Paradise and Colour of Knowledge are in the background
Before I get to discussing FOR EVERYONE here are two photos of me gesticulating, as I chatted away, at my Artist's Talk, which was on Saturday at PARADISE, Purgatory Artspace 170 Abbotsford St, North Melbourne. Yes, people came! I was very happy!
Art Historian, Dr Christine Dauber led the 'conversation' with some very interesting questions and comments, exploring my use of age old symbols through to my 'quiet activist' paintings about the environment [particularly water and coal seam gas]. Fundamentally, though, I believe, my paintings, through employing and re-interpeting the transcultural/religious age-old symbol of the tree-of-life, agitate for an all-encompassing 'call' to pay attention to environmental issues. As regular readers will know I believe beauty, with its underlying but elided pathos, has the agency to remind us of what we lose if we don't pay attention. Here are a couple of links to previous posts on beauty
Also, you might be interested in looking at CLIMARTE: Arts For A Safe Climate www.climarte.org There is a wonderful quote, mentioning beauty, by Bill McKibben on the homepage, plus if you click on his name you get taken to an article he wrote in the Huffington Post. Here's his website too http://www.billmckibben.com/
And please watch the video, on the CLIMARTE site, of Climarte co-founder Guy Abrahams presenting, on the power of the arts, at a conference in Mackay. www.climarte.org
PARADISE has two more weeks to go. It ends on Saturday 8 October. Gallery hours 11 am - 5 pm Tuesday to Saturday. PH: 61 3 9329 1860 E: purgatoryartspace@gmail.com
Please check out Carolyn McDowall's article about PARADISE
You can order it through Balboa Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Great For Christmas!...for everyone!
I will be launching FOR EVERYONE next February at Fireworks Gallery, here in Brisbane. I will keep you posted when actual dates are confirmed. I will be exhibiting the 30 paintings in FOR EVERYONE at the launch too.
Not so much concerned with the entertainment value attributed to popular culture, this artist’s work grapples with the ideological issues which haunt global politics today and seeks to express bonds of commonality rather than the disparateness of race, religion or politics. To this end, her images utilize an iconographical language that is global in its dimension. Her thematic use of arboreal imagery provides a point of access which crosses both histories and cultures to collapse the difference between east and west. Christine DauberPh D. (Dean's Honours) MA, BA Honours (Art History) University of Queensland
The Beginning Of Everything: Remembering Distance Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm
Untethering landscape...what do I mean by this? Well, in this age where astronomers are finding new planets and other celestial bodies/phenomena, and scientists who delve into nanoworlds are discovering equally as amazing phenomena, tethering 'landscape' to images bound to Earth is pretty prosaic! We live in a world where the reaches of distance are phenomenally expansive in their vastness, whether it be into the infinity of outer space or into the seemingly ever increasing spaces of the nano/pico. And, as regular readers will know, I 'see' these distances mirrored in the vast intimacies of the human psyche. I like the paradox suggested by vast intimacies! It helps to turn things upside down and inside out!
So, landscape tethered to images of what we literally see may seem a little unadventurous! For me, landscape goes way beyond what I might see with my eye of eye ball and pupil. In a way, what we literally see, places us outside the landscape where we are observers, rather than participants or even better, resonances of the same star dust. Landscapes that search for and become the distances, whether close or far, of those elements beyond what we literally see reveal the resonances of the star or cosmic dust that is in everything.
Landscape painting or rendering [with any medium] has a capacity to remind us that we are intrinsically part of the landscape, part of the memory of life's first flutter, part of the compulsion of existence. If we see and feel this we'll understand the need to nurture our physical, emotional and spiritual environments in ways which embrace the connectivity of all across time and space. The landscpapes that spring to my mind when I think like this are certainly adventurous! They are not mere representations or copies of what's literally there. Instead they propel horizons, tease perspective, collapse difference, search inside imagination for cellular memories of the beginning of everything. All existence is paradise!
This painting is in my current exhibition PARADISE [Details below]
Tattersall's Landscape Art Prize
This exhibition has now been moved from the Tattersall's Club for public viewing at Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane CBD. The exhibition will continue there until Friday 23rd September. More details at this link:http://apq.com.au/Text/1312866207576-3978/
Not so much concerned with the entertainment value attributed to popular culture, this artist’s work grapples with the ideological issues which haunt global politics today and seeks to express bonds of commonality rather than the disparateness of race, religion or politics. To this end, her images utilize an iconographical language that is global in its dimension. Her thematic use of arboreal imagery provides a point of access which crosses both histories and cultures to collapse the difference between east and west. Christine DauberPh D. (Dean's Honours) MA, BA Honours (Art History) University of Queensland
Not so much concerned with the entertainment value attributed to popular culture, this artist’s work grapples with the ideological issues which haunt global politics today and seeks to express bonds of commonality rather than the disparateness of race, religion or politics. To this end, her images utilize an iconographical language that is global in its dimension. Her thematic use of arboreal imagery provides a point of access which crosses both histories and cultures to collapse the difference between east and west.
Christine DauberPh D. (Dean's Honours) MA, BA Honours (Art History) University of Queensland
AND, here are some photos of PARADISE
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PARADISE'S opening on Friday night [9 September] was a huge amount of fun. I had some 3 D glasses for people to look at the paintings with if they wanted. Well, the remarks of astonishment and surprise at how many of my paintings separated into multiple layers, when viewed with the 3 D glasses, certainly added to the ambiance of the event. Lots of conversation, questions and fantastic feedback about PARADISE.
As regular readers of this BLOG are aware, I did not know my paintings had a 3 D potential until quite recently. A visitor to my exhibition FRISSON last year suggested that I should try 3 D glasses. He actually went home and brought some back for me. And, wow! This same visitor returned to my exhibition VORTEX earlier this year and brought some 3 D glasses, which he gave to me. Again, many of the paintings in VORTEX separated into multiple layers, with some so amazingly 3D that I felt I could reach behind the figures and trees etc.
So, I decided that for PARADISE I would buy a number of 3 D glasses to have at the exhibition for people to enjoy. And, from my experience at the opening night and again on Saturday, when I stayed at the exhibition, the 3D glasses certainly added to people's enjoyment of the exhibition. The 3 D glasses are still there for people to use while the exhibition is on.
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3D NOT MERE ENTERTAINMENT
Regular readers will also know that I can't just sit with the 3D phenomena as mere entertainment! Given my interest in multiple perspectives, both literal and metaphoric, I think the 3D quality is an amazing outcome. Although unintentional the 3Dness of my paintings has possibly been manifested from 'other' subconscious or intuitive places. Ideas of multi dimensionality and perspectivity, experienced intellectually and emotionally, spatially and temporally, inspire much of my work. Here is one previous post where I write about some of my ideas on perspective. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/03/alternative-to-perspective-inside.html
A paradise can be a physical space or a place deep within our inner psyches. Humankind's quest to find paradise either as a physcial place of perfection or an inner peace, is ongoing. However, what if paradise is here and now? What if the quest blinds us to the perfection that already exists? As I think about the 3D quality of my paintings I wonder if the dimensionality requests the viewer to ponder these questions. I wonder if we need to take time to look beyond the surface? New media and technology seem to promise 'other' worlds, perhaps new utopias and paradises, but what if this promise is an illusion, another diversion? Indeed, technology's urgency to garner attention leaves us attending to many things, sometimes all at the same time. Fleeting images and sound bites maybe exhausting us as they scatter our attention, or even more concerning, train us the skim across the surface of life.
One other interesting thing about seeing my paintings through 3D glasses, is that once the glasses are taken off, it's as if the eye has been trained to see the paintings in 3D. Whilst the effect is not as strong, the naked eye starts to discern the multiple layers and the paintings do not retreat to a flat surface. Now, is this a metaphor for exposing ourselves to new ways of seeing?!
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All the paintings are for sale and range from $650 AUD for the small 30 x 30 cm ones [photo number 6] to $7,300 AUD for the large painting 'Cosmic Dust' [in middle of photo number 3]. The three paintings 'Finding The Light', 'Infinity' and 'Meeting Place Of The Mind' are all $3,900AUD [photo number 5] This gives you an idea of the price range.
Please check out Carolyn McDowall's article about PARADISE
OH! AND!!!
The Tattersall's Landscape Art Prize was announced last week. Joe Furlonger won the $25,000 by invitation only prize.
The exhibition has now been moved from the Tattersall's Club for public viewing at Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle St, Brisbane CBD. The exhibition will continue there until Friday 23rd September. More details at this link: http://apq.com.au/Text/1312866207576-3978/
What if the 'here and now' is paradise? As we search for paradise in the external world, or in future imaginings or past nostalgia, are we missing what's right in front of us? And, what if paradise is not an external place or space, but an internal one? What if it everything at once?
Paradise Oil on linen 62 x 82 cm
I've been pondering the tree-of-life...yes again...and it seems to me that as it mirrors the life systems of the human body and the body of the earth, it also whispers hints of inner emotional and spiritual life energy. The human psyche is a fascinatingly endless yet intimate space to examine, and as we search layer after layer, links and conduits are revealed. I can 'see' the human psyche as a tree, with branches and twigs, trunk and roots, leaves, buds, bark, flowers. Its fulsome multiple dimensions mirroring the vast energy of outer space, which still remembers the beginning as it propels itself back to it and beyond. The human psyche, seemingly all about human consciousness and subconsciousness, erupts from its human boundaries, into the vastness of all existence. Paradise?
Remembering The Reason Why Oil on linen 100 x 60 cm
My exhibition Paradise opens this week in Melbourne!
This latest painting Murray Darling Currency falls into my 'quiet activist' work. It is political, although not initially overtly political. However, as the viewer ponders the painting, and notices various elements, commentary on issues surrounding the Murray Darling Basin/catchment is obvious. Check out this site for information on the importance of the Murray Darling Basin for Australian agriculture and water [obviously both related issues]. http://www.murrayriver.com.au/about-the-murray/murray-darling-basin/
This new painting follows a work on paper, by the same title, which I painted last year.
Murray Darling Currency Gouache on paper 52 x 63 cm [framed]
In both paintings the area of the Murray Darling Basin is painted with small blue $ signs to pose questions of value, all kinds of 'value'. The word 'currency' in the title deliberately plays with its many meanings, from water flow, to money, to contemporaneousness and political currency. The viewer does not discern the small $ sign when looking at the painting from a distance. They become evident as the viewer moves closer. This is a deliberate 'tactic' on my part to ask, 'Have you noticed?' Issues surrounding water supply and management, food production, soil nutrient sustainability, farmer returns, mining impacts, social cohesion, regional development and more all play their part in the life of the Murray Darling Basin.
In both the oil and the work on paper the 'landscape' is created with my much loved tree-of-life motif. In each case the tree spills out from the bottom left to cascade into land and sea. In the oil painting I have painted the continent of Australia depicting rainfall areas ie: the darker the green the more rainfall. The tree-of-life is a perfect life symbol as it denotes systems which give and propel life. Just as the body's vascular system propels life, the earth's water systems also propel life. The Murray Darling Basin is a perfect example of a life giving and propelling water system. When understood as a life system, like a vascular one, then questions of value take on a different perspective...don't they?
The work on paper Murray Darling Currency will be in my exhibition 'Paradise' opening next week 9th September in Melbourne [details below]. I will have a few of my 'quiet activist' paintings in the exhibition as triggers to pose questions about environmental degradation and concepts of paradise lost. Indeed, what if THIS is paradise and human quests to seek paradise eleswhere 'out there' blind us to the paradise of here and now?
The new large oil painting Murray Darling Currency will not be in the exhibition as I just finished it. All the paintings for 'Paradise' went off to Melbourne on Monday.
Regular readers of my BLOG will probably know why such a symposium interests me. Over many years many scientists and doctors have asked if I have had medical or scientific training because they see vascular or reproductive systems in my work. Sometimes my trees look like brains or kidneys, cross sections of tissue or cells. [I have no medical or scientific training other than senior biology!] Yet, these same shapes, cross sections and so on can also take on landscape qualities, such as aerial views of water systems or mountain ranges, cross sections of land and so on. The body as site and site as body are the things that interest me. Even beyond the boundaries of earth...body as cosmos, cosmos as body. As regular readers know, I sometimes take the tree-of-life into the cosmos, to help find its roots in the beginning of time, as well as to reveal its symbolic potency in the 21st century.
