Last night, at the invitation of Ali Yeldham, the director of Sydney’s Arthouse Gallery, I attended an intimate candlelit dinner—a warm gathering held on the eve of the opening of 嗯Garden of Flowing Water, an exhibition by Melbourne artist Dean Home.
A long table was set with fresh flowers, candlelight and name cards: formal, yet wonderfully warm. Ali spoke with great affection about Dean—his personality, his passions, his expressive approach to painting, and, beyond art, his love of ceramics and fine food.
She remarked that although Arthouse Gallery has now been established for thirty years, it still considers itself young within the art world. She also made a special introduction of - Monika Tu OAM，who is the leader of Club Diamondz, and art investor , as well as myself. “Ginger and I have known each other for eight years,” she said. “She has also been a great supporter of our gallery.”
It had been pouring with rain all day, and I had almost decided not to go. These days, I find myself increasingly drawn to a way of living that asks for less effort, less insistence, less forcing of things. So I simply waited for the rain to ease.
By the time I finally left home, it was nearly six. I took a taxi, but did not arrive until past seven—almost half hour later than I should have.
Ali was waiting for me in the gallery foyer. There was not the slightest reproach in her face. She simply said, “I was worried about you. Take off your raincoat—I’ll put it in my office.”
Such a small gesture, such warmth in her words. And suddenly I felt rather guilty that I had so nearly cancelled without a second thought.
Over the years, I have become a regular visitor to Arthouse Gallery. Rather than saying that I discovered in Sydney a gallery that still holds firmly to aesthetic standards and values artistic expression, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the artists gathered here, and the gallery’s own unwavering philosophy, have strengthened my own commitment to artistic quality and aesthetic value.
And behind all this lies something larger than art itself—a set of human values: freedom and equality, elegance without pretension, ease without carelessness, and an enduring pursuit of excellence.
Then came the protagonist of the evening: Dean Home himself, speaking about his life and work, followed by a lively exchange of questions and conversation.
Dean grew up in Western Australia and studied at Curtin University in Perth. Even during his university years, he had begun collecting unusual stones and developed a fascination with objects from the East, particularly Chinese-style ceramics. After graduating in 1981, he established himself as a figurative painter.
Later, while studying and travelling through museums in Italy, his encounter with the paintings of Caravaggio opened an entirely new chapter in the way he understood light and pictorial drama. He eventually moved to Melbourne—a city where a British-European inheritance sits comfortably alongside an openness to Asian culture—and there, life and artistic practice found a natural coexistence.
In 2017, Dean travelled through China with his wife. The elegance and splendour of Suzhou’s classical gardens added another layer to the visual stories that would later unfold across his canvases.
His paintings have something of the theatre about them.
Ancient blue-and-white porcelain, voluptuous peonies and roses, brushes whose every fibre seems visible, and natural scholar’s rocks resting quietly in bowls—all are caught at a particular instant beneath Dean’s carefully orchestrated light. Objects, historical remnants, memories of time and flowers at the very height of their beauty are brought together, conversing with and measuring themselves against one another.
The scenes are sumptuous, expansive and theatrical. Yet beneath their splendour lies a quiet reminder: every living thing is more fleeting than a bowl, more transient than a stone.
The bowl may hold the sediment of centuries. The porcelain vase carries within its painted surface mountains, rivers and traces of another civilisation. Yet the flower, in its most passionate moment of bloom, is also at its most fragile. What burns most brightly is often what disappears most quickly.
Dean Home’s still-life paintings are ignited by light, yet they reach beyond light itself. They turn towards memory, time, culture and our relationship with objects. Within them are tensions and revelations, mortality and, perhaps, the spiritual redemption that art makes possible.
Caravaggio-like light falls across landscapes painted on Chinese porcelain. Baroque abundance encounters the Eastern auspicious imagery of gathering waters and blossoming flowers. The virtuosity of Western oil painting meets the richness, delicacy and layered symbolism of classical Chinese culture.
In Dean Home’s still lifes, East and West do not merely stand side by side. They illuminate one another.
Water gathers.
Flowers bloom.
Vessels are filled.
Abundance, auspiciousness and the eternal cycle of life quietly emerge as the deeper themes of Garden of Flowing Water.
- Ginger Li, Arts Writer and Consultant
