-pom flowers of Melaleuca Ryeae, endemic to WA’s south-west, fade as they age creating a dreamy palette of pinks dotted across the undulating sands.
As I squatted down to take a closer look, the landscape flattened, the vast sands became thin shimmering ribbons, and the pink clusters condensed under an altered perspective to form an extraordinary, mottled blanket.
I was reminded that while we are waiting for the next ‘something’ we might miss what is going on in front of us. In ordinary moments, extraordinary things are waiting to be revealed.
The understated pale palette invites a lingering gaze, a space to rest and reflect, to pause and consider the self as a place of solace. Nebulous forms float across and beyond the canvas, originating from an unknown point. The work investigates the self as place; the absence of line and form encourages viewers to acknowledge the flow of sensations, experiences, and beliefs that situate us within ourselves, yet exist within and arise from a locatable externality. Small, barely perceptible tonal shifts create a tenuous depth and reveal the vulnerabilities of quiet internal spaces that open up as viewers respond in deeply personal ways to the work.
This work, with a cheeky nod to the 1997 lyrics of Leonardo’s Bride’s “Even When I’m Sleeping”, references those moments when, despite a lack of fanfare or grand declarations, we experience a singular clarity of purpose, or thought, or feeling that - rather than being diminished or lessened by the absence of grand gestures - is instead assertively confirmed as deeply personal, unwavering, and self-assured.
Unknown opportunities are revealed in the spaces between human interactions. Social gatherings harness the bold and colourful energy of these spaces and enable brilliant possibilities that embolden even quiet observers.