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.

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.