Robyn Kinsela

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

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

I loved, and still do, love these.

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.

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.

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.

What a summer!

Bushfires, smoke, more bushfires, more smoke.

Packing, unpacking, repacking, unpacking.

Rain, floods, more rain.

Finally getting on track a bit….

Pre-bushfire works, below, are in the summer exhibition at the Milk Factory Gallery, Bowral.

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as a finalist for the 2020 John Villiers Outback Art Prize at the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland (6 March to 8 May).

These 3 works are part of the 20(2020) exhibition at TACIT Galleries in Collingwood, Melbourne which celebrates the Gallery’s 20th anniversary!

Artists who have shown with TACIT were invited to show up to 3 works each measuring 20 x 20 inches (52 x 52 cm). Should be interesting.

Here are my 3 works which have resulted by the summer we should not have had. My thoughts and therefore my work this year, since December, have been underscored by bush fires, evacuations, smoke and many friends’ losses, stresses and survival.

The recent bush fire season and its ramifications keep creeping into my work at the moment:

More …… Views from a Summer on Edge

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 but interpret them. Sound, smell and touch play an important role.

Using 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 then re-see what has been created and finish the work.

“I work from memory of 10 minutes ago and 50 years ago”. (David Hockney)

The Southern Highlands Arts Festival Art Trail 2019 was, once again, an invigorating event for me!

My studio was open (Studio number 11) where you could view my work space, my tools of trade and the results of my mental and physical toil, some of which was for sale at studio prices.

This year I am in de-clutter mode, as difficult as it is, and there were some extraordinarily low prices for never-exhibited, demo and past glory works.

Chuffed to be, once again, a selected finalist in the Fisher’s Ghost Open Art Award.

Exhibition officially opens, and winner announced, at Campbelltown Arts Centre on Friday November 1.

Exhibition is open from October 26 and continues until December 5

Campbelltown Arts Centre One Art Gallery Rd, Campbelltown Open daily 10am – 4pm 4645 4100 | info@c-a-c.com.au | c-a-c.com.au

I am very happy to announce that I am a finalist in the Lyn McCrea Memorial Drawing Prize to be held at Noosa Regional Gallery from 1 November to 1 December 2019.

ALSO I have been selected to be a finalist in the NOW Contemporary Art Prize to be held at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery from 5 October to 23 November 2019.

This is what I wrote when I finished the work earlier this year, and when Northern NSW was suffering major bushfires near Tabulum, among other places. Ironically, again this week, that same area is under bushfire attack again as are 60 something other areas in NSW and 67 in QLD, and it is only September!

“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.”

I am very happy to be included in the Pirtek Still Life Art Award with Black Pot with 2 Lemons at Bowral Art Gallery and judged by Janine Coddington.

It is always fun to paint still life subjects and to manipulate them to however you like in order to make an interesting composition.

The same black pot and (different) lemons have been the subject of previous paintings and no doubt will continue to inspire me in the future.

My exhibition, Distractions, is opening at 6pm Wednesday 12 June, at the fabulous purpose built contemporary art gallery, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan.

It would be lovely to see you there and to share some wine with you.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 4pm

Exhibition runs until 29 June 2019.

Please call in if you are in the hood. We would love to see you.

images of new work in the show:

I develop much of my work in the studio referencing my sketches, photos and written descriptions which help transport me to another place in my memory – back to places I have travelled, known and experienced. It’s as if there is a delayed reaction as if my thoughts need some sort of incubation time.

Recently I have turned to my immediate environment for subject matter where the sounds and my view of the mountain behind me are living, changing yet constant, sources of inspiration. I note the changes in light during different times of the day and the season.  Dry crackle hum. The bush pings, the air stings, the kookaburras laugh.

DISTRACTIONS is somewhat autobiographical where the paintings served as distractions to greater world events, and to more personal my-world events.

It is with great pleasure that I announce that my painting. “Rainy Sunday” was the WINNER of this year’s Wingecarribee Landscape Prize at Bowral Art Gallery. Many thanks to all the BDAS organisers and to Kerry McInnes, this year’s judge. Congratulations to all the other award recipients. It was a tough field so I feel grateful.

Rainy Sunday

2019 oil on canvas 61 x 51cm

Judge’s comments: “Deceptively simple and surprisingly evocative of the movement and feeling of rain. Robyn has, with angled strokes and a limited palette, conveyed to us the sensibility of a languid Sunday looking out into a wet landscape. The darker tones in the descending marks not only suggest falling liquid but also serve to ground the painting into what could be an interior, and if so, into a possibility – into a story. this is a wondrous and masterful work.”