Q Gallery Art Hub
Ainslie Shops ACT
Until Thursday 6 August 2026
Artist and former journalist Neil Lade says the title of his solo exhibition of sketches and paintings reflects its mixture of the surreal, weird and comical, as well as the creation of the works over time – and his own life.
He says that writing creatively is harder than painting, though he enjoys both. At times, painting has been a therapeutic escape, such as when he had a high-powered editorial job at a newspaper in Sydney and would draw and paint for three hours after work so he could sleep.
He paints mainly in acrylic on board or canvas, mainly because oils over an acrylic base take a long time to dry in winter and can get ‘very stinky’. His sketching used fine black pen, with colour added in pencil or pen. ‘It’s not painting by numbers because there are no numbers involved usually,’ he says.
While he plans to take a break from exhibiting for a while, he’s keen to explore the more surreal, expressive and abstract.
Further information: Q Gallery Art Hub