Thursday, November 5, 2009
My website - finally!
I've finally completed my website. It's very simple and I only have a few works on display but it will be updated as time goes by. This is such a new thing for me. Even putting my name on a website gives me the horrors, let alone putting my work on display - but it needs to be done. Let me know what you think of the design or make some suggestions if you feel like it.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Cecily Brown
Cecily Brown: Thanks, Roody Hooster -oil on linen, 2004I think I might let the artist speak for themselves this time. Here's an interview with Cecily Brown which I found via Two Coats of Paint.
The boundaries of painting excite me. You've got the same old materials - just oils and a canvas - and you're trying to do something that's been done for centuries. And yet, within those limits, you have to make something new or exciting for yourself as well as other people.... Read more
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Ken Whisson
Ken WhissonHouse, Hills, Poultry and Trees 30.7.08 & 21.2.09 100 x 120cm
Image: courtesy of Watters Gallery
"If one acknowledges that the style of a Whisson painting is unmistakable, this is not to plunge the artist into a creative cul-de-sac. One of the reasons these pictures are individually so engaging and cumulatively so haunting, is that the problems they deal with are never predictable, their shapes never purely rhetorical. Each work has its own crisis to overcome, its own pictorial language to invent" from: John McDonald -Ken Whisson, A Survey catalogue
Love this quote. Love Ken Whisson. Let me try and articulate. Every so often I'm visited by that vexed question: Is painting dead? To cure me of such impure thoughts I'm always heartened by an idea (not just mine, I'm sure) that for every individual who paints there is a personal question each must seek to answer through their work. Perhaps I might even go so far as to say that sometimes those questions are so much better when they're not or never truly answered thus providing a painter with enough sustenance for a lifetime. Ken Whisson is a much loved Australian painter precisely because he revisits old territory in a way that never feels old or rehashed. It's always fresh - not just with respect to paint handling which, if you are lucky enough to see one in the flesh, is quite a special experience - but always because there seems to be an importance placed on the journey rather than the final outcome. Hence the scruffy, scumbly marks, the layered staccato lines drawn with paint that are smudged or half concealed and those strange shapes that hang, usually in white space, delightfully and necessarily unresolved. A life lived through painted marks. Perfect. I'm cured.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Gabrielle Jones - dialogue with paint
Gabrielle Jones'Night Storm'
2008, 122 x 152 Oil on Canvas
Image courtesy of the artist
2008, 122 x 152 Oil on Canvas
Image courtesy of the artist
The other day I had the pleasure of visiting Sydney artist Gabrielle Jones in her studio. We had lots to talk about. So much so that on my train trip home I madly scribbled recalled snippets of our conversation, covering three blank end pages of my current read - Night Studio: a memoir of Philip Guston.
A natural colourist, Jones' abstracted landscapes are taken from memories of shape and space in nature. She is an interesting mixture of an intuitive painter and one that makes considered decisions about how colour and form should combine. These paintings offer her own unique view of the Australian bush in all it's extremes -hot and sun drenched; dry, restful, cooling shade.
Jones related to me an early lesson she learnt at art school which was to allow a painting to take her where it wants to go. Clearly it's a lesson that works for her style and her painting process. Although periodically she draws from life, her main sustenance for subject comes from her memory. The main work in each painting comes from decisions she makes as the work grows before her ( each work springs from one primary painting and so there is a constantly active process of looking and re imagining). It's about the conversations she has with herself and the painting materials - canvas, brushes, paint - that seem to concern her most.
Jones seems to revel in formal elements such as the ambiguity of a shape. Also, space as a counter point to shape, is just as important. Her use of white might be something to do with this nuance and, to my mind, helps to tie her surfaces together so that they feel both weighty and light all at the same time. There is a meatiness to her paint too which I really like and we spoke for a long time about the way the edges - the spaces between two shapes or the meeting of two tones of colour - can keep a painting buzzing with tension or, in the case of some of her identified 'failures', leave a painting feeling predictable and deadened.
"Of course, I'm still learning to paint" she maintains. From this statement I get that Jones is willing to push paint around, ask it questions and grow as an artist in that process. Gabrielle Jones is a painter who knows her stuff and can speak the language of paint with real insight. Visit her website and her blog too where you will find her interesting ruminations about art and life as well as a wonderful collection of quotes from other artists.
Gabrielle Jones has an upcoming show: "Trees for my Father" depot II Gallery, 2 Danks St Waterloo Nov 3 -15 Drinks with the artist Wed Nov 4 6-8pm
A natural colourist, Jones' abstracted landscapes are taken from memories of shape and space in nature. She is an interesting mixture of an intuitive painter and one that makes considered decisions about how colour and form should combine. These paintings offer her own unique view of the Australian bush in all it's extremes -hot and sun drenched; dry, restful, cooling shade.
Jones related to me an early lesson she learnt at art school which was to allow a painting to take her where it wants to go. Clearly it's a lesson that works for her style and her painting process. Although periodically she draws from life, her main sustenance for subject comes from her memory. The main work in each painting comes from decisions she makes as the work grows before her ( each work springs from one primary painting and so there is a constantly active process of looking and re imagining). It's about the conversations she has with herself and the painting materials - canvas, brushes, paint - that seem to concern her most.
Jones seems to revel in formal elements such as the ambiguity of a shape. Also, space as a counter point to shape, is just as important. Her use of white might be something to do with this nuance and, to my mind, helps to tie her surfaces together so that they feel both weighty and light all at the same time. There is a meatiness to her paint too which I really like and we spoke for a long time about the way the edges - the spaces between two shapes or the meeting of two tones of colour - can keep a painting buzzing with tension or, in the case of some of her identified 'failures', leave a painting feeling predictable and deadened.
"Of course, I'm still learning to paint" she maintains. From this statement I get that Jones is willing to push paint around, ask it questions and grow as an artist in that process. Gabrielle Jones is a painter who knows her stuff and can speak the language of paint with real insight. Visit her website and her blog too where you will find her interesting ruminations about art and life as well as a wonderful collection of quotes from other artists.
Gabrielle Jones has an upcoming show: "Trees for my Father" depot II Gallery, 2 Danks St Waterloo Nov 3 -15 Drinks with the artist Wed Nov 4 6-8pm
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Paint revelry
Ross Laurie
Time and Light
Oil on canvas
1070 x 1400mm
2009
Steven Harvey @ Liverpool Street Gallery and Ross Laurie @ Damien Minton Gallery. Both shows simply revel in paint, colour and form. Steven Harvey, in his paintings from Kakadu, continues to play with the double canvas construction so that the edges of the paintings are just as worthy of attention as the facing surface. I'm all for interesting edges and I'm always looking at them; a fascination for the 'history' of a work, I guess. Go look.
Ross Laurie's paintings and works on paper, from his home town of Walcha, literally sing with seductive colour. Painted forms, depicting trees, undulating curves and the shadows created by their interplay, are beautifully rendered and resolved.
Both of these artists have created works that are fresh, seductive and just about edible. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
John Peart
Shadowgrille - 2009120x194cm
oil and acrylic on canvas
Image: Watters Gallery, Sydney
Just the other day I had the opportunity to meet with Sydney abstract painter, John Peart, at Watters Gallery where we had a rambling conversation about his latest show Mainly Painting. Comprised mainly of large canvases made from smaller panels, the work is full of intrigue; amorphous forms, spidery lines and surfaces ranging from roughly textured to lightly stained. These are the kind of abstract paintings that keep me looking, guessing and wondering.
Talking to Peart was a refreshing experience given that it was quickly obvious that he was open to my interpretations. Indeed, when I asked him if he liked talking about his work he reflected 'not so much talking about it but I do like being prompted by questions from others, it makes me think about possibilities'. This flexibility; being open to questions and possibilities, is key and it's clearly evident in the way he treats each panel separately and then unifies or assembles them later, into larger canvases. Doing so welcomes a sense of surprise and play that provides a freedom from being entirely preoccupied with picture making as an end product. It's more about engaging with the paint and its myraid possibilities. On a smaller scale the collages in the show echo this process and, to my mind, represent a playfully direct way of juxtaposing bright amorphous forms with web like grounds.
Space is a major element in Peart's work. In a painting such as 'Pour Favour' (please?) there is a distinct feeling that one can fall into or through spaces or holes, as if there is another world behind the prevailing layers.
In 'Shadowgrille' (featured here) space is suggested by playful lines: some scrathy, as an overlay, some flat and inky and some fuzzy/blurry on top. It's as if a paint soaked grub took a wander along the surface leaving a trail like the marks one might find on a scribbly gum. I'm naturally drawn to the tensions set up by multiple edges in this painting, an effect resulting from the joining of the four separate panels post-painting. To add further to its complexity, Peart concocts a subtle shift in the character of the line so that it changes from deep dark to grey blurred. The overall effect is intensely dynamic; the viewer is not passively gazing but rather actively moving in and out of the picture space.
Echoing Shadowgrille is a wall sculpture. Made from eucalyptus branches, 'E camaldulensis' first comes across as a random scattering of bush debris on a forest floor but further investigation reveals a series of driving lines that splinter off from the base, weaving in and out to make a support of wooden webs or grids. It's a form that is beautifully resolved and as it hovers airily on the wall the branches cast shadows affecting a second dimension on to the blank space behind so that the entire piece takes on a kind of physical reflection of the concerns embodied by the paintings surrounding it.
The idea of endless choices in painting is such a delicious one. And, dare I say it - pursuing substance over style - is what a painting by John Peart is all about. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next! So if you're in town, I highly recommend that you go and see this show. Also, you can read a really great interview from 2007 with John Peart here.
Talking to Peart was a refreshing experience given that it was quickly obvious that he was open to my interpretations. Indeed, when I asked him if he liked talking about his work he reflected 'not so much talking about it but I do like being prompted by questions from others, it makes me think about possibilities'. This flexibility; being open to questions and possibilities, is key and it's clearly evident in the way he treats each panel separately and then unifies or assembles them later, into larger canvases. Doing so welcomes a sense of surprise and play that provides a freedom from being entirely preoccupied with picture making as an end product. It's more about engaging with the paint and its myraid possibilities. On a smaller scale the collages in the show echo this process and, to my mind, represent a playfully direct way of juxtaposing bright amorphous forms with web like grounds.
Space is a major element in Peart's work. In a painting such as 'Pour Favour' (please?) there is a distinct feeling that one can fall into or through spaces or holes, as if there is another world behind the prevailing layers.
In 'Shadowgrille' (featured here) space is suggested by playful lines: some scrathy, as an overlay, some flat and inky and some fuzzy/blurry on top. It's as if a paint soaked grub took a wander along the surface leaving a trail like the marks one might find on a scribbly gum. I'm naturally drawn to the tensions set up by multiple edges in this painting, an effect resulting from the joining of the four separate panels post-painting. To add further to its complexity, Peart concocts a subtle shift in the character of the line so that it changes from deep dark to grey blurred. The overall effect is intensely dynamic; the viewer is not passively gazing but rather actively moving in and out of the picture space.
Echoing Shadowgrille is a wall sculpture. Made from eucalyptus branches, 'E camaldulensis' first comes across as a random scattering of bush debris on a forest floor but further investigation reveals a series of driving lines that splinter off from the base, weaving in and out to make a support of wooden webs or grids. It's a form that is beautifully resolved and as it hovers airily on the wall the branches cast shadows affecting a second dimension on to the blank space behind so that the entire piece takes on a kind of physical reflection of the concerns embodied by the paintings surrounding it.
The idea of endless choices in painting is such a delicious one. And, dare I say it - pursuing substance over style - is what a painting by John Peart is all about. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next! So if you're in town, I highly recommend that you go and see this show. Also, you can read a really great interview from 2007 with John Peart here.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Sabine Tress
Living Room Creatures, Grey eats Red - 2007 - Acrylic on canvas - 100 x 100 cm
Image: Galerie Proarta
German painter Sabine Tress knows how to apply paint and she does it playfully, boldly and sensuously. In every picture she makes there is a freshness that allows the shapes to settle without them becoming stodgy or obvious. I'm intrigued by what lies beneath the great swathes of colour - what goes before in these paintings are just as much a part of the final result and the layers never feel heavy or over worked. This painting is part of a series called Living Room Creatures. Go and have a look at the whole set - they make me laugh out loud! Her earlier graffitiesque works are also a treat.
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