EXPANDED ZONES

 Expanded Zones Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

PRODUCTIVE TIME

I've had a productive time in the last week or so. I presented a paper at a Media Devices Symposium at the University of Queensland yesterday 8 July. My paper "Militarised 'Vision' Through the Eyes of Australian Artist George Gittoes" was received very well. The two days of the symposium were filled with enthralling, provocative and stimulating papers all related in various ways to technological devices. The photo at the bottom shows me presenting my paper. 

As regular readers know, I have had a long interest in technology, stemming from my father's enthusiasm for HAM radio and in his latter years, computer and digital technologies. I've previously written about my childhood growing up on a grain farm, not only surrounded by endless skies and distance, but also seemingly endless gadgets, aerials, communication devices in our cars [even in the 60s] etc etc. My mother's interests in art, history, writing and culture, coupled with my father's interests, have manifestly contributed to how I approach my art and research studies.

The Media Devices Symposium was incredibly stimulating not only intellectually but also creatively. The reading group I attended for the 5-6 months preceding the symposium has also been incredibly stimulating. Then... all the reading I've been doing for my research...especially looking into militarised technologies such as airborne drones and night vision capabilities...has also fueled my mind and my imagination. Some recent posts are:

Boundaries Zones and Perspectives 
In Focus 
Horizontal of Vertical?

THREE PAINTINGS - DARK UNDERBELLIES!
The three paintings here in this post are all inspired by recent readings and research. Cloud Storage is the most recent painting. Each painting has a 'dark' side...

However, I prefer to only allude to the dark side, rather than thrust it forward. Why? Once a viewer realises that the innocuous appearance has a dark underbelly it becomes evident that the innocuousness is actually a partner in a dangerous subterfuge. Looking beyond the surface is always an interesting thing to do, and I suspect we may not do it enough.

 Cloud Storage Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

I am not going to write about each painting. However, generally speaking when I painted each image I was thinking variously about surveillance, war and conflict zones, remote access, privacy issues, interactivity, data collection, targeting, monitoring - AND LIFE! Aestheticising the unseen aspects of technology that influence so much of our lives gives me a kind of contrary joy! 

The paintings can be 'read' as landscapes too - cosmic, aerial, body-scapes...the distance of the rural Queensland landscape - the flat tree-less Pirrinuan Plain where I grew up -  is always present in my work.

I have already written that each painting has an underbelly, so I will leave the rest to you.  

Data Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Me presenting "Militarised Vision Through the Eyes of Australian Artist George Gittoes" at the mdeia device Symposium Univerity of Queensland 8 July 2016. Image on screen is Discarded oil on canvas 1995 by George Gittoes.


GEORGE GITTOES NEXT EXHIBITION
George Gittoes is having an exhibition "Night Vision" in Brisbane 27 July - 20 August, at Mitchell Fine Art Gallery, Arthur St, Fortitude Valley. The opening is Friday 29 July and there is an artit's talk the next day. Check the gallery site for details HERE

George Gittoes' webpage HERE

Cheers,
Kathryn

THE EVERYWHERE ABYSS

The Everywhere Abyss Gouache and Watercolour on paper 29 x 37 cm 2015

 

 

SYDNEY PEACE PRIZE

This week, I went to Sydney to attend the Sydney Peace Prize lecture and dinner. This year's very deserving winner is Australian artist George Gittoes. An inspired choice by those who selected him. It's the first time an artist has been given the award and he is among illustrious company. You can read about previous winners HERE .

 

GITTOES - ART

Gittoes, since 1986, has worked in many war and conflict zones around the world, either with Australian Peacekeeping forces or on his own volition. He draws, paints, photographs and makes documentary films. His photographs are photo-journalism, capturing human extremes for records and witness. His drawings are intimate connections with those who are experiencing or have experienced the extreme depravity of human behaviour. I have seen a couple of photos of him drawing in the field [so to speak] and you can see the connection between him and his subjects...and those who mill around to see what's going on. Drawing takes time and in this time Gittoes' attention on his subject gifts them a restored humanity, sometimes at the edge of death or in death. The technologically un-mediated aspect of these encounters injects life, fully cognisant of its extremes. Gittoes's drawings, more often than not, have handwritten text around the borders or on one side of the paper. Here, he tells his stories about the encounter he has taken time to draw.

 

Gittoes' paintings, painted in his studio, use the drawings and photographs as referential points, to create images that are majestic...because they are intensely about life and humanity, in extremes. The images can be very confronting for Gittoes does not sensor. After drawing someone and looking intently into their eyes, there's a silent pact to tell their story. In Gittoes' case these stories are more often than not unimaginably shocking. The paintings are not simply copies of photographs or even the drawings, because Gittoes uses paint like it breaths new life. There is nothing pristine, cleansed or simply copied. His paintings resurrect life, at the same time as intensely critiquing warfare and conflict. They are not simply didactic, but instead declare 'I Witness' and now you do too!

 

Gittoes gave an amazing speech at Sydney's Town Hall. It was more like a conversation, where different stories lead to insights that are also confronting. The thing is...these insights are from someone who has spent decades not only witnessing war and conflict and their aftermaths, but also spending time with people, talking, drawing...and helping. Remarkably he and his partner Helen Rose live much of the time, in Jalalabad in Afghanistan, where they have set up an artists' community called the Yellow House.

 

THE ARTIST

One of Gittoes paintings that I think is really interesting is called The Artist, oil on canvas 210 x 173cm, 1996. You can see it on Gittoes' website on this page 5th down on the right side or at his Brisbane dealer's Mitchell Fine Art site HERE.

 

Gittoes has painted a figure who holds a paint brush, an artist. This figure seems to hover above an abyss, but you soon realise that safe passage is afforded by small yellow stepping-stone-like clouds that the artist paints. In the background, what seems like a cityscape is actually an array of gun shells littering the horizon.  So, I ask, how bad could the abyss be, if on the surface warfare has scarred the landscape, left it denuded and life is still? Maybe the abyss symbolises change? Maybe it symbolises confronting the self on the surface, in order to discover depths of humanity?

 

The artist wears night vision glasses, those vision-aides that soldiers use to see at night. I have thought about these night vision glasses a lot...why does an artist need them? Gittoes seems to be saying, if you want safe passage, if you want peace, let the artist guide you...the artist is a warrior too, but one who bravely creates the possibility of new worlds, communication and connection. Given, that the artist can paint stepping stone clouds, it's obvious the artist can traverse the abyss from its depths to its surface. The artist can move about the abyss like a guide!

 

THE EVERYWHERE ABYSS

So...the abyss in Gittoes' painting The Artist really got me thinking about 'the abyss' as a concept.

 

The abyss is not such a bad thing! It actually reminds us of human endeavour. It is the space we straddle where concepts of the sublime swamp us with majestic and poetic thoughts. It propels us! It can offer renewal.

 

My new painting seems to speak of a cosmic abyss...yes another of my cosmic landscapes! Without the abyss and its opposite, the horizon....where would life exist? Maybe nowhere...a nowhere place that seduces with simulation....................................................................the computer, ipad, smart phone????? That's why I have painted an 'everywhere abyss' to remind us to look up from our screens.

 

The horizon is something I have previously written about. Indeed, growing up on the flat treeless black soil Pirrinuan Plain in S W Queensland, the horizon was ever present. It lay in the west as a flat line, which often disappeared behind a mirage, or was swamped by grey rain, or incredibly delineated by stunning sunsets. Yet, in the East the majestic Bunya Mountains cut a silhouette against the sky. I lived on a flat plain at the bottom of a mountain range...maybe even abysses have horizons?

 

 

Horizon Posts

Coded Landscape and the Black Soil Plain

In Sight

Beyond Yesterday  

Art Science Imagination and Wonder

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com