Graeme Whittle spotlights city's 'humble views' in latest show

But looking at them, the humble viewer might have to disagree.

His new show, Launceston+, is at first glance an exhibition of cohesive works - and the initial impression is right, but the show is also underpinned by artistic counterpoints and subjects, ranging from the architectural to the naturally beautiful.

The three-decade seasoned painter - and a five-time Glover Prize finalist - will open the show at Madeline Gordon Gallery this Friday, May 10.

In the exhibition, Whittle offers idyllic views from Princes' Square, as in Val d'Osne Fountain or Chalmers, alongside streetscapes, parks and iconic structures, like Launceston Civic Buildings.

"I wanted to feature Launceston the way that people in this town see it; people love this town, as do I," Whittle said.

"There is beauty in even the most ordinary parts of the town."

That approach is nowhere more evident in the show than South Launceston Landscape, which filters a portion of the city's clustered hillside homes - seen from a slight vertical - in a glowing golden light.

"The colour is metaphorical; it's an ordinary scene but to the people who live there, it's their patch of gold," Whittle said.

Yet that's not to say the show has no commentary to it, or is all rainbows and golden hours - even South Launceston's golden colour is being encroached on by night surrounding the piece.

Many of the Launceston+ works have a touch of solitude with their lone figures - as in the pieces Punchbowl Spring and Chalmers - a motif that reminds briefly of the great American painter Edward Hopper.

The palette and contrast Whittle employs with directional sunlight, most notably in Diana, also drive that comparison.

But conversely, the people in the pieces are more incidental, only parts of the landscape which are much more the hero or centrepiece.

Whittle said, while most of the pieces capture the older parts of the city, he has tried to depict how it's changed, particularly with the piece Gunn's Last Day, a painting of the long-gone Gunn's Timber Yard in Invermay.

"It's interesting to paint that piece because, I think while we should preserve our history, some changes are for the better," Whittle said.

And the historical contrast does not end at the subjects; two older pieces that made it into the show - Trevallyn from Broadview Crescent and Cradle Valley Evening - provide a counterpoint to the newer works with their high-detail, pencilled draughtsmanship.

Where Cradle has finely wrought foliage, a work like Melbourne Street Magic Hour is more impressionistic on closer look.

But only stepping to a canvas beside it, a viewer will see Whittle counter himself again with Copper Cove and Pirate's Bay, two briny pieces cut into four horizontal slats depicting landscape, still life-like detail of rocks and seashells and seaweed.

"Those pieces are my approach at trying to tell the story of the landscape; it's not just a view that makes it what it is," Whittle said.

Launceston+ opens tonight, Friday, May 10, at Madeline Gordon Gallery.