The Last of the Summer Blue: Claudia Terstappen | Matthew Johnson | Melinda Harper | Carissa Karamarko | Kate Rohde | Marie Hagerty

Artists have long been fascinated by the transition between seasons, laden with its rich metaphorical meanings. For us in Melbourne, the intense heat we were so kindly blessed with this summer begins to change. The sun fades as a crisp air envelops us, and the leaves turn to brown.

As we enter March, we welcome the beginning of Autumn. Taking a poetic approach, this exhibition reflects the fading echoes of summer as they merge with autumn’s soft chill. Nights grow longer, and days shorter. It explores the works of artists who delve into symbolic and artistic transfigurations of nature that evoke lingering in the in-between, tracing the shifting light, the folklore of seasonal change, and the quiet poetics of departure and renewal. It is a study of thresholds; of a memory clinging to the thick air as it turns crisp, capturing the fleeting, the bittersweet, and the beauty of cyclical transformation.

Claudia Tersstapen’s work resonates with Keats’ description of autumn as the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." This phrase evokes an image of transition, of ripening fruit on the verge of decay. Claudia’s art embodies this transition, capturing the ephemeral moment when life begins to fade but still retains its richness. Her use of colour and form mirrors the mellow beauty described by Keats, as she explores the tension between the waning warmth of summer and the impending coolness of autumn. Her works point towards a deep emotional resonance of this in-between space—where something is gently slipping away, yet still alive with meaning. Claudia's exploration of texture and light evokes the very essence of autumn’s beauty: soft, elusive, and melancholic.

Shakespeare, drew out a melancholy in these transitions, a quietness of a "Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." These words are imbued with silence; a quietude that mirrors the shifts in nature. Autumn, for Shakespeare, represents not just the end of a season but a metaphor for the inevitable fading of life. This melancholic reflection finds a visual counterpart in the work of Kate Rodhe, whose art explores the adornment of the natural world and the introspection that comes with seasonal change. Her use of resin, a material immune to decay, captures the hardening natural history.

This exhibition brings together works that poetically explore both seasonal and symbolic change, considering how shifts in nature mirror personal and collective transformations. Through imagery, texture, and form, artists examine cycles of loss and renewal, the way traditions mark time, and the emotional weight of impermanence.

Marie Haggarty plays with opticality in her perception of sensuous surfaces. Her works invite the viewer to question what is real and what is imagined, much like the hazy twilight of autumn, when the line between the past and present becomes blurred. Marie’s work delves into the interplay of texture and light, creating a tension between the solid and the ethereal. The sensuous surfaces she creates are conceptually reminiscent of autumn’s fleeting beauty—capturing both the decay and the richness of the season. Her use of layering in her compositions mirrors the way time layers memories, inviting the viewer to engage in a deeper exploration of the transient nature of experience.

Carissa Karamarko’s artistic approach is deeply rooted in the mythos and folklore of autumn, blending themes of transformation, decay, and renewal. This is particularly evident in her work Nero’s Fiddle: The Lyre of Orpheus, where she skillfully intertwines classical mythology with the season's inherent symbolism. The image of Nero fiddling while Rome burns echoes the tension between destruction and creation, a powerful backdrop for exploring the fleeting nature of beauty and life itself.

In this piece, Karamarko uses the transition from light to dark—symbolising the fading vibrancy of autumn—as a poetic metaphor for impermanence. As the light wanes and the warmth of the season slips away, the artist invites us to see beauty not only in flourishing life but also in the inevitable decay that follows. This fading light, far from being a somber end, reveals something deeper—a kind of profound stillness and renewal that is only visible when we embrace the inevitable cycles of life. Further works in Karamarko's oeuvre continue to explore this theme, finding beauty in the decaying and the ephemeral, suggesting that within the passage of time lies something timeless and deeply significant. 

Matthew Johnson further abstracts nature in his works, pushing beyond direct representation into something more symbolic. His art explores the tension between nature's raw force and its more poetic manifestations. As autumn begins to assert itself, Johnson captures both the fragility and strength of nature through layers of abstraction. His works suggest that the natural world, much like the seasons, is constantly evolving—never static, always in flux. Through his lens, nature is not only a source of aesthetic beauty but a mirror for human emotion and change.

Melinda Harper’s work also resonates with the themes of impermanence, as she plays with colour and geometric forms to create a sense of movement and flux. Her art engages with the idea of transition, much like the gentle fade from summer to autumn. Her geometric abstraction reflects the cyclical nature of time, where each shape, though seemingly fixed, is part of a larger, ever-changing pattern. As with autumn, Melinda’s work invites reflection on the delicate balance between order and chaos, stillness and motion.

Hegel, the difficult German he was, sometimes gifted us a nugget of clarity:  “When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of the dusk.” It is only with the passing of summer’s light, as the grey descends, that we come to see the beauty of our misted light and the grace in the grey.

‘Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.’

- Text by Freddie Wright