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It’s been too long

Where should I start?

Well, like a CV, I’ll start with the most recent.

On Saturday, 29 September 2024 the JADA opens when the winner will be announced. I am thrilled to be a finalist in this very prestigious Biennial Art Prize which is held at the beautiful Grafton Regional Gallery.

The 2024 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) celebrates contemporary Australian drawing at its finest. The nation’s leading regional drawing prize, with an acquisitive first prize of $35,000 and early career award of $5,000, this exhibition is the flagship of the Grafton Regional Gallery.
 
The JADA champions innovation and excellence in drawing and showcases the enduring importance of drawing practice in Australia. This year’s exhibition features works from 65 artists, whose approaches to drawing span the technical and traditional, through to the experimental, conceptual and performative.
 
28 September – 8 December 2024

My submission is representative of my ongoing practice as an experimenter of ideas, mediums and messages. I can’t sit still.

“Walking with Words” continues my interest in combining text and print with paint, line, ink and collage, and taking into consideration what the intangible, such as sounds, might look like and how can I represent them visually.

Walking with Words mixed media on canvas, 102x150cm

My statement accompanying this work:

I am numbed by the state of our world and bemused by the way words are manipulated and deliberately misused.

I am pondering the importance and potency of words. Words can be barriers which either keep you out or keep you in, imprisoning you or freeing you. Words can be liberating or they can become unwelcome obstacles.

I have selected words and the letters of words from an unintelligible language and used them as pattern. As picture elements, they are useful due to their neutrality. To add to their neutral presence, I have placed them upside-down and I have likened them to a compact bush landscape. I am imagining that I am finding my way through dense trees similar to manoeuvring my way through false and fake information. While there is a sense of claustrophobia, anxiety and helplessness, my optimistic self wants this work to offer some hope for our future.

NEXT

Every now and then, I take time out to do some observation drawing. It’s relaxing and doesn’t require quite as much brain space, something I seem to be running a bit short on recently.

Drawing is so important. It’s like the fitness that one needs to stay on top of your game. Drawing can be used as a warm-up, as a meditation, as medication, as the final prize.

My drawing of Stuart was and is all of those things.

Stuart
charcoal and pastel on Steinbach paper adhered to canvas 76x61cm
Commended Award in the Tim Copes Portrait Prize at the Bowral Art Gallery.

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In the Pipeline…

In the pipeline are works in progress, works finished and waiting for a posting, and finished works that may be painted over, destroyed or repurposed. Who knows! These 5 works are the result of re-working original artworks. Begun in 2022 or earlier, they have now been completed in 2023.

Connections
oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 61cm
Ravages of Time
pastel and charcoal on Hahnemuhle paper 122 x 80cm
Closing In
pastel and charcoal on Hahnemuhle paper 80 x 122cm
Charred Memories
Mixed media on canvas 51 x 41cm
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Staying Calm

My life has generally always been and still is, a bit…. chaotic. I find solace making these meditative works. They are like a song, like poetry and they have a calming effect. I chill out into another place.

Sometimes I listen to an audio book, sometimes music, but very often, I listen to the outside bush and bird noises.

2022 has seen me revisiting old ideas and old works on which I build new ideas and new works.

Edges of Silence
oil on canvas 122 x 61 cm
Uncertain Silence oil on canvas 120x60cm
Renamed After Image
Calmly Waiting oil on canvas 120 x 60cm
Renamed Sitting in the Morning Sun
White Shadows
pastel, gouache, charcoal on Hahnemuhle paper 80 x 120 cm
Worked over.
Reeds
acrylic and Sennelier ink on canvas 30 x 40 cm
Renamed Wordless Silence

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Looking Back, Looking Forward

Covid comforts. I worked on small mixed media works during the 2021 lockdowns and on the occasional large work (some still in progress).

Stormy Weather series

Each of the small works has a torn edge and is float mounted with a dark timber frame. the two larger works are float mounted with a limed timber frame. All are mixed media on Hahnemuhle paper. Unless otherwise indicated, all are for sale.

Distant Storm 11 x 8.5cm
Crashing Shoreline 11.5 x 15.5cm
Gale Force 10.5 x 8 cm
Into the Wind 10.5 x 8 cm
Rough Surf 11.5 x 16 cm
Sand Bar 12 x 7.5 cm
Shallows 11 x 9 cm
Winter Winds 11.5 x 8 cm

Wangaratta Watercolours

Out of the storm and into the calm.

A very short escape to the outskirts of Wangaratta on the Ovens River in Victoria resulted in some small watercolours painted en plein air. All are WN watercolour and graphite on Magnani paper and all are float mounted and framed with thin dark timber, with the exception of “Unsettled Landscape”, which has a limed timber frame. All are for sale.

River Beach 10.5 x 8 cm
River Valley 9.5 x 7 cm
River Walk 12 x 14.5 cm
Unsettled Landscape 10 x 15 cm

Peachy Beachy works

Randomly chosen and reworked. Each is gouache and Sennelier ink on paper and each measures 13 x 18 cm. Each is float mounted and framed with a limed timber frame.

As the year moved on, my work got calmer.

Washing those thoughts away
When we were young
Ocean (Hawkes Nest)

Postcards from the Beach

All of these works are float mounted and framed in a dark grey timber frame. They work well as a set but could be displayed separately. They were all started one long weekend at Greenwell Point on NSW south coast and finished in 2021 in my studio. They are pastel and gouache on Khadi paper. Each work measures 11 x 15 cm.

Resting
Moored
Long Shadows
Into the Sun

Finally, back to the Gymea Lily

The Gymea Lily is a magnificent, majestic primeval flower that towers above the ground and is found mostly on the east coast of NSW, especially around Sydney. It has sword-like leaves more than 1 metre long and it grows a flower spike up to 6 metres high. They are beautiful!

I tied this lily to an easel with its stem dipping into a bucket of water, and over 3 weeks, I drew it. I was keen to incorporate the slow opening of the flower over time and to capture that within one drawing. That first drawing traces the slow changes that the lily was starting to go through.

This work is framed with a generous sized neutral mount and a plain matte black frame. Total dimensions are 140 x 106 cm.

The Majestic and Primeval Gymea Lily 104 x 74 cm pastel and charcoal

Then, as time went on, another work was created. This watercolour is float mounted and box framed in a dark red /brown timber frame.

Withering Gently 72 x 43cm watercolour and ink on Hahnemuhle paper. SOLD

Finally, to end the year, this watercolour of the lily was created with gusto. Good bye 2021!

Frazzled 76 x 51 cm watercolour, ink and graphite on Stonehenge paper adhered to a stretched canvas. SOLD

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Breathing quietly

Another Covid year sees me calmly, slowly, picking through stuff trying to toss some, revitalise some and create some newies.

Lazy Weekend pastel and gouache on gessoed Hahnemuhle paper 80 x 122cm
Gymea Lily pastel and charcoal on gessoed Hahnemuhle paper 104 x 74cm Finalist in Fisher’s Ghost Contemporary 2021
Drawing Drawing Drawing pastel on colorfix paper 46 x 53cm

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Earth Matters

Although the sounds, smells, textures and views of the mountain behind me are constant sources of inspiration, the recent catastrophes of drought, floods, bushfires and Covid, have provided fodder for much of my current work. The creation of something of beauty, calm and optimism, are possibly my emotional diversions as I explore the sad, fragile and terrible beauty of our world.

My pictures have their roots in the real world, but are by no means images in the conventional sense. I don’t copy my subjects, I interpret them. Sometimes the materiality of my medium takes a dominant role and I become engrossed in its unique qualities.

Using acrylic and oil paints, collage and mixed media, I create rapidly at first, keeping up with my thoughts. Then I let the work rest for an hour, a day, a year or a decade, as if it needs an incubation period. I eventually re-see what has been created and finish the work.

I revisit many ideas, resulting in the continuous presence of common, sometimes tenuous, threads that mirror my life and experiences.

I work from my immediate responses to both tangible and intangible subjects like bushfire, illness, sunshine, quiet, uncertainty and blend them with memory. The list goes on and so my work evolves that way.

All works that have not sold already are still for sale:

https://theshac-exhibition-shop.square.site/shop/robyn-kinsela/54

Open 10-4 Fridays to Mondays

www.theshac.com.au/

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2021 begins

Happy New Year so far!

“Views of a Summer on Edge” SOLD while a finalist at the Sunshine Coast Art Prize at Caloundra Regional Art Gallery.

Views of a Summer on Edge mixed media on stretched canvases 10 x 95cm SOLD

“The Burning” SOLD while on display on the online gallery Bluethumb. www.bluethumb.com.au/robyn-kinsela

The Burning acrylic on canvas 152 x 122cm SOLD
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Still 2020

While 2020 has been a bit still, a bit quiet, many of us are still beavering away, keeping occupied, keeping safe.

Views of a Summer on Edge
Mixed media on 8 10x10cm canvases
10 x 100 cm
Finalist: Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery 2020
SOLD
A Summer on Edge
Mixed media on 5 10x10cm canvases
10 x 60 cm
Finalist: Gosford Art Prize 2020
Ravaged Land
mixed media and collage on canvas
91 x 122 cm
Finalist: Fisher’s Ghost Contemporary Art Award 2020
Lost Summer
mixed media on board
13 x 23 cm
Eerie Coast
mixed media on board
13 x 23 cm SOLD
Beach Holiday
mixed media on board
13 x 23 cm
Shifting Ground
Oil and acrylic on canvas
91 x 120cm

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2020 and onwards

So, now I am revisiting works from which I will pick up threads to develop new works.

I loved, and still do, love these.

Woolshed
mixed media on canvas
100 x 75 cm
SOLD
Corner
Mixed media on canvas
73 x 122 cm
SOLD
Rhythm in Light at Kinchega (diptych)
Wooden stretcher wedges on gator board
56 x 46 and 56 x 56 cm
SOLD
Found Sounds
Mixed media on Khadi paper on Arches paper
155 x 110 cm
Night Noises
graphite on Arches paper
100 x 230 cm
Finalist: 33rd Alice Prize, Alice Springs (2004)
Silence and Memory
oil and acrylic on canvas
120 x 60 cm SOLD
Silence and Sadness
acrylic and oil on canvas
120 x 60 cm SOLD
Landscape for the Blind (diptych)
mixed media on canvases
73 x 120 cm
Walking with Thomas and Matisse (diptych)
240 x 150cm
acrylic on canvas
SOLD
Finalist: Fisher’s Ghost Open, Campbelltown City Arts Centre 2012
Road Trip West
pastel on Whatmans paper
56 x 76 cm
SOLD
Desert Meeting (Margaret meets Agnes at Ernabella)
oil on canvas
91 x 138 cm
SOLD
Finalist: Fisher’s Ghost Open, Campbelltown City Arts Centre 2013
Beyond the Back Fence (diptych)
acrylic on canvas
81 x 162 cm
SOLD
10pm
oil and acrylic on canvas
120 x 240 cm
SOLD
Finalist: Fisher’s Ghost Open, Campbelltown City Arts Centre 2011
Lament
graphite and shellac on paper
56 x 76 cm
SOLD
No Regrets
Graphite and shellac on paper
56 x 76 cm
SOLD
Highly Commended: Lyn McCrea Drawing Award, Noosa Art Gallery, 2016
Joy
oil on canvas
110 x 80 cm
SOLD
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2020 and upwards

We seem to be heading for further lock down restrictions.

Hello studio!

News since I last posted includes my selection as a finalist in the Stanthorpe Art Prize. Due to Covid, this exhibition has been postponed until February 2021!!! Quite a few exhibitions have been cancelled, postponed or gone to online only. Many have thoughtfully waived or reduced their entry fees.

So, here are images of works that represent what I have been, and am, up to at the moment.

Disenfranchised Grief
charcoal and pastel on Hahnemuhle paper
122 x 80 cm
Ravaged Landscape
Mixed media collage and oil stick on canvas
91 x 122 cm
Whispering Stillness
Watercolour on Hahnemuhle paper on canvas
102 x 76 cm
And then came Covid
Charcoal, pastel and gesso on Hahnemuhle paper
122 x 80 cm
Knowing
Charcoal and pastel on paper, scratched.
98 x 66 cm
Angst
Graphite on paper, collage, woven paper.
54 x 84 cm
Old Man Look at your Life
Pastel, graphite and collage on paper
72 x 46 cm
Uncertainty
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 50 cm
Apprehension
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 50 cm
Trepidation
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 50 cm
Bush Fire
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 cm SOLD
The Calm
Oil and oil stick on canvas
91 x 122 cm
Durras Reeds Remembered
Acrylic and ink on canvas
30 x 40 cm
Lost Summer, a Grieving Process
oil on canvas
61 x 76 cm
Remembered Place with Red Sun
Watercolour on BFK Rives paper on canvas
45 x 34 cm
Remembered Place
Watercolour on BFK Rives paper on canvas
45 x 34 cm
Finalist: Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival, 2020
Thoughts and Prayers
oil on canvas
182 x 91 cm
Finalist: Calleen Art Prize, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, 2020
Terrible Beauty
oil and acrylic on paper on canvas
76 x 76 cm
SOLD

I am not so much interested in the subject as such, but rather what the subject can do for me as a vehicle of expression. The windy landscape is not about landscape or wind, but about uncertainty and immediacy, rawness and exposure, and the colours are accordingly chosen, maybe, to contradict all that!

I am pleased to have had this work (below) selected as a finalist in the Stanthorpe Art Prize.

My Brother’s Country is on Fire
oil and acrylic on canvas
61 x 51 cm

I work from my immediate responses, both tangible and intangible. I was thinking about my brother whose land in northern NSW was engulfed by bush fire earlier this year. My approach with the paint was rapid at first, as were my thoughts.

I often work in series and this, being no exception, is a follow up from an earlier one which I needed to leave for fear of overworking it. Most often, I need a sort of incubation period, after which I return to the work to assess it for changes or corrections. I was desperate to keep the freshness so I quickly photographed and varnished it to avoid any “tidying up” that I am so often succumb to.

My brother is a proud keeper of the land, and I knew that he would see this as part of its evolution. And with that, a new beauty would emerge.