Exhibition Insight... Picturesque
Belinda Reid, 22:54 18.09.2018, 2018
Picturesque
Words by Rebecca Freezer.
Rebecca is Assistant Curator at JamFactory.
Landscape painting is undoubtedly one of the most popular and universally loved themes in the history of Australian art. It conjures the names of such iconic artists as John Glover, Hans Heysen, or Impressionists Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton of the Heidelberg School. The fascination and love of the Australian landscape continues to this day and Picturesque goes beyond watercolour on paper or oil on canvas to investigate contemporary manifestations of this genre through works that defy pictorial containment.
From coherent compositions to painterly abstractions, each artwork has a specific genesis in Australia’s natural environments. Picturesque considers the close relationships we maintain with landscape, place, and memory. In the representational views of the Barossa Valley by Melbourne-based artist Belinda Reid, the photographic images (pictured above), used to capture memory of place, are disassembled and reconstructed by physically weaving multiple prints together to represent a landscape that is both familiar and strange.
Likewise, South Australian glass artist Gerry King’s landscape influenced works are a record of the emotional experience occasioned by recollections of colour and forms. His work communicates a range of moods, from the sunburnt central desert lit by the harsh noonday sun, to intricate plays of light and shadows on the grass covered slopes of the Adelaide Hills.
Gerry King, Native Valley, 2011.
Memory also informs the landscape depicted by Adelaide-based artist and jeweller Zoe Grigoris. Each piece of her enamel painted silver jewellery is made of heart and floral motifs to communicate a nostalgia towards the environment she grew up in.
Hidden by trees and roamed by kangaroos - Under Heaven Over Hell, 2018 is profoundly about natural innocence and a child-like wonderment of ‘place’.
The work of celebrated South Australian ceramic artist Jeffery Mincham AM is inspired by the view from his studio in the Adelaide Hills. His signature calligraphic brushstrokes refer to the weather patterns, seasons and farming lands nearby. Similarly, the imagery painted by the Hermannsburg Potters is inspired by the surrounding landscapes. The Aboriginal settlement of Hermannsburg in the Northern Territory was famously the home of landscape watercolour artist Albert Namatjira. Potter, Judith Pungarta Inkamala depicts the view from the art centre’s window in ceramic underglazes beneath a lid of vibrantly sculpted birds in Tuakitja (honey eater), 2017.
The intricate, intergenerational relationships to County are a focus of reflection for many of Australia’s First Nations’ People. From Ruth Fatt’s bush food depicted in abstract brushstrokes to the distinct avian figures of Nyanu Watson, the glass works of the Ninuku artists are a personal expression of their ancestral dreaming stories.
Zoe Grigoris, Under Heaven Over Hell, 2018.
The interconnectedness between the human and natural worlds inspire the wooden sculptures of Canberra-based artist Thomas O’Hara. Constructed layer by layer in many tiny lengths of native timber that is then eroded, burned and sanded, O’Hara creates objects which investigate the effects of time, human impact and nature on our landscapes. Fellow Canberra local Sally Blake also utilises natural processes and materials to investigate these themes in her textile and paper-based works that incorporate native plant dyes. Similarly, the textured metal surfaces of contemporary jeweller and object-maker Zoë Veness refer to the arthropocene and the deep sense of time experienced through the dolerites of Hobart’s Mount Wellington. While, the kiln formed glass panels, sculptures and vessels of Barossa Valley local, Brenden Scott French depict the evolution of a familiar landscape over a geological timeline. His works are a lively interplay between formal, technical elements and gestural, expressive painterly surfaces.
Picturesque is a new vision of Australia’s landscape that moves beyond the flat form to three dimensional objects, often using the natural materials of the land in its depictions. While the media is diverse, the forces that create each piece are the same. These are beautifully crafted works that express a love for the landscape, revealing something fundamental to our shared sense of place in this engulfing yet expansive land.
Thomas O’Hara, Fault Line, 2017. Photo courtesy the artist.
CURATOR:
Rebecca Freezer and Lucy Potter
ESSAY:
Rebecca Freezer
EXHIBITORS:
Belinda Reid (VIC), Brenden Scott French (SA), Gerry King (SA), Hermannsburg Potters Judith Pungarta Inkamala and Rahel Kngwarria Ungwanaka (NT), Jeffery Mincham (SA), Ninuku Artists Carol Young, Cassaria Young-Hogan, Nyanu Watson, Phyllis Watson, Ruth Fatt and Samuel Miller (SA), Sally Blake (ACT), Thomas O’Hara (ACT), Zoe Grigoris (SA) and Zoë Veness (NSW).
PICTURESQUE
29 November - 9 February
JamFactory at Seppeltsfield