Kevin Thorley

Graduate Certificate of Visual Art

Melbourne is currently going through a dramatic reconstruction and transformation. In the name of creating a more ‘liveable’ city, infrastructure and construction projects are being gouged deeply into the bowels of the city, disrupting people’s lives. With my paintings, I reimagine the various characters in the construction game as emotional, aggressive and ferociously monstrous. I work with colour, gestural brushstrokes and earthy materials to comment on the sinister side effects of multi-million-dollar construction projects. My large-scale, mixed-media paintings are influenced by the paintings of the renaissance. Specifically, I take inspiration from religious scenes, the depiction of war heroes, villains and noble animals, to construct dramatic narratives.