John PercevalAll That We Are

This exhibition surveys three decades of the remarkable achievements of the maverick Australian artist John Perceval, a central figure in the creative circle associated with John and Sunday Reed at Heide and a significant contributor to the evolution of modernist art in Melbourne.

Perceval was producing works of considerable technical competency and psychological power by the age of nineteen. He went on to experiment across painting, drawing, ceramics and sculpture, and explore an expansive range of subjects, yet remained anchored throughout by a profound engagement with the complexity of the human condition.

All That We Are traces Perceval’s creative development from the late 1930s as he shifted from unsettling portrayals of childhood memories and wartime experiences to exuberant imagery inspired by the Renaissance masters and later gestural, vibrant land and seascapes. Among the examples of his accomplished and influential ceramic practice, the exhibition includes more than twenty of his celebrated angel series from the 1950s and early 60s.