Following two successful exhibitions and his award of the Brett Whiteley Scholarship in 2006, Eva Breuer Art Dealer is pleased to announce the opening of Sam Wade's Recent Paintings, 2008. In the spirit of the Heidelberg School artists, such as McCubbin, Streeton and Roberts, Wade’s recent body of work is imbued with the spirit of Tasmanian and Victorian bush country and the freshness and energy derived from open-air painting. There is an element of escapism in the act of plein-air painting and Wade, at a similar age to the young Heidelberg artists painting in the late 1890s, has taken leave of the studio temporarily to enjoy the therapy of the landscape.

Originally from Tasmania, Wade’s paintings such as Nude River’s Edge and Nude at River's Edge, (painted there), are composed of idyllic, light-filled river views and nymph-like bathers painted with the warmth of a young artist returning home. In Nude River’s Edge ,Wade frames the view of his bather at the riverbank with delicately formed branches, concealing but at the same time revealing the swimmer. The warm light and Roberts-like rock on which the model reclines in Nude at River’s Edge echo another  era.

These warm, sun-filled paintings are contrasted with paintings such Girl in the Snow in which quick, light strokes of the brush capture falling snow flakes that blur across the girl's black winter coat. The studies Beccy Forest Path, Beccy Study Forest and Study Orchard, painted within the landscape near Trentham Victoria, are spontaneous and immediate works which capture the cool atmosphere of the temperate forests.