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.
Covid comforts. I worked on small mixed media works during the 2021 lockdowns and on the occasional large work (some still in progress).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Then, as time went on, another work was created. This watercolour is float mounted and box framed in a dark red /brown timber frame.
Finally, to end the year, this watercolour of the lily was created with gusto. Good bye 2021!
Another Covid year sees me calmly, slowly, picking through stuff trying to toss some, revitalise some and create some newies.
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:
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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.
“The Burning” SOLD while on display on the online gallery Bluethumb. www.bluethumb.com.au/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)
