Sisters ‘let loose’ at Aarwun Gallery

From Alice Pulvers “Luminescence”

by Helen Musa

“WE’VE let the girls loose,” says Aarwun Gallery director Robert Stephens as he contemplates the coming exhibition by artist sisters, Alice, Sophie and Lucy Pulvers, opening on Saturday.

The Pulvers sisters, Alice, Sophie and Lucy, are the daughters of well-known novelist , translator, playwright and director Roger and his Canberra-educated wife Susan, who manages their rising artistic careers.

Before returning to Australia in 2001, all were raised in Japan, so they are bilingual and bicultural, as the exhibition shows.

In “Luminescence,” named for the spontaneous emission of light through chemical reactions, Alice brings together her recent paintings that are intensely energetic and colourful.

As with her sisters, Alice’s work reflects the aesthetic culture of Japan and her world travels, melded in a mixture of striking realism and imagined landscapes.

From Sophie Pulvers, “Animalia”

Sophie has a university background in environmental science, so it is not surprising to find her exhibition titled, “Animalia”.

In this show she has included new works inspired by both her ongoing relationship with Japan and Japanese art, and her love of nature and animals. In many of Sophie’s works, her shapes and colours represent using squares of gold leaf, traditionally applied across the backgrounds of large Japanese painted internal doors.

From Lucy Pulvers, “Pianoforte”

Lucy’s exhibition is titled “Pianoforte” and brings together recent work inspired by her love of music.

Lucy is always listening to music while she paints, arguing that music and painting are the closest of art forms.

In 2014 she was awarded the Thea Proctor Scholarship by the Julian Ashton Art School.

In the 2020 Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours exhibit in London, her self-portrait was awarded the President’s Choice Award.

This year, for the fourth year in a row, her watercolour paintings were selected for inclusion.

As for letting the three Pulvers girls “loose,” Stephens is referring to the bright, unorthodox colours they’re using on the walls at Aarwun Gallery.

I can hardly wait.

Pulvers Exhibition, Aarwun Gallery, Shop 11, Federation Square, O’Hanlon Place, Nicholls, July 22 – August 13, 2023.

First published at Canberra City News, July 20, 2023