Art...e Gallery in Victoria recently hosted an exhibition of works by Therese Storace.

The exhibited works included a collection of framed pencil and pen wash drawings, executed in different techniques. Faint flowing pencil lines suggesting the female figures were hung side by side with powerful nudes rendered in bold pencil and water washes.

Other pieces displayed strokes criss-crossing and circulating in continuous motion on the white paper surface, resulting not in a tortured, restless figure, but, in the tranquil poses which dominate a large part of her work. Some of the larger works focused on specific parts of the human figure, with less definition but more concentration on the use of texture and bolder, largely acrylic brushstrokes.

A few of the other paintings, such as Woman and Wine and Goddess of Fertility, were figurative yet surreal, where the female figure becomes enclosed by the dream landscape which she inhabits.

Flowers adorned a number of the female figures, and seemed to be a recurrent presence within Storace's work. Some of the larger paintings juxtaposed the beauty of flowers and the beauty of the human body within the same pictorial space.