LETHAL LANDSCAPE: FALSE HORIZONS

Lethal Landscape: False Horizons Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons I have again tried to expose signals that enable interconnected militarised and militarise-able systems. Signals that ricochet around the world, into the sky and space are invisible, yet they net the planet. I 'see' this netting as an insidious new topography which colonises and occupies landscape in ways that transform environments. Horizons are obliterated by this volumetric occupation, yet false horizons appear on computer screens as lines that map and orient for surveillance and targeting purposes. 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons a ground-based satellite antenna sends a signal into space, while another signal is either sent or received by a weaponised airborne drone. The drone's wide area surveillance sends out rays of signals, making the drone look almost like a star...a false star. Other markings indicate a landscape infiltrated by multiple arrays of signals, including targeting signals. I have painted a few areas with small red or green squares, to mimic pixels that make up digital images. These areas either indicate a process of pixelation or perhaps de-pixelation - of reality returning or reality disappearing. Here, let's think about Paul Virilio who died earlier this month "matter is now being exterminated by means of acceleration, the specular bomb of screens, those mirrors of time that cancel out the horizon." The original Accident, trans Julie Rose (Cambridge UK, Malden US, Polity, 2007), pp. 49-50.

Cheers,

Kathryn

NEW HORIZONS

New Horizons Oil on linen 97 x 112 cm 2018

NEW HORIZONS

New Horizons continues my proposal that militarised and militarisable contemporary technologies, and their signaling systems and infrastructure, create new invisible topographies that crisscross and penetrate landscape. This landscape incorporates land, sky and space. The latter, in hosting various kinds of satellites used to transmit and receive communications, imaging and global positioning capabilities, is drawn into this extended landscape of signals. 

In New Horizons the weaponised drone, with its long expansive wings, creates a kind of horizon line. This line can be taken as a literal delineation. It can also be taken metaphorically. For example, with the development and use of weaponised drones, what kind of 'line' is crossed? Like any horizon, there is always something beyond it. What if this metaphoric horizon is time, the future? This poses further questions - Have we already militarised this future? Is there anything beyond the metaphoric horizon - is there a future?

In New Horizons I have also painted lines that seem to hover over the landscape, dissecting it into zones and co-ordinates. These lines mimic computer generated graphics, perhaps like those a remote drone pilot might see on their computer screens, to help surveillance and targeting operations. Is the ubiquitous computer screen, mobile phone and tablet screen, a new kind of horizon? 

In my painting the lines painted over the landscape offer a perspectival entrance into a netted topography that imposes itself upon the landscape. The layering and netting of land-based and atmospheric landscape with signals and nodes, such as drones, satellites, relay stations, mobile phones, suggests a kind of hostage situation. But, are we aware of this? In some parts of the world it is clearly apparent; in places like Yemen, Northern Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan and Gaza, where persistent surveillance and the potential for airborne rapid response attack are constant.  

The underlying landscape in New Horizons is colourful and vibrant. Its liveliness contrasts with the spare linearity of the signals and the drone. Looking closely at the colourful landscape, multiple possible horizons exist. 

PERSISTENT WAR?

The interconnected nature of signals, ricocheting from node to node, could be read as some kind of constant readiness for war. Or, perhaps that we are already and persistently in a state of war. Here the ideas of perpetual war, and the 'everywhere war' [Derek Gregory] help us understand the stealthy role played by interconnected digital and cyber systems,and their appropriation for multiple-use civilian/military/security/policing activities. 

EXTENDED LANDSCAPE - LAND, SKY, SPACE

As an artist, I am interested in how landscape can be mediated and changed by invisible signals. Even considering landscape as an environment the extends from land, to sky and into space disrupts traditional notions of landscape. The idea that signals pose new topographies adds to this disruption. By viewing landscape as an extended environment, I see opportunities for new approaches to examining ideas of colonisation and occupation. Additionally, these intersect with neo-capitalist imperatives to economically quantify spaces and places in terms of ownership and value. The appropriation of signals by militarising forces poses interesting and alarming questions in a potential era of neo-colonisation. The unseen nature of buried and undersea cabling also intersects with this stealthy appropriation.

General unawareness of invisible and unseen enabling systems, particularly for those of us who live outside active war and conflict zones, means we may not understand the potential for insidious manipulation of human behaviour? 

Maybe we have already crossed an horizon we did not know was there?

Cheers,

Kathryn

P.S. Have you read Federica Caso's article about my dronescape paintings Visualising the Drone: War Art as Embodied Resistance ? I responded to it in my last post Exposing the Invisible

FAKE

Fake Tree Oil on linen 25 x 35 cm 2017

In a world where terms like 'fake news' are bandied about, I thought I would enter the foray with a painting called Fake Tree. I had fun with this one!

BINARY CODE

Regular readers will know that I often paint strings of binary code into my paintings. They are often colourful strings, always hand painted, and, thus not perfect. By not expressing perfect zeros and ones the 'code' could be described as fake - but - does the imperfection actually expose the role algorithms play in the creation of virtual, unreal and fake worlds? 

In Fake Tree I have painted the word FAKE and the word TREE in binary code. These 'instructions' [code is essentially instructional] straddle each side of the green tree. So is the tree fake or not? My deliberate play with entendre extends to the fact that the binary code creates what appears to be an horizon. But, is it a fake horizon? Here, the horizon can be viewed as a real or virtual landscape element, or perhaps an existential horizon of the future. Fake Tree suddenly becomes a possible visual representation of the future, but does this future include humans? If not, what brought about the demise of the human species?

I have used shades of a night vision green to accentuate the appearance of fakeness, but the visual entendre here is that the green also signifies some kind of surveillance. Is it human surveillance or machine surveillance? 

TREE-OF-LIFE

The tree could be one of my trees-of-life, a virtual representation of a tree [real or symbolic] or a tree-of-life pretending to be a virtual representation. The latter perhaps demonstrating human ingenuity or rather, life's ingenuity? Maybe, however, it demonstrates advanced machine learning - artificial intelligence - finally surpassing human intelligence? 

The radiating lines emanating from the tree pose more interesting possibilities. Are they a tree-of-life's roots, camouflaged as surveillance signals or even targeting signals to avoid detection? Or, are they, in fact, surveillance or targeting signals emanating from a fake tree, thus confirming that it is actually fake. If so the tree represents a node in the interconnected technological infrastructure that permeates our world? Nodes include such things as land-based, sea-based or airborne drones, and space based assets such as communication and GPS satellites. They can also include various other devices such as phones, vehicular GPS systems, computers and other everyday devices in the increasingly IOT world. 

The radiating lines could also be furrows in a ploughed paddock, even furrows where new shoots of a life-sustaining crop are appearing above the soil's surface - maybe?

RED
And, the red background  - I have used it to accentuate the green - playing to the strengths of complementary colours. Red, though, conjures ideas of blood, passion, anger, hunger, destruction. It is a great colour because it can symbolise a multiple of meanings, even contradictory ones. Thus, it helps open Fake Tree to a multiple of 'readings' - even contradictory ones! Maybe contradiction opens up a space for critical and deep thought. Here, I suggest contradiction offers a way to pry open what philosopher Jean Baudrillard, in 2003, describes as a "reductive yardstick"*. He wrote that our coded future is one where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1”.*

*Jean Baudrillard, Passwords, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 76.

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NEWS

My exhibition

COSMOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES 

opens on March 29 

continuing until May 21

at

DOGWOOD CROSSING

Arts and Community Centre

Miles,

Western Queensland, Australia.

I am excited about this exhibition for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that Miles is the birth place of my Mother. I remember visiting Miles to see my grand-parents. It has been years since I have ventured out that way. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

LAUNCHING THE NEW HORIZON

Launching The New Horizon Oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm 2017

NEWS

ART PRIZE

Delighted to report that my painting Drone Spiral [below] won the Drone Art Prize at the inaugural World of Drones Congress held in Brisbane, August/September this year. The press release announcing the prize can be viewed HERE or by clicking "Press Release" on the World of drones website.

Dr. Catherine Ball, scientist, and drone entrepreneur commented

“Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox’s work provided a visual interpretation of the juxtaposition between the drone technology we see most in mainstream media, and its inherently complicated relationship with human beings."

Drone Spiral Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [unframed] 2016

STUDIO UPDATE

Also, my latest e-Studio Update with a recap of 2017 is available HERE

Launching The New Horizon

Launching The New Horizon [at top of page] continues my interest in how contemporary technologies re-calibrating landscape and our responses to it. As regular readers know I am particularly interested in airborne militarised drones, surveillance and targeting signals associated with ubiquitous surveillance, and increasingly autonomous systems. 

In this painting a weaponised drone's wing-span creates a new horizon line. Long range, long dwell and long endurance capabilities of militarised drones enable a kind of loitering that could be described as an occupation of the sky. Weaponised drones don't simply travel through or across a sky like a fighter jet. That drone swarm technology has hastened over the last couple of years, poses another way for skies to be occupied or colonised - an infiltration of 'new clouds'. As instruments of surveillance, targeting and destruction militarised drones are embedded in the environment in ways that re-orient how we might look at and think about the sky. This is fearfully experienced by people who live in conflict zones situated under droned skies eg: Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and others. 

In Launching The New Horizon the drone's surveillance net is visible. I've painted it to appear porous to indicate that it may have other meanings. For example could this net, be a span of light illuminating a landing strip? Or, as a visual metaphor, maybe it indicates a landing on our subconscious? Or, maybe the drone presages the arrival of an event horizon, one where humans and machines merge in a singularity, or one where we arrive on the precipice between life and extinction? The latter refers to the event horizon as the zone around a black hole from which there is no escape. The cosmic background of the painting is - very deliberate.

I'll let you continue to ponder. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

P.S. You might like to read Drone: Enduring Presence [Meta Landing]. 

AS I FLEW PAST EARTH, I NOTICED EVIDENCE OF DRONES

As I Flew Past Earth, I Noticed Evidence of Drones, Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm, 2017

In As I Flew Past Earth, I Noticed Evidence of Drones I have imagined being in a spacecraft, or being a speck of star dust, or being some kind of super force flying around the universe. As I pass by planet Earth I notice evidence of drones, their surveillance and targeting signals. How many drones - I cannot tell. 

I also notice signs of life, human and non-human - fragmented, turned upside down, hidden. However, there are also signs of defiance, regeneration, hope.

AERIAL PERSPECTIVE

Regular readers will observe that in this new painting I've taken an aerial perspective, yet again. Indeed, this perspective is evident in most of my work. I like to fly! I also like to think I can take the viewer with me, way beyond Earth, but also perhaps right up close, even inside its crust. This kind of imaginative flying could be a really significant capability in the 'drone age'. As airborne drones loiter in skies, hovering above terrain, scoping with their various surveillance capabilities, our horizons are netted with signals and vertically delivered potential threats. 

PANOPTICON

The airborne drone channels ideas of a panopticon with an intent to observe without being seen. Eighteenth century social theorist Jeremy Bentham proposed a panopticon as an institution designed for inmates, where a single guard could observe prisoners without being seen. That the guard could not be seen meant that prisoners were never sure if someone was observing or how many might be observing. Are we and other living creatures 'inmates' on a planet increasingly surveilled by drones? Should we also think about how satellite infrastructure, currently conscripted to aid communication and environmental awareness for drone operation, is utilised for surveillance and other potentially more lethal purposes? I claim we need to fly beyond our droned skies and beyond orbiting communication and GPS satellites,ie:  way beyond low Earth orbit, geostationary orbit and high Earth orbit, to get some perspective! 

So, if we can 'fly' around the drone and space-based enabling infrastructure then maybe we can subvert the power drone capabilities insidiously deploy. We can, with imagination, turn ourselves into observers with truly full spectrum temporal and spatial agency. 

The trees-of-life in As I Flew Past Earth, I Noticed Evidence of Drones are showing us how - don't you think?

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

 

 

 

 

PAST AND FUTURE LANDSCAPE

Past and Future Landscape Oil on linen 60 x 110 cm

 

I deliberated for ages trying to think of a title for the new painting above. I finally decided upon Past and Future Landscape. When I was painting it I was thinking about so many aspects of landscape, Earthly and not, and coming up with a title that encapsulated it all was very difficult. But, from previous experience... the simpler the title, the more open ended, less descriptive and didactic it can be. This means the viewer can more easily trip down their own imagination's pathways! So much more satisfying for all.

 

MOUNTAIN RANGES - BUNYA MTS AND CUNNINGHAM'S GAP

The mountain ranges remind me of the Bunya Mts and Cunningham's Gap, both sections of the Great Dividing Range which snakes down the eastern side of Australia. I grew up on my parents grain farm with the Bunya Mts cutting a majestic silhouette against an eastern horizon, whereas the west offered a flat relentless horizon which often disappeared into watery mirages. The contrast between the two horizons intrigued me. [See the flat western horizon in the photo Pirrinuan Siding below. Photography Wilfred Brimblecombe]

 

Cunningham's Gap is a magnificent section of the Great Dividing Range south of the Bunya Mts. I used to drive through the Gap on my way from Brisbane to Goondiwindi, where I lived for 18 years. Each time I approached it from the east my breath was taken away. Glorious shadows cast by the peaks created patterns and shapes that seemed to dance with the sunlight. I stopped many times to sketch these shadows. You can see them in Past and Future Landscape .

 

Yet, the mountains in my painting are not attached to other identifiable landscape elements. They float in an indeterminable space. In fact, there are two mountain ranges, as if mirroring each other. They meet at a point where a tree...my much loved age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life...reveals its canopy of branches and its anchoring roots. A central source of light is identifiable if you look at the shadows cast on the mountains.

 

UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE

I've previously written about my ideas of untethering ideas of 'landscape' from being Earth-bound, to release more cosmic perspectives. I suggest that this is important in an age where cosmological research is revealing more and more about the close and far distances of the Universe...indeed maybe the Multiverse. By untethering 'landscape' we afford ourselves an opportunity to experience multiple perspectives, even simultaneously! How might we view ourselves and our home, planet Earth, then?

 

The tree-of-life in Past and Future Landscape represents all life, past and future. The roots suggest the past and the canopy of branches represents new life, future life. And, life with accompanying consciousness means that 'landscape' is observed. But, now we have an opportunity to take conscious observation beyond Earthly horizons, at the same time as firmly placing Earth within a Universal environment...address even. In doing so we release ourselves to an expanded consciousness that may hold treats we, as yet, can only imagine. But, imagining may be the first step!

 

Without consciousness, after all, there would be no visible universe. Something would exist, but nothing can be said about it. Prof. Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, The new Universe and The Human Future: How a shared cosmology could transform the world. Yale University press, new Haven and London, P.76

 

Our relationship with and to landscape somehow mediates and forms our identity and our conscious awareness of ourselves. If we are to become more cosmically aware citizens of the Universe/Multiverse we probably need to see landscape as something more than those within the boundaries of Earth's horizons. This is not to say that we abandon Earth based landscapes. They just become an integral part of a cosmic matrix. By untethering 'landscape' from being Earth-bound, we actually untether ourselves and our awareness. Who knows what we'll discover?

 

 

Pirrinuan Siding Photograph by Wilfred Brimblecombe 1978

Check out more of Wilfred's photographs HERE

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TATTERSALL'S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD

My painting

Super Earths Discovered

is a finalist!

 

You can view all the finalists by clicking HERE

and you can read about Super Earths Discovered HERE

 

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COSMIC ADDRESS

 

Is my next solo exhibition

in Brisbane

15-27 October

Please check out  my

 

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

 

for all the details!

 

__________________________________________________________

 

 

Here's a link to one previous post where I write about untethered landscape.

UNTETHERED LANDSCAPE

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

FROM HERE TO THERE AND EVERYWHERE

From Here To There And Everywhere Oil on linen 50 x 110 cm 2013

 

My new painting From Here To There And Everywhere is another 'landscape' that attempts to disrupt concepts of what and where landscape is. Regular readers will know of my intent to question how we conceive and perceive landscape, especially against a backdrop of contemporary cosmological research which propels perspective/s to limitless horizons. I think questioning is important. Why? Because, our entanglement with traditional ideas of landscape tethers perception to a well oiled groove, like a stuck record. And, this perception is not simply about how we perceive landscape, but also in our relationship with it, how we perceive ourselves.

 

New perspectives, revealed to us by cosmology, afford us the opportunity to recalibrate our perceptions of 'landscape' and in this process we ultimately see ourselves differently. Maybe this will ignite new ways of managing the sustainability of the planet and life on it?

 

My catchcry Earth maybe our home, but the Universe is our environment is a driving force for much of my work. In my imagination I travel the Universe [even Multiverse] and see 'landscapes' of all kinds. As regular readers know I grew up in the Australian landscape of Western Queensland, Australia. It tends to be my imaginal launching pad from which I 'fly' here there and everywhere. Now you see where the title for my new painting comes from!

 

From Here To There And Everywhere is ambiguous and deliberately so. It forces questions! Where are we? How did we get here, there or even everywhere? Are we in a space-craft, on another planet or still on Earth? The mountain range is familiar, but not. It seems to demand attention, as do the planet-like balls hovering on the other side of the mountains. Why do the mountains seem to float? It's as if they have been released...yes...untethered! They are representative of my ideas of untethering landscape...untethering it from the ties that force it to travel the well worn groove that forces the same perspective over and over again.

 

New cosmological research is inviting us, even demanding us, to experiment with new perspectives. I suggest we now have an opportunity to even develop skills in 'seeing' multiple perspectives simultaneously. How cool and sophisticated that would be! More importantly how significant it would be for our perception of landscape, our relationship with it and ultimately our perception of ourselves.

 

 

From Here To There And Everywhere follows another recent painting called Multiple Landscapes

 

Multiple Landscape Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2013

 

 

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COSMIC ADDRESS

Is my next solo exhibition

in Brisbane

15-27 October

Please check out  my

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

for all the details!

I have added some more images in the last week.


_____________________________________________________________

A post that has been getting a bit of attention recently is:

LOOKING OUT THE WINDOWS

It was inspired, in part, by something TOP GEAR'S Jeremy Clarkson wrote in a car review.

Interested???

Click HERE

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 AND

Did you read my celebratory post about my 7 years blogging, posting once a week.

You can read it HERE

There's a online exhibition of a couple of paintings from each of the 7 years too!


Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

 

TOWARDS A COSMIC LANDSCAPE

This Is A Landscape Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2001

 

 

I was rummaging through my map drawers, where I keep my unframed works on paper, and found this painting [above] This Is A Landscape which I painted in 2001. When I painted it I remember my intention was to be more obvious than obvious, by writing 'This is a landscape' across the entire page. The words give form to the 'landscape' between the tree trunks.

 

Regular readers will know of my interest in untethering notions of landscape from Earth. In 2001 I had not really formulated my ideas, but I remember wanting to disrupt landscape. I wanted to question our complacency towards landscape painting, to unsettle the ubiquitous traditions of landscape, to postulate whether we humans find vulnerable sanctuary within landscape. 

 

When I lived out west, in Goondiwindi, there was an expectation that I'd paint landscapes. This expectation irritated me a bit, because city dwelling artists were not expected to paint cityscapes. Some did and others...most....did not. It seemed such a simplistic attitude. Yet, the 'regional artist' label hung heavy with expectation around my neck. I was angry with landscape!

 

I remember having an exhibition in Brisbane in 1995 or 1995...can't remember the exact date, but my second daughter was still a baby...where the paintings were my early tree-of-life works. Golden Lives [below] was in the exhibition. Back then for me, the tree-of-life was more of a familial tree, rather than the cosmic/universal one I dance with now! The tree, or my motivation to paint it, was about family and connection across generations. Regular readers will know that my ideas were vastly broadened when I exhibited in the Middle East in 2005.  

 

 

Golden Lives Mixed media on paper 1993

 

But back to 1994/5. At the opening of the exhibition a person from a Queensland government Arts organisation kept referring to the trees as gum trees! He was not the only one. I was more than a little irritated! My Goondiwindi address seemed to stick to me like mud!

 

When I moved to Brisbane in 2000 I found there was no expectation to paint landscapes. The irony is that, without the expectation, I began to feel much freer to paint landscapes ...or my versions of them!

 

And now, after years of being immersed in landscape, literally and artistically, I am suggesting we need to untether notions of landscape from being Earth bound, because whilst Earth maybe our home, the Universe is our environment. Looking beyond Earthly horizons provides new and different perspectives, which may reveal new pathways for the future, act as catalysts for co-operation, provide alternative insights...and more.  A cosmic context is really very exciting...new horizons, frontiers and places to explore, at closer and farther distances of space and time. Landscape is no longer 'safe' or expected! I think it is now expectant! And, that's an exciting challenge for us.

 

 

Galactic Horizons and Beyond oil on linen 85 x 150 cm 2012

 

 

 

 

FROM MY BROTHER'S BLOG

'Solo Sunflower'

 

Absolutely beautiful!!!!!!!

 

Solo Sunflower photo taken by Wilfred Brimblecombe

 

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

STORM

Storm Oil on linen 85 x 150 cm

 

If you read my last post Back On Earth you will see from this new painting Storm that I have stayed on Earth...well maybe! Storm, is a bit more ambiguous than another recent painting Night Time Electric Storm

 

Whilst Storm is inspired by memories of my childhood, growing up on my parent's grain farm on the flat treeless Pirrinuan Plain, between Dalby and Jimbour on Queensland's fertile Darling Downs, it also evokes a sense of other-worldness. And, this other-worldness could be in the depths of pre-human history, when wild and tempestuous elements collided to form what would become our home, Earth. It could also be in some far distant post-human future when wild and tempestuous elements collide to see the annihilation of what has been our home, Earth. Yet, Storm could be a landscape of a compeletely different planet! With robotic probes on Mars and exploratory craft swinging their way around the galaxy, it's fun to imagine all kinds of landscape! That's why I advocate un-tethering notions of landscape from being Earth-bound.

 

UNIVERSAL ENVIRONMENT

We live in an era where research has vastly stretched our understanding of both the quantum and cosmic worlds. Surely we can stretch our imaginations to 'landscapes' which suggest we have an appreciation of an environment that is universal. In my last post Back on Earth I have noted a couple of links to previous posts about untethering landscape.  I suggest that untethering landscape from Earth, provides the opportunity for new perspectives. One of these is to look back at Earth literally and metaphorically. In doing this I suggest it becomes clearly apparent that all humanity must be mindful of sustainable practices because we only have one real home....Earth.

 

LANDSCAPE AS METAPHOR

As I was painting Storm I was also thinking about landscape as metaphor. I have previously written about landscape, and its elements, as metaphors for the human psyche eg: mountains are a metaphor for overcoming adversity. Here are a few previous posts for you!  Mountains , The Moon , To Grok Landscape , Horizons 

 

So, if landscape and its elements can be metaphors for the psyche, what human conditions or states can a 'storm' be a metaphor for? I am sure you have lots of thoughts about this one! Firstly, I'd suggest that as a collective [ie: all humanity] the concept of  'storm' is immediately understandable. As I write this, it is the end of 2012 and the world is still affected by the Global Financial Crisis, a massive 'storm' severely compromising individual, national and global economic wealth and sustainability. Violence and civil unrest continues in various places around the world, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka etc. Environmental sustainability is on a tightrope. National domestic violence, where dreadful acts are perpetrated against fellow countrymen have erupted in the USA seeing very young children massacred at school. Let's not go on...its too awful. Yet, each one of these forces humanity [the collective] to reflect. But, reflection is not enough...where's the affective action that forces change at mass, collective levels?

 

The concept of 'storm' is also understandable from an individual point of view. Our inner lives are a constant 'play' between calm and stormy waters. Funny how water is a symbol of the subconscious!

 

I suspect, as in nature, the ebb and flow of calm and stormy waters, is an intrinsic part of being human. I also suspect that there may well be a spiral or evolutionary path shaping how we deal with 'stormy weather'. Maybe if we feel things are particularly stormy we know we are being challenged with a pivotal moment where affective action can make massive differences. Are we game to meet the challenge?

 

STORM

This takes me to my new painting. Yes, as I sit or stand in front of my easel in my studio...hang on there...my garage....I think about all sorts of things. I love what I do and I love where my thoughts take me.

 

The lightning lights up the stormy night sky garnering universal energy and dispersing it through the land. I love the way the lightning appears like the roots of a tree or an upside down tree...I also love the red network of tree-like branches pulsing energy through the land. Regular readers will know of my obsession, yes I admit it, with the age-old transcultural/religious tree of life symbol. Here it is again: that sense of energy, the pulse of life offering hope, yet challenging us to find a branch, or even a twig, to help us pass through the storm.

 

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MY BROTHER'S BLOG

 

Please check out my brother, Wilfred Brimblecombe's, new BLOG Photography, Stories, Ephemera Future and Past. Lots of great photographs from his and my childhood farm environment and more. He is a camera enthusiast so writes about the tech stuff too. He works in the IT world which has included super computing, which I think is pretty impressive!

 

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ANYWHERE THEATRE FESTIVAL

 

My other brother Douglas Brimblecombe is Chairman of Board for the Anywhere Theatre Festival,

which is about performance any place but a theatre. Great innovative concept, taking off here in Brisbane. Performances in back yards, trains, virtual, unused lots and more. They are asking for submissions NOW.

 

Here's a quote from the Anywhere Theatre Festival staff and baord page:

 

Paul Osuch is the Founder and Volunteer Artistic Director of Anywhere Theatre Festival Ltd, a festival for performance anywhere but a theatre. In two years, the festival has grown to be a major community based fringe festival with more performances than the major Brisbane Festival run by volunteers.

 

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COSMOLOGY

My next solo exhibition

COSMOLOGY
AT PURGATORY ARTSPACE

Dates: Wednesday 30 January - Saturday 17 February
Opening Function: Saturday 9 February 2-4 pm: I will be there!
Address: 1st Floor 170 Abbotsford St, Nth Melbourne.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11am - 5pm
PH: 03 9329 1860
Purgatory Artspace is the project space attached to Gallery Smith.

I've made a 'Cosmology Gallery' on my website with some of the paintings that may be in COSMOLOGY

 

Cheers,

Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

NIGHT TIME ELECTRIC STORM

Night Time Electric Storm [Across The Flat Plain] Oil on linen 55 x 80 cm

 

 

In recent weeks wild electric storms have sparked their way across Queensland. A couple of weeks ago, around mid-day, I was caught in a wild storm as I was driving along the very busy Coronation Drive, here in Brisbane. I, and many other drivers, had to stop, turn on our warning lights and sit out the storm. We had to stop because the rain was so heavy there was no visibility. The wind played havoc with nearby trees and anything laying loose on the ground. Thankfully only small hail stones fell from the sky crashing harmlessly into my car. Much larger ones apparently pummelled properties, gardens and cars in neighbouring suburbs. I was lucky.

 

Again a couple of weeks ago I was caught in another storm, but managed to shelter under a service station's roof. This time it was dusk. As the night sky enveloped, lightning spectacularly lit up the sky. From my safe haven, I marvelled at nature's electric 'personality'. 

 

For readers from overseas, summer-time storms are common in Queensland and Australia. Often they do not produce much rain, but they certainly provide a spectacle and unfortunately they also often cause major damage. If there is rain, it can fall very heavily, causing flash flooding in both city and country.

 

These recent spectacular storms have reminded me of the storms I witnessesed and experienced as a child on my parent's farm on the flat treeless Pirrinuan Plain, betweeen Dalby and Jimbour, on Queensland's fertile Darling Downs. My childhood environ was often referred to 'God's own country' because the rich deep black soil could grow anything.

 

The flatness of the landscape, with its endless horizons [regular readers will know I have written about these before] provided a broad canvas for nature's displays. These included relentless blue skies with wisps of white clouds floating playfully, greenish coloured clouds menacingly promising hail and causing my Father distress about potential crop damage, and night time magic whispering from the twinkling Milky Way.  

 

Another night time sky was a totally black one. Totally black because storm clouds swamped the glitter of stars and suffocated moon shine. However, storms accompanied by electic lightning, provided a 'show' unlike any other. Flashes of stark white light seemingly from Heaven struck the ground with a shocking immediacy that both terrified and astonished. Momentary silhouettes of familiar landmarks and shapes transformed the landscape into a beautiful but almost night marish setting.

 

As a child, I was never really scared during these wild storms, yet I knew people [and animals] who were/are. Dogs particularly hate wild electric storms of lightening and thunder! I've owned a number of dogs who vigourously welcome being allowed inside during a storm.

 

Night Time Electric Storm [Across The Flat Plain] Oil on linen 55 x 80 cm

 

My new painting Night Time Electric Storm [Across The Flat Plain] is inspired by my childhood memories and recent storm events here in Brisbane. It is also triggered by photographs my brother Wilfred Brimblecombe has uploaded onto his new BLOG  particularly those he uploaded on posts dated December 1 and 2 [Pirrinuan Tornado]. These photographs are of our childhood landscape and they stir sentient memories of the open space and endless horizons, that embraced those who lived there in an ongoing performance, which demanded 'audience' participation. Without barriers, such as hills and mountains, bushland and forests the open space enveloped us.

There was and is no escape. No hiding.

 

In Night Time Electric Storm [Across The Flat Plain] I have painted a wild electric storm that lights up a night sky, revealing a silhouette of existence on a distant horizon. The silos on the right, a sign of human productivity, yet seemingly insignificant aganst electrically charged nature. Anyone who has exerienced nature's 'whiplash' through storm, hurricane, tornado, flood, fire, volcano, earth quake is humbled. The weaving red line, which I was compelled to paint, suggests potency, fertility, fury, passion. It tells us that underlying energy forces exist. It also draws us into the scene inviting us to be part of nature's passion.

 

I like the way the lightning appears like upside down trees...regular readers will know why. The age-old trancultural/religious tree-of-life symbol is a major visual guide in my work. The lightning seems to re-energise life at the same time as tantalisingly revealing life's core secrets [momentarily].

 

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

 

 



MOUNTAINS

More Mountains Oil on linen 55 x 80 cm 2002

 

I am suffering from an impasse. I have three canvases prepared for me to paint, but the flow is just not happening at the moment. Time to pause and reflect. It is all part of the process, the creative process. I have learnt to to step away, literally and emotionally, from my work when this happens, to make room for ideas to flow, and gel into inspiration.

The impasse has possibly happened because I was co-host to a big milestone party for one of my children. Yep...lot's of energy put into, what turned out to be, one of the best parties I have ever been to. I danced till 2.30am!

So, I decided to write this BLOG post featuring paintings where I have portrayed mountains. In my last post FAITH I wrote about mountains being a metaphor for overcoming adversity. The mountain is a metaphor for adversity, which upon ascent reveals new horizons and perspectives, giving fuel for optimism and hope.

Regular readers will know that I use landscape elements as visual metaphors for many things eg: horizons, mirages, trees, skies and so on. By using landscape elements, to reach out and touch hearts and minds, I hope that a connection between us and Earth, plus our universal environment, is deepened. Ascribing emotional elements to landscape may possibly make us think twice about how we sustain ourselves and the planet.

More Mountains and Metaphor are two paintings from ten years ago, just after I left the country to move to Brisbane. Yes, there is a personal element...a story of a journey...a massive change and overcoming fear and adversity. I literally left the interior, crossed the great Dividing Range and settled near the coast.

These two paintings were inspired by the many trips I used to make to and from Brisbane to Goondiwindi. This 4-5 hour drive took me, and my family, across the Great Dividing Range either at Cunningham's Gap or Toowoomba. Please check out this MAP where you can see the terrain. The driving directions given on the map are directing through Toowoomba, but you can also go through Warwick.

The mountains at Cunningham's Gap are amazing. Their light and shade, deep rich colour and their amazing silhouettes are astounding. Each time I see them I slow down, just to 'drink' in with my eyes, their beauty and majesty. More Mountains and Metaphor are both directly inspired by the mountains at Cunningham's Gap.

Metaphor Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2002

 

 

The painting below is called Life and as you can see, it tells the story of a woman's journey from birht to death. It is somewhat black in its demeanour. But, notice the mountains in the distance. They can be read many ways...as a block, a cause of shadow and darkness, an opportunity, new horizons, strength, potential. The road, as indicated by the marked lines does not end. It continues out of the paintings, maybe traversing the mountians and reaching the other side. As each generation is born new opportunities and different expectations forge a diversity of roads.

 

 

Life Oil on linen 80 x 200 cm 2005

 

Secrets Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm 2005

 

In Secrets the mountains are half hidden, by what seems to be a mirage-like aura. They shimmer in the distance, enticing with their glimpsed majesty. What secrets do they hold? What is over the other side, literally and metaphorically?

 Mountains Dancing Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2005

 

Mountains Dancing was recently shortlisted for an art award with a theme focused on the benefits of rain. Here is the Artist's Statement I wrote for my entry:

I grew up on the Darling Downs, on the flat treeless Pirrinuan Plain between Dalby and Jimbour. Looking west the flat horizon melted into shimmering mirages in Summer, and in Winter its flatness drew a sharp line between land and sky. Looking east the majestic Bunya Mountains cut a silhouette against often relentless blue skies. These same skies, when darkened with rain and storm clouds, seemed to embrace the mountains, bringing them closer.

The flat western horizon would often tantalise my parents with strips of rain falling on distant paddocks. We’d pray for the rain to come to us. One hot day, my two younger brothers and I decided to help by dancing a wild rain dance! It actually rained a few drops!

I also remember my father’s delight when gentle soaking rain arrived, swelling the rich black soil and easing his anxiety.

In Mountains Dancing I have incorporated memories of my childhood, plus those of living for eighteen years further west in Goondiwindi. Strips of rain, on distant horizons, always met with emotional responses, particularly during drought. In this painting, strips of rain fall from clouds which seem to dance across a fertile red sky. Water penetrates the land, forming and replenishing what could be rivers, puddles, underground aquifers.

The whole landscape dances with joy and fertility. The latter symbolised by the colour red. A dancing rhythm of movement suggests a natural flow of water on and in the landscape, bringing it to life, sustaining crops, livestock, flora and fauna…and livelihoods.

 

 

Living With Distance oil on linen 120 x 160 [Diptych] 2002

Living With Distance is another painting from ten years ago. Notice the mountains edging the curvature of the Earth. A bride floats above the landscape, her veil forming cloud-like illusions across a vast sky. As a young bride, like many who marry and live in the country, I literally lived with distance. Yet, distance is not only about the literal space between things. It can also be about emotional distance and spiritual separation from people and the planet. However, the bride in  Living With Distance seems to embrace the planet in a white light, a light of protection, as her dress and body mirror land formations and contours. The white lines marking the Earth, seem to call out to the bride. They are the spiritual remnants of pioneering women of the past, ancestors who forged the fabric of community.

 In Unison Oil on linen 92 x 207cm  2006 SOLD

 

In Unison is in a collection in Sth Korea. This is something I wrote previously:

 

'In Unison' speaks about the universal heartbeat of time and history. At a truly fundamental level we are reminded of life by the beating of our hearts and the rhythmic pace of our breath. No matter where we come from, what religion we have faith in, what type of political structure we espouse at a fundamental level we all share the same reminders of life. ..those elements of life that have a pattern and rhythm.

 

Elemental Oil on linen 52 x 90 cm 2009

Elemental  is an ambiguous landscape. The tree-of-life creates a formation mirroring a few landscape elements including a mountain. Red 'clouds' rain down onto the tree-of-life mountain.

Into the Symphony Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm 2008

 

I have written about Into The Symphony twice before. Please check HERE and HERE

Viscera Oil on linen 90 x 200 cm 2008 SOLD

 

From a previous Artist's Statement

 

This painting is about ‘seeing’ the interiority of vastness at the same time as witnessing the vastness enmass.  The macro and micro can be  experienced simultaneously, possibly giving clues to negotiating an increasingly globalised world lived locally. This painting also plays with perspective and distance.

I have called this painting ‘Viscera’ meaning that the internal life forces of the earth are revealed. Yet, ignoring the detail, the sum total is a large landscape. But, is the viewer sure of where they stand in view of this vast landscape? Is the viewer in front of a land and sky scene, or above a landscape of land and water, or inside the internal workings? The landscape seems to be born from a tree…the tree-of-life with its branches becoming visceral and vascular reminding us that our bodies hold these same truths and energies. This is where the image can devolve into something more universal than a particular landscape. I like the fact that a viewer standing at a distance will ‘see’ one  ‘landscape’ and then up close there is another landscape, yet it is the same landscape…a living one. Enticing the viewer to move back and forth from the painting replicates the moves I made when creating it. This dance with distance is an important component of my work.

 

Frisson with Distance Oil on linen 85 x 147cm 2009 SOLD

 

 

Frisson Oil on linen 84 x 147 cm 2010 SOLD

 

 

Hope In The Distance Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2010 SOLD

The three paintings above Frisson, Frisson With Distance and Hope In The Distance are all ambiguous landscapes featuring a mountain-like form, created with my much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol. They are also similar to Into The Symphony and Viscera.

In Frisson and Frisson With Distance the charged moment where horizons meet is the frisson of life, possibility and hope. The tingle, like the moment before a kiss, is inherent. The mountain meets the sky, connecting everything, fueling energy and suggesting potential.

Knowing Stillness Oil on linen 85 x 150 cm 2011 SOLD

 Galactic Horizons and Beyond Oil on linen 90 x 150 cm 2012

Knowing Stillness and Galactic Horizons and Beyond are very recent paintings, where the mountain has been untethered from more formal and traditional interpretations. The metaphoric quality pervades and the images take on multiple possibilities beyond Earth-bound perspectives.

The Mountain offers a view of where we have been and where we might go. It also clearly affords us the knowledge that there is more beyond sight, beyond the distances already travelled and those yet to be traversed. Having been in the valleys, where sight is impeded, the notion of close and far distances helps us negotiate perils, sanctuaries, unkonwns and hope.

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com