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| Christopher Wool, enamel on linen. |
Florence, April, 2009.
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| Florence Wall |
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| Florence Wall |
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| Florence Wall |
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| Under construction, Florence |
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| Postbox, Florence |
Lawrence Carroll
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| Lawrence Carroll, Calendar Painting "light brown-rose", 2010. Oil, wax, house paint on canvas on wood, h: 32 x w: 19 x d: 2.5 cm. |
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| Lawrence Carroll, Net, 2009-2010. Oil, wax, house paint and canvas on wood, studio dust, flowers, glass, h: 274 x w: 208 x d: 15 cm. |
Tom Roberts and his critic
Tom Roberts, Harper’s Weekly, c. 1889, Oil on cedar cigar box lid, 23.8x14.2 cm.
Tom Roberts is one of my favorite Australian artists. To me he is the father of Australian modernism. Maybe I just go for the quality of his mark making and his pallette; those monochrome portraits that are so exquisitely painted. So it is hard to imagine the Impressionists (which includes Roberts) direct painting technique described at the time by the art critic James Smith, for the Argus, as ‘slap-dash brushwork’ equal to ‘primeval chaos’.[1] Equally hard to fathom is that Roberts could not find a ready buyer for his now iconic Shearing the Rams, 1890, or that the National Gallery of Victoria did not acquire Roberts' work until 1920, 30 years after the famous 9 x 5 Impressionist exhibition.
1.
James Smith, ‘An Impressionist Exhibition’, Argus, August 17, 1889, 10.
Black and White Attire
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Convict suit, date unknown, colour unknown, this suit was issued
in Tasmania.
Baiba Berzins, The Coming of Strangers : Life in Australia
1788-1922, (Sydney: Collins Australia/State Library of NSW, 1988), 81.
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Henri Matisse, Costume for a Mourner, c1920. The
nightingale,
the Russian Ballet. Reproduced from National Gallery
of Australia Website |
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| Japanese formal haori or topcoat, Meiji Era (1868–1912). Hand woven silk, and hand made. Reproduced from Japanese Textile Art Website. |
Billboards
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| Billboard, Melbourne. |
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| Billboard detail. |
Found art, inner-city Melbourne. The combined effects of natural weathering, and the removal and reapplication of advertising posters, created surface qualities on this billboard that might be found in an artist's collage. Its random beauty, advocates risk taking and accident causing situations in studio work over prescriptive ideas. Whether I would appreciate such billboards without an awareness of artists including Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg, is a matter to consider.
Neville Pilven
Territorial, 2009. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 76x76 cm.
Two Hills, 2009. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 76x76 cm.
Image reproduced courtesy of the artist.
During the warmer months Melbourne artist, Neville Pilven, spends a
lot of time painting at his cottage on the fringe of the Wimmera in Western
Central Victoria. His cottage-studio is located in a quiet rural area once
mined for gold. Pilven’s semi-realist landscape paintings border
on the poetic, with historic folk references employed as pictorial iconography;
an old tank, a remnant of a fence, or a dam. His sombre palette and
a sense of emotional connection to the landscape, veil a deeper questioning
upon the forces that shape nature and our place as people in the landscape—a
theme that resonates with the landscape paintings of Russell Drysdale.
Born in 1939, Pilven studied at the National
Gallery Art
School and the George Bell
School (drawing).
In the mid-1960s, Pilven left Australia
for several years of European travel, study and painting, to England, Spain
and Hydra Island, Greece. In 1972, he studied
printmaking at Morley College, London,
before returning to Australia
in 1973, to settle in Melbourne.
He was a finalist in the John McCaughey Invitation Art Prize, 1979, National
Gallery of Victoria. Neville has held twenty solo exhibitions, many with
leading Melbourne
galleries. He has undertaken commissions for Myer, Telstra Australia and
National Panasonic. His work is in collections including Artbank, Latrobe
University, Ansett, Westpac, National Bank, Telstra Australia,
Ridley, Potter Warburg and private collections in UK,
USA, Australia and Japan.
The Found Artefact
This
pot was found while walking near Altona beach in Melbourne. The pot was
in a rubbish skip outside a house that had been restumped. As it was
lying in amongst the stumps I assumed it came from under the house and
decided to retrieve it. I subsequently took it home and put it in the
studio where it has become a contemplation piece. Through working in
Altona for a couple of years, I learnt that the area was originally
settled by Scottish immigrants. I also know that it was initially a very
poor working class area surrounded by heavy industry.
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| Found Pot, Altona Beach, 2007. |
So
fascinated with this pot have I become that I have been imagining its
history, for it looks as though it has had a long and needy life through
tough times vastly different from the commodity-rich world we live in
here today. So used was this pot that it literally wore out. However, unlike
today, it was not discarded but patched up and repaired many times over
with different size washers and bolts as more and more holes appeared in
it to such an extent that it transformed from a functional cooking
utility—a pot—to a pot incorporating elements of ‘makeshift’. In a
further process of discarding and rediscovery it moved—lost and
found—from functionality to ‘found object’ and I now consider it art.
Allan Mitelman
Allan Mitleman, Untitled, 2004. Acrylic on canvas, 190x130 cm.
Image reproduced from Liverpool Street Gallery Website.
Untitled, 2004, by Allan Mitelman, was featured in the BLUE CHIP: The Collector's Exhibition, showing at Liverpool Street Gallery, during June, 2010. Mitelman also held the exhibition, A Selection of works on paper and paintings, in October, 2009, at the Australia Galleries, Smith Street Gallery. Mitelman's work is best seen in person. The works convey an arresting quality and can hover between non-objective minimalism and presenting painting as object. This is due to the works reading on one hand as monochromes, but with a densely built up surface without sharp edges. The works are painterly.
Mitelman has had a distinguished career in Australia and is represented in many public collections. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and a survey exhibition, Allan Mitelman, After-images: A survey of works from 1970-95, was held at the Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 1995. Mitelman has won several art prizes including the Geelong Art Prize, 1970, and the Freemantle Arts Centre Print Prize, 1976.
Mitelman has had a distinguished career in Australia and is represented in many public collections. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and a survey exhibition, Allan Mitelman, After-images: A survey of works from 1970-95, was held at the Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 1995. Mitelman has won several art prizes including the Geelong Art Prize, 1970, and the Freemantle Arts Centre Print Prize, 1976.
Suzanna Lang
Suzanna Lang, What's it say about me, circa 2010. Mixed media on canvas, 122x122 cm.
Image reproduced from Soho Art Galleries Website.
SUZANNA LANG - ABSTRACT PAINTINGS, Soho Galleries Annex, MLC Centre, July, 2010. Suzanna Lang's expressive paintings are suggestive and ambiguous, a desirable state for abstraction. The works are engagingly complex while being also beguilingly simple. Lang
sites Haiku poetry as an influence.
Since 2003, Lang has held 15 solo exhibitions in Australia and has been a selected finalist for many art prizes including the Mosman Art Prize, 2005, and the Paddington Landscape Prize, 2007. Lang commenced her studies and career in graphic design before moving to ceramics, producing tableware for a number of years.
Ann Thomson
Ann Thomson, Rough with Age, 2010. Acrylic and collage on linen, 166x82 cm.
Image reproduced from Charles Nodrum Gallery Website.
Showing at Charles Nodrum Gallery until June 5, was an exhibition by lyrical abstract painter, Ann Thomson. The landscape has been a consistent reference in Thomson's paintings. Rough with Age, 2010, is an appropriate title for a work about the Australian landscape. Haggard and formed by time, much of Australia is a place for good boots and steady feet. Her technique, with paint falling as it does, without fuss, is as reflective of the Australian landscape, as the imagery in her painting.
Ann Thomson was born in Brisbane in 1933. Thomson has had a long and distinguished career. Highlights include winning both the John McGaughey Art Award, 1986, Art Gallery of NSW, and the Wynne Prize (Australian
landscape painting), 1998, also held at the Art Gallery of NSW. Thomson is represented in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and Parliament House, Canberra. For more information please refer to the gallery website.
John Peart
John Peart, Tetrad I, 2008. Polymer emulsion on canvas, diptych, 120x194 cm.
Image reproduced from Charles Nodrum Gallery Website.
I encountered the impressive Tetrad I, 2008, by John Peart during a recent visit to Charles Nodrum Gallery, in Richmond. John Peart, born in Brisbane, 1945, currently lives and works in Sydney, NSW. Peart is represented in Sydney by Watters Gallery.
Peart is masterful at small collages and a good selection from his recent exhibition, Collages, 2010, at Watters gallery can be viewed here. Peart was included in the now legendary, The Field, exhibition at the new National Gallery of Victoria, 1968. Since then he has shown extensively in Australia. Peart has work in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of WA, Art Gallery of SA, National Gallery of Victoria, and many regional galleries and large corporations. For further information please refer to one of his representative websites.
John Davis
John Davis, Lake
Mournoul III, 1989.
Eucalyptus
twigs, paper, calico, bondcrete, bitumous paint,
92x135x45 cm.
Image reproduced from the John Buckley Contemporary Collection;
Photograph: Daniel Dorall.
John Davis, Lake Mournoul III, 1989,
is
made from found materials - eucalyptus twigs and cheap ingredients from
the hardware store which were also 'Depression' mainstays such as
calico, bitumen and brown paper. Davis has chosen to use the antithesis
of expensive 'professional' artist's materials such as bronze casting
and oil on linen. The imagery of the fish or boat-shaped structure
possibly symbolising a totem of Lake Mournoul is depicted in 'earthy
bush' colours. The simple and unprofessional construction technique,
suggesting 'anyone could do it', facilitates an inclusive response
focused instead on the artist's ingenuity. Additionally, the realised
image of the fish/boat has more to do with childlike drawing, or
perhaps, Indigenous iconography than figurative realism.
Australian
sculptor, John Davis, 1936-1999, exhibited widely including Melbourne,
Japan and the United States. He represented Australia at the Venice
Bienniale, 1978. His work has an ephemeral quality and could be site
specific (Davis often worked in the Mallee region of Victoria). Some works could be
as simple as a re-arrangement of found twigs which were then
photographed. John Davis' work is represented in many public and private
collections including the National Gallery of Australia and state
galleries in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Annie Matheson
Annie Matheson, Point Lookout, 2008. Mixed media on paper, 27x35 cm.
Image reproduced courtesy of the artist.
Image reproduced courtesy of the artist.
Annie Matheson is a lyrical abstract artist whose intuitive works reference landscape. She says, 'Once I begin, I may have an idea where the work is heading but often something quite different to my expectations emerges'.
Annie Matheson, born in Melbourne, moved to the Mid North Coast, NSW, in the 1970s. She has recently relocated to Sydney. Matheson took up painting in the 1990s and has sought a personal education path including receiving tuition from abstract artist, Peter Griffin. A keen photographer and bushwalker, Matheson, channeled her environmental observations into her abstract paintings post 2002, following a move to the coastal village of Sawtell. In 2006, Annie was the first
emerging artist invited to exhibit at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery (work acquired), and in the same year was invited to participate in a group show at the New England Regional Art Museum. She has also successfully shown in local regional commercial galleries.
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