'Stacks'
etching
© Bruno Leti
POA

Born in Italy in 1941 Bruno Leti arrived with his migrant parents in Australia at the age of nine. Growing up as young boy in rural Australia 100 miles from Melbourne, Leti absorbed the nature of the landscape that surrounded him. He is imbued with an affinity with the indigenous Australians and their own art forms such as rock art and dot painting. Successful at school, he attended university studying art history at the University of Melbourne.

Bruno Leti is acknowledged as one of Australia’s great living artists working in the field of printmaking. His mastery of the many techniques and processes that fall under the umbrella of this art form can be seen in a folio exhibition to be held at The Norman Gallery that spans through four decades. Representing Leti’s extensive printmaking oeuvre this show includes some of his exemplary monotypes along with woodcuts and etchings. In a foreword to Professor Sasha Grishin’s recent publication, ‘Bruno Leti: Portrait of a Printmaker,’ Ron Radford remarks that Bruno is “a highly intuitive artist, responding to his environment with works that are imbued with luminosity and timelessness”. His work is sometimes referred to as autobiographical, yet the work “does not reflect the external circumstances of his life, but rather an internal spiritual growth”, notes Grishin. Bruno’s oeuvre as a printmaker and painter overlap in some key areas - brushstroke, line, gesture, burning colour and an abstracted surface, enriching our appreciation for his control over these mediums. Translating the language of abstraction is not always straightforward as the pictorial space is used as a conduit to convey and help us connect with a greater emotional landscape, Bruno’s and our own.

The rhythmic marks and motifs that comprise Leti’s visual language are categorised under the broad brush of abstraction. Yet his images bear reference to the natural world in their cues to place and country that are often reinforced by the artwork titles, but also in the variegated surface qualities that the artist skillfully manipulates. This exhibition offers an insight into Leti’s sensory, emotional and spiritual vision of the world, and its expression through progressive stylistic developments that have occurred through time. A life-time of art making is too deep and broad a subject to ever fully encompass in one exhibition, but this survey brings together, in a cohesive whole, key moments to be shared and celebrated.

Bruno’s monotypes are considered the most important body of work within the history of the Australian monotype. The works from the early 1990’s draw together his many earlier ideas, and represent a pinnacle of his practice in monotype. Leti produced his first monotype in the 1960s and unlike most artists he has been working in the medium ever since. Monotypes are sometimes thought of as diversions from the main emphasis of painting; Leti's painting, photography and 3D work are, however, his own personal diversions. His monotypes are the key to understanding this artist.
Bruno Leti has held over 60 solo exhibitions in Australia, Europe and the USA - locations include Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Geelong, Adelaide, Townsville, Milan, Cologne, Washington DC, and Chicago. He has participated in over 50 group exhibitions. His work is held in collections including: National Gallery of Australia, The Hirshorn Museum, Washington DC, Parliament House Collection, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, and is also in corporate and private collections throughout Australia and abroad.

See more images by Printmaker Bruno Leti here

Contact Jeremy Hill
for further details at Tel: 053 925 5071 or 053 925 5145.