A reflective exhibition from Dr Susan Quinn gleams at Gallery Pejean

The Launceston artist's solo exhibition, Reflect - a series of 21 works titled Whimsy #1 through #21 - is a collection where perspex glass frames with mirrored sides are as contributory to the art as the abstract works they encompass.

"Reflective frames were something I've thought about for a long time," said Dr Quinn, who recently completed her doctorate in fine art and design at the University of Tasmania.

"If you look at Renaissance paintings, they have these huge gilt frames which don't form part of the picture but they're contributory, and that's what I wanted to do.

"When they're painted and the frames go on, it completes them, and it changes the way we see them."

The works inside the glass are strongly influenced by the colour field movement - an abstract expressionist-style of the '50s where figures like Mark Rothko painted enormous canvases of rectangular, layered colour.

Instead of rectangles, though, Dr Quinn adds geometric shapes and patterns - all of which she said were painted completely on a whim, thus the exhibition's name - like in Whimsy #14, a solid light blue field with freehand squares and rectangles in pinks, royal blues and light green.

"It's about using colours that might soothe the soul or the senses with pastels or even getting in your face," Dr Quinn said.

"It needs to be pleasing to the eye, of course, that's my major sense.

"Colour is the major motivator."

And like much abstract work, the pieces can act as somewhat of a Rorschach test: the viewer brings their own interpretation to it, seeing something others might not.

"I think they have little inherent meaning, but people want to see something in them, and usually they can find something but I think it's more about the way that it makes you feel," she said.

"Though, maybe they'll see their own reflection."

Dr Susan Quinn's exhibition Reflect is on display now at Gallery Pejean until October 28, with all works available for sale.