Dana Lowe’s work- on show at the Full of Beans Restaurant – is composed of two distinct styles.

First, There is an abstract style, using large, uniform blocks of one colour against a complimentary background. Reds oranges and yellows like next to greens cyans and blues- making a strong impact. Sometimes the transluecent swathes of colour intersect, creating a new colour in the space they share.

Ms Lowe’s other style consists mostly of drawings- all most all of them of people, and some look like newspaper cartoons.

“I am trying to capture to sense of a person’s mood and character by drawing their outline,” she said.

The two styles couldn’t be more different on the surface, yet on closer inspection, they actual compliment each other. The simplified geometry of the human form, captured in the drawing style, is often perfectly reflected in the abstract style.

The more one looks at the two styles side by side, the more this becomes apparent, and one sees that they both come from the same creative space in the artists soul.

Some of the other work at the exhibition- white and cream shoes on a perfectly black background, Ms Lowe calls these, “negative paintings,” by which she means that instead of starting with a white background, and gradually making the tone darker, she start with a black background and gradually makes the tone light.

“I love colour, but there is this contrast in my work. When it comes to printing or drawing I still want to print only with black ink ideally on white paper or draw with black or dark blue pens or pastels. Both my drawings and my abstract paintings are on a flat picture plane, without any attempt to be three dimensional,” she said.

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