Sutton Gallery is pleased to present The devil drives, an exhibition of new works by Melbourne artist Stephen Bush. Employing his idiosyncratic painting style, Bush presents visually arresting works which grapple with the nuances of the compulsion we call “desire”.

Lurid pinks, greens, purples and yellows erupt onto the canvas creating psychedelic landscapes. These fluid backgrounds are overlaid with carefully crafted pockets of detail. Process is as crucial to Bush’s practice as the finished product. Pouring paint liberally onto the canvas he allows it to flow freely, once dry he then builds up pictorial elements suggested by the splatters and spills of its luscious surface. The resulting imagery contains compelling tensions between chaos and control, the illusive and tangible, unease and comfort, utopia and the apocalyptic.

Fantastical settings of alpine vistas, bubbling brooks and cavernous underground networks are populated by a perplexing assortment of objects including snaking autobahns, abandoned wooden scaffolding, trophies, Modernist architecture and floating rubber plants. This disjointed ensemble speaks of mans drive forward, his endless quest for a utopian ideal. Inevitably these same objects point the failure of such an enterprise.