THE SYDNEY REVIEW • NOVEMBER 1994

By JACQUES DELARUELLE

...Similarly attached to the ideal of a direct poetic expression, Theresa Byrnes’ paintings at the Milkwood Gallery stage a passionate struggle with the angel and reiterated de Kooning’s conviction that ‘form ought to have the emotion of a concrete experience’. Clearly the artist’s belief in the lyrical significance of her marks placed the work in the expressionist gambit and the exhilaration of her style would not entirely hide its more dramatic overtone or more to the point perhaps the conviction that the best artists have an exemplary vocation for suffering...