Adam Nudelman’s work deploys an unusual poetry. Based in South Gippsland, Victoria, his work is refined yet methodical, deliberate compositions that while of this world, are imbued with mystery. There are nods to the Renaissance Masters, vistas of the Australian landscape and still lifes that under the artist’s hand, can’t help but instill curiosity.  

In this collection of early works by the artist, a paper crane looks quizzical, shoes are abandoned and light bursts across a distant horizon. Why all the shoes? They speak to a revelation Nudelman had about his family during art school. He discovered that his grandparents, secretive and isolated, were not German as he had been told but Polish Jews, displaced during World War Two. His grandfather had come to Australia hoping for a fresh start, working as cobbler in Melbourne until his retirement. When he passed away, Nudelman discovered that behind one of his locked doors lay hundreds of unsold shoes. 

A symbol of grief, shame and an immigrant’s dream, the shoe walked into Nudelman’s canvas. It is a nod to his family history, as well as an evocation of hope and self-discovery. As an adult, Nudelman took over his grandparents’s house, throwing open the windows to let light cascade in; from darkness, light fell. 

Critically esteemed and well collected, Nudelman represents one of the most intelligent and captivating voices in Australian figurative painting. He is represented at the National Museum, Canberra, The Australian Jewish Museum, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne and LaTrobe University, among others. These works, bewitching finds for collectors of landscape, still life and contemporary art, are the seeds of ideas he would stay with across his twenty-five years. Buds of beauty.