Gabrielle Jones - dialogue with paint

Gabrielle Jones

'Night Storm'
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

Paint revelry

Ross Laurie
Time and Light
Oil on canvas
1070 x 1400mm
2009

Image: Damien Minton Gallery

A quick post to sing the praises of two Sydney artists who have shows on at the moment.

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!

Ian Fairweather

I was in Darwin recently where I photographed this lone, weathered chair. The negative spaces and the lines reminded me of the work of Australian artist Ian Fairweather who, in 1952, made a raft and launched himself into the Timor sea from the very beach where I took this shot. Most people who know anything about Fairweather are familiar with this journey in which he drifted dangerously for weeks before landing in Indonesia. He is known for his style that, while blending influences from cubism, aboriginal art and chinese calligraphy, offered us something so wonderfully unique especially considering that most of his best work was completed in isolation from the art establishment of the day. Fairweather was a restless traveler and later a recluse painter, choosing to paint out the rest of his days on Bribie Island, off the Queensland coast. But, putting myth making matters aside, a Fairweather painting is, to any painter, a treat to behold. It's all about those restless marks that dart and weave all over the support (which is most often cheap cardboard). These are works that truly make one want to dive in. Fairweather creates densely layered and disrupted surfaces that, when one casts ones eye across the picture, has the sensation of settling for a moment in quiet spaces or anchor points of line, shape or colour before being propelled onward - like a kite, I suppose. I love that feeling of delicious movement in every rapid fire stroke or wandering line. I'm never far from the idea that I'm witnessing a language, a very personal communication system containing fragmented memories of far off places or conversations with vines, undergrowth, strange animals or landforms. These paintings reveal a rich, personal world of a very great and brave painter.

In his own words: Painting is a personal thing. It gives me the same kind of satisfaction that religion, I imagine, gives to some people.

Well, amen to that!

House by the Sea 1968

Flying Kite 1958
Sytnthetic polymer paint and gouche on cardboard

Joe Furlonger

Joe Furlonger

Travelling amid Mountains and Streams
2008
Acrylic, pigment and binder on canvas
182 x 91 cm

Master of the brush...what more can I say. Except maybe this: If I were a believer, God would be velvet moss green. These paintings make me swoon. Delicious layers of liquidity - lovingly and oh so respectfully applied. Nothing is under or over done. These sing. I'm diving in! Check more of his work here.

The paint has finally dried. Welcome to 2009! I'm ready to comb the big wide virtual world of painting again. Stay tuned for more tasty delights. Peace.

John Peart

John PEART
Tetrad VII, 2008
acrylic on canvas, 55 x 90cm

I've been off wrestling with this beast that is Painting...know the feeling?

I'm sure you do.

Ok, well relax, sit back and enjoy the pattern abstraction, multi-layered works of Australian Painter John Peart.

More here and here.

ETA: Some links don't seem to work so just search via exhibitions and/or artists

Peter Sharp

Peter Sharp
Cicada, 2008
oil and acrylic on linen
200 x 150 cm

Australian painter Peter Sharp is having a show in Sydney.

Born on the east coast of Australia, this painter is well known for going out into the desert to record the surroundings. Making small, immediate drawings he then returns to his studio to paint. But it's what he does with the notion of landscape that attracts me to his work. Instead of treating the landscape as 'grand vista' for a faithful even reverential interpretation (the ubiquitous three vertical stripes), Peter Sharp instead chooses to hone into the things he sees on the ground, a rock or a seed pod for example might inspires him.

In his latest paintings the spider and it's web are his main subject and they're quite arresting

Fittingly, Sharp paints with his canvas laid out on the floor, a preference that honours his preoccupation with the microcosm, enabling him to take an aerial view of his work in progress. I love looking at these; abstractions combining hard edged forms with gestural strokes using both oil and acrylic.

Peter Sharp is an interesting painter because of the way he chooses to render the natural world and, in many ways, it's refreshing to see the Australian landscape recognised in this way.

Also, do check out his drawings - they're a treat. Mostly small to mid sized (sometimes gridded up to make a larger piece), these charcoal drawings are simple, graphic and direct. They just breathe.