Photo: Hamish Fleming, The Roof is Leaking, (detail) 2024. Courtesy of the artist.
October 16, 2026 - January 15, 2027
Opening night: Friday, October 16, 5:30-7:30pm
Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Free entry, all welcome
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You can find Nowhere Is Ever Really That Dark in Gallery I, located at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
The Mill’s galleries are open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
During gallery hours, our entrance will be unlocked. If the door is closed, please ring the doorbell to alert our team.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
We are excited to present NOWHERE IS EVER REALLY THAT DARK, a new exhibition of paintings by Hamish Fleming.
Working within his signature gritty realist style, Hamish Fleming presents a series of nocturnal scenes, backstreet roadsides and spaces of intimate solitude. Works depict everyday scenes seen through new light, pragmatic building such as fast-food chains and service stations are reframed through the slow and lingering attention necessary for painting from life.
Hamish contrasts modern subjects with his traditional approach creating what he calls a ‘harmonious contradiction’. He writes ‘These paintings possess a sense of inherent solitude, drawn from lived experience. The resulting works used this common experience to invite the viewer into an intimate dialogue that is at times amusing, bleak and comforting.’
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Adelaide-based painter Hamish Fleming blends the unlikely combination of grunge aesthetics and classical realism, creating a distinctive style that merges the raw with the refined. Driven by a fundamental curiosity and an obsessive pursuit of understanding, Fleming often focuses on unremarkable aspects of contemporary life, capturing scenes and objects that are usually overlooked. His work frequently explores subtle juxtapositions, creating an intriguing tension between the familiar and the unexpected.
Despite his contemporary subject matter, Fleming approaches his art with a deep respect for tradition. He works exclusively from life, rejecting reference photos and digital aids, and even makes much of his own paint from raw pigments. This hands-on process reflects his blunt artistic demeanor, rooted in a desire to understand the inherent qualities of both materials and subjects. He embraces what is present, rather than seeking idealized representations.
The result is a series of paintings that exude a palpable atmosphere, drawing the viewer in with gritty yet harmonious details. The works invite deeper reflection, encouraging viewers to lose themselves in the subtle complexities of everyday life, captured through Fleming's unique lens.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
