FORMER Dunkeld resident and regional Victorian landscape painter, Andy Pye, is set to showcase selected items from his latest show at a visual art installation at the Mount Sturgeon Woolshed at the end of the month.

Showcasing pieces from his Melbourne exhibition, ‘Magma: Gamma’, Mr Pye’s works will be on display from August 26-28, with a more permanent addition of a Eugene von Guérard-inspired painting of Mount Abrupt (Mud-dadjug) on semi-permanent loan at Wickens at the Royal Mail Hotel.

The piece has been hung in the chef’s table dining space at the local fine-dining restaurant, with Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel executive chef, Robin Wickens, saying the piece helped to create the atmosphere of a “warm kitchen environment that’s a 180-degree flip of the usual cold, commercial kitchens”.

“We’ve been looking for an artwork for the restaurant that’s connected to the Grampians, where we are,” he said.

“When guests are at the chef’s table, they are facing away from the Grampians, but now they’re sitting directly opposite Andy’s Mt Abrupt piece, so finally, the people on the chef’s table also get a view of the Grampians, which works perfectly.

“Andy has a unique painting style and captures the Grampians light, trees and landscape in a such a special way.”

Having previously lived in Dunkeld for a short period in 2004, Mr Pye’s love of the Southern Grampians led to a deeper study of Johann Joseph Eugene von Guérard’s 1856 colonial-era work of Mount Abrupt, and saw Mr Pye return to the area earlier this year to work on painting the very same Mount Abrupt view, including Mount Sturgeon’s peak.

The result is the piece that is on permanent loan to the Royal Mail Hotel, which Mr Pye said showed an “interplay between the magma and the gamma” - meaning the light and its relationship with the rock - which is the theme of his latest exhibition.

“It’s a very area specific show and obviously the pieces explore other artistic ideas, but they’re all based at the tip of the Southern Grampians,” he said.

“The idea for the show came about when I was looking at Mount Sturgeon’s rock face and this light shined through the crevasse, it’s essentially this moment where the light shines in and lights up all this moss that’s just used to it being dark all the time.

“The light honed in, it glowed a neon green, and it really stuck with me.

“I wanted to make that lighting up of that huge crevasse the central subject matter of the show.

“It is all about that light and I hope that anyone who has experience in the Southern Grampians knows how that rock face changes with the different light and I try to talk to that with the modes and the sky.”

Mr Pye said during his time in Dunkeld he fell in love with the picturesque scenery and serenity of the area, which has not faded despite the years passing.  

“I was a bit down and out at the time and went there for solace, it was a very healing place for me,” he said.

“It really stuck with me.

“I painted there and fell in love with it - I’ve included it theoretically in my paintings ever since.”

Mr Pye’s artworks have been described as energetic and sharply focused, with authentic depictions of the Australian bush.

Mr Pye said it was a dream come true to have one of his artworks hung in Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel, saying there was a time when he thought it was “unattainable”.

“I’m very honoured to have the work in the hotel, it’s really surreal because it’s only when you’re in there do you really get the gravity of the property and the meaning of what all those people are doing,’ he said.

“They’re really bringing people and place and produce together, it’s really something else.”

The ‘Magma: Gamma’ exhibition is on display at Melbourne’s Modern Times gallery until August 23.