Flying Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2004
Hot Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 1995
Following on from my last post, I have uploaded a couple more older paintings. I had hoped to post an image of my very latest painting, but I have only just finished it [like right now!] and will not get around to photographing it until tomorrow. It is 10 pm and I am ready for sleep.
These two paintings are about flying. The first one was painted after I left Goondiwindi [small rural town in western Queensland] and moved to the 'big smoke' of Brisbane. The woman flying is a bride and her shadow on the ground follows her. Readers of my BLOG would know that as a child I dreamt I could fly...and it was not just a night time dream, but an experience I had both at night and during the day. I knew what my parent's farm looked like from above even though I had never been in a plane above it. This experience of 'flying' has obviously influenced my need to experiment with different perspectives in my work.
I was a young bride when I moved to Goondiwindi and my mother was a young bride when she moved to the family farm outside Dalby. In fact, there have been many young brides in my family who have moved to live in rural Australia. The men marked the land literally with their fences, roads, dams, ploughed paddocks etc. But, the women leave markings which are more about the fabric of the community. They leave their spirit in a different way to the men, who also leave their spirit inbedded in the earth with their sweat and in many cases their tears.
The young bride above seems to hover above the land with the horizon enticing in the distance. Over this horizon there maybe other horizons, but she seems wistful about her present place. Readers of my BLOG know that I use landscape elements as metaphors for our emotional landscapes. The horizon can be interpreted literally or be understood as something which is inside us, a place where we search to know who we are.
The second painting 'Hot' is a more playful image, where the two figures placed against a red background seem to be absorbed into the fabric of the image. I played with the word hot to mean both heat and sexy.
2 comments:
Okay, it’s the wee hours of the evening on my back porch. I hear dogs barking, not mine, she’s prostrate in her room on a bed of several blankets covered with a sheep’s skin and a big feather pillow and if you are wondering whether I spoil, the answer is yes and everyone who comes within my proximity, why, because I can AND I’m good at it, not to omit the sound of frogs and my ducks giving up the occasional argument over who sleeps where, and of course my loving and sweet cats who are pounding the back porch looking to kill every bug in their sight and well, the Little Woman is fast retired to beddy-bye (we have separate suites) on her laptop talking to her boyfriend for all I know - teasing. She’s actually fixated on a computer game she uploaded today. All is well, all is well, and all is good. Oh, so my point is, I will focus on you as I now have the time.
I too still have flying dreams. It is supposed to mean we are happy. Well not mine entirely, because I always seem to have trouble navigating electrical power lines. There are no power lines in your painting so that is good. But what I love is the back ground. It doesn’t really say if it’s ocean, it doesn’t really say if it’s land, it says a horizon. So, yes, I get the metaphor of an emotional landscape right off. But it is bright and heartwarming as most of your art is. I never fear to be with you – in painting.
So, with glass of sherry in hand, I’ll go back to your painting and just study you some more before turning in.
Thank you for sharing.
I think these two earlier works are interesting. They are a far ways from where you are now. I like your more recent work with the tree of life much better as I think they are very unique. Being an artist, for some, is a journey, and the journey changes us. Those that just paint pretty pictures, and there is nothing wrong with that, do not necessarily enter the journey. There is nothing wrong with artists that paint pretty pictures, as there are a lot of them. Then there are artist that take a journey through their art much the way writers might take a journey through their writings. I know I sound judgmental, but I don't mean to be. Kathryn, I think you know what I am saying.
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