It’s always exciting to witness an artist’s shift in style and technique, like the one seen in the latest body of work by Australian painter Aaron Kinnane. Titled Sunset Studies, this series of oil paintings from 2014 is radically different from the vivid technicolour equestrian works Kinnane was known for until recently. Apart from the more subdued palette and abstract subject matter, the artist has also switched from brushes to just a palette knife to smear, splash and spread his oils on the canvas; the result is a panorama of blurry yet visceral landscapes that evoke misty fields or tumultuous seas, all the while capturing the particular hues of a day’s last light. For Kinnane, the process of creating these paintings layer after layer was like traversing his own emotional landscape, since according to him ‘‘every emotional nuance felt during that time is now on each canvas.’’ The works achieve depth and movement through their simplicity, a quality that they owe perhaps to the artist’s musical influences — particularly Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies which the artist would often listen to in his studio whilst creating this body of work.