When the first crackle of city heat makes its way into the unfolding year, the towel unfurls, the chips are bought, ice begets more ice, garbage swells and the temper bubbles, yet enjoyment prevails.

The watermelon suddenly jumps from the pre-cut and pale store offering and aligns with the season, appearing whole, confident.

The Summer matrix of sky, sun and water quietly force through nostalgic thoughts, now competing with end-of-days and catastrophic musings; how cold is the water on a warming planet? How breathtaking is a sunset sky flecked with particulate? What will be down there if I dip a toe in? What even is enjoyment?

In the exhibition ‘This Heat’, Riley Payne presents nine small oil on canvas paintings that quietly ask these questions while staked in the sand, perched on a rocky outcrop, or nestled in the greener-than-green aquatic grass. Presented as a suite of Summer themed pieces - light, uncomplicated and humorous, yet rooted in the artist’s broader practice of interrogating the familiar and mundane, these works bring up such question marks by sitting still; imagination fills in gaps, coincidences and connections coalesce, more questions arise.

Riley Payne (B. 1979, Melbourne, Australia. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY). Recent exhibitions include ‘Al Fresco’, New Release, NY, (2020), ‘Nature Documentary’, Reading Room, Melbourne, (2019) and The NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, (2017)