The Burning Bush

David Hawkes: Study for a Beautiful Day 2

Wedderburn is a small place, just out of Campbelltown west of Sydney.  You would expect with the concentration of most of Australia’s best abstract artists that it would be a remarkable place.  It’s not, it’s the bush and a gully and like most of the Australian landscape, scrappy gums,scrubby undergrowth and patchy pinkish rock.  Beautiful but not exceptional.  It’s the translation to art that makes it remarkable.

“I could spend the rest of my life just painting this bit of bush.” Elisabeth Cummings Wedderburn

Elisabeth Cummings is the humble queen of the Wedderburn bush and her current exhibition at King Street Gallery is testament to her rights to that crown.  Regular readers of my blog will know already of the influence of her work on mine.  This exhibition has some truly notable pieces, especially Crossing the Gully and Small Billabong.

Looking at her work I am inspired to get back painting in oil and at the same time insecure in that I feel I would never be able to produce anything so exquisitely complete and complex.

Just down the road in Watters Gallery, David Hawkes also paints the Wedderburn Bush. Like Cummings, Hawkes takes the essence of that landscape and pours a rhythm of the bush into his work in slathers of paint. His 49 studies for a beautiful day seems to indicate every day is a beautiful day in Wedderburn.

A beautiful day in Sydney too.

A Big Mixed Bag of Lollies

Anish Kapoor Memory

Multiple exhibitions in one venue can sometimes be a mixed bag of lollies.  There’s usually the big musk stick that pops out the top of the bag and draws you in and then there are the ones  at the bottom, the three for 5 cent  jubey things.  My trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney was like that.

Anish Kapoor proved musk stick-like to be as good as it looked. Something sweet and distinct at every bite, leaving a unique taste in your mouth.  The promise of more sweets inside was the huge mirror dish reflecting Sydney Harbour on a perfectly blue hundreds-and-thousands sparkly day.  Having been impressed by his work for a long time I was hoping for the best and I got better. As usual looking at the works on line, in books, on DVDs doesn’t cut the musk stick.

At the same time the other exhibition South of No North jubes proved to be strawberries and cream. Delicious with no fan-fare, three for one. The exhibition was based on works by Noel McKenna, Wiliam Eggleston and Laurence Aberhart. Noel McKenna’s work has always made me smile. From his doggie poster series to big things. This was a wonderful exhibition and although it is hard to compare the  monumental work of Anish Kapoor, there was a similarity in the complete paring down of subject and the strength in simplicity. I especially loved these small tiles of simply drawn ordinary objects and one of the best known useful products ever deserving to be lauded in glazed ceramic : liquid nails.  It was also wonderful to see his influences in Aberhart and Eggleston.

So my little bag of MCA mixed lollies proved to be quite sweet . It wasn’t too sickly and way too tempting to refuse.

If you hadn’t tried this before, click here for my Doggie Quiz inspired by Noel McKenna.

How Much is that Doggie

Giant Ducks in Little Places

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library

 

My Painting of shag (cormorant) at the Lady Denman Heritage Museum Huskisson -a large shag in a little town.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I stumble across stuff by mistake.  It’s a bit like when you are waiting to get to sleep and your mind wanders from one subject to another and before you know it, you’re thinking of something completely new and forgot how you got there to start with.

I can’t remember why I had gone to the State Library’s website but in the back of my mind there was a definite reason and that is now a lost cause.  Anyway, I attended a talk at the Wollongong Gallery on the TAL Dai’ichi Collection (Earl of Derby) that sparked my curiosity. These wonderful albums had been locked away for a long time, like those recesses of the mind.  The talk was not only about the volumes but how the State Library of NSW came across them and was able to purchase them.

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library NSW

Walking round the lake this morning it reminded me of the talk and the recording of nature in those early albums. It was a wonderful era where the drawings were so much more than a photo. The initial image replicated in the power point presentation was of a giant duck standing webbed over a tiny painted landscape.  It made me want to paint huge cormorants over tiny lakes. It was though that the watercolours were quite often done on return from the antipodes and that some of the works looked Indian in nature.

I also loved the stories of the collectors of the images, sometimes members of the Linnane Society who would collect and treasure new and exciting images of exotic creatures. Some of the most beautiful works were of fishes and the colours were fresh and amazing. Following the talk we were able to gather in close around the table where two volumes were gently turned page by page by devoted white-gloved conservators. The delicacy of watercolours means these works are rarely shown. It was a rare privilege to see these giant ducks in this little place.

 

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library NSW

Drawn Out

Tim Allen: Folded and Faulted Sediment III

After the Bacon exhibition I went for a look at the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.  This is the last Dobell Drawing Prize after 20 years and I was pretty sad about that.  It struck me that Bacon had no sketchbooks displayed in the exhibition and I was then curious about his habits and it appears most of his work went straight onto the canvas. I’m currently reading David Hockney’s biography A Rakes Progress whose drawing is such an important foundation of his work.  I remember being in awe of a simple line in his drawing that went from black to red so easily and obviously. Beautiful.

Graham Fransella: Figure and a Bell

I remember seeing the Dobell prize for the first time and my excitement of drawing that I continue to have. I remember being obsessive, taking the sketchbook in the bath to draw the taps, taking it fishing to draw while the line was dangling, always at the beach and having a sketchbook especially for train trips small with an orange cover so I knew the difference.

I still have a sketchbook with me at most times but I don’t have that obsession anymore. I don’t know where I lost it but wish it was back. I love that feeling being lost in a drawing, starting small getting past that uncomfortable niggling feeling and then being swap away in the marks.  I still use drawing within my painting and don’t think I could ever use just paint, the brush handle is too distant from my finger tips.

Lloyd Rees Sketchbooks in the Art Gallery of NSW Collection – photo from Australian Drawings AGNSW

Kevin Connor: Pyrmont and the City 1993 the first Dobell Prize Winner

The last exhibition for the Dobell was like saying goodbye to some old favourites and familiar names associated with drawing. The prize will be replaced with a drawing biennale which sounds exciting but a long time between drinks.

Fairweather, All Dry No Rain

Ian Fairweather: War and Peace 1959

Yes, I know Fairweather is an important artist in Australian abstraction.  Yes, I do like his work. Yes, I would go out of my way to see an exhibition of his work…and I did. But he has never been one of my great influences, not on the list of  draw-card artists.  So I was curious whether a roomful of works might  change my view of his oeuvre. It did.

Queensland Art Gallery was host to an exhibition by Ian Fairweather – Late Works 1953-1974. My trip to Brisbane was primarily to see this exhibition it was just a bonus that the APT7 was on at the same time. Following the vibrancy and colour of the Asia Pacific Triennial at first the paintings seemed flat and muted. The longer I looked the more subtle they became.

A lot of Fairweather’s works were painted on cardboard. His gallery would send canvas or linen to his remote home on Bribie Island and he would use the canvas on his make-shift home and paint on the cardboard it arrived in.  I wonder how different these works would be on canvas.

Their appeal to me has always been the dryness of the paint. There was also a letter from an art supplier giving Fairweather student paints to trial. Perhaps the intensity of pigment also is an added attraction. I love colour but these muted earthy colours exaggerate the feel of the arid surfaces.

I came away feeling greater admiration for his work. I feel I understand his work better, I think I was caught up in his fascinating personal story but seeing his works all together changed the focus rightfully back to his painting.

 

It has made me feel like squeezing the wet from the oil maybe that’s why I love gouache, that opaque dryness.

Ian Fairweather: Composition I 1961

Photo: Hut (detail) by Robert Walker 1966 Fairweathers home on Bribie Island QED

Painted Bacon

Art Gallery of NSW

I was in the zone. That magic moment when you are deep within the work in front of you. I hadn’t expected that of Bacon.  The Art Gallery of New South Wales luckily could fit the letters of his name nicely between the columns and I like that drama of a new exhibition. I love the crossing directly in front of the gallery and when I stepped out alone, no cars, no crowds and mounted the stairs I had that inkling it was to be wonderful.

Study from the Human Body after Muybridge 1988 Francis Bacon

I had done my homework: read a little, been to an Anthony Bond (director of International art  AGNSW) talk weeks before, downloaded an app and was ready to take what Francis Bacon could dish up.  Like Bacon when I first saw Muybridge’s work I felt compelled to work from his studies of the human form so going in, I wanted to see  that connection.

I had just been to the APT7 in Brisbane and coming down from that artphoria and I wasn’t prepared to be scooped up once more. This time it was good old-fashioned use of paint and there was something Fred Williams-like in large flat expanses of pure thin colour and small slashes of sculptured coloured marks, in Bacon’s case fleshy pinks and whitish greys. His influence on Whiteley was blindingly obvious and I too became absorbed. I felt his fascination with Muybridge and Russian film the The Battleship Potemkin. But it was in Triptych 1987 where his intense brilliant orange ground captured the intensity of Frederico Lorca’s words in “Lament for Ignazio Sanchez Mejias” a matador’s death that gave a clue to depth and passion of his work.

When the bull ring was covered with iodine at five in the afternoon

Death laid eggs in the wound at five in the afternoon

Untitled (dog) c1967 Francis Bacon

A great exhibition and one that I have definitely learnt from.  I feel the need to re-visit some of my earlier works on Muybridge and perhaps begin to introduce colour and scale and move on from the smaller studies of individual plates.

Plate 13 from Muybridge Studies

The Asia Pacific Triennial 7 Art Jaunt

Brisbane is in the midst of floods but last weekend when I went for the Asia Pacific Triennial #7 the weather was hot, sunny and welcoming. It was my first APT and first visit to QGOMA. It was wonderful. The new gallery is open, spacious and light and the exhibition flowed beautifully from room to room.

I can’t say that there was one work that prevailed, each time I think of a room there is a work that stood out.  I agreed with John MacDonald’s review and he is much more eloquent than I so feel free to click on his for a run down.

There was one work that appealed to me on all levels and from the crowds, I think it was also a huge crowd-pleaser and that was the work of Raquib Shaw, both horrific and exquisite and photography of the work just does not cut it.

Of course the contemporary work from Papua New Guinea is unbelievably impressive and I am sorry I missed the opening to catch the dancers, some of which I had seen at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.

Another work that left a lasting impression was a video installation Disappearing Landscape-Passing II 2011 by Yuan Goang-Ming a Taiwanese artist. It was mesmerizing and haunting and I can’t remember that last time I was transfixed by video art.

All in all it was a marvellous jaunt north and I was impressed with Brisbane’s Cultural precinct by the river. I hope they are all safe as I write this and the river rises.

Full Stop Upward

At the very end – the full stop is Peter Upward – a large slash of calligraphic crusty paint in June Celebration. This work left me gob smacked at the symposium on Abstract Expressionism at the National Gallery of Australia.  Seeing it for the umpteenth time hasn’t dulled the feeling when standing before it.

This room, the last leg of the exhibition includes some important Australian abstractionist in Tony Tuckson, Ian Fairweather and Ralph Balson. The works will be the first to come down as the exhibition moves into the last throes.  This end of the gallery has had a range of amazing exhibitions and despite feeling tucked away there is a feeling of intimacy with the works.  I remember being down here with the Helen Frankenthaler woodblocks in Against the Grain and the Andy Warhol screen prints. Now I will remember being down there  with Peter Upwards sister standing before June Celebration. The facing wall of works include Grace Hartigan and Franz Kline so will form the next post.

Without Guston

So far I have explored the Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the National Gallery in Canberra room by room.  My last blog, in the End of the Y I left out  one very important painting. It was Philip Guston’s Prospect.

 

I couldn’t wait to get to New York, home of the expressionists but Philip Guston was not on my wish list of art heroes like De Kooning and Diebenkorn.  I’d always been drawn to his work but it wasn’t until I saw his early works en masse that I was hit hard by the oily Guston stick.  Paintings on the wall never compare to books.  This painting and all I saw of Gustons were fresh, like he painted them and left the room for a break and he would be back soon.  It was also the area he left surrounding the push and pull of paint.

It was difficult for others to understand why he left this abstractionist style behind but in the book Night Studio by his daughter Musa Mayer it was what he wanted to do, to take himself out of what was expected by him.  So I was pretty impressed by the inclusion of this work of his in the abstract expressionist group. Books just don’t cut it, you have to see the paint strokes.   Somewhere in a sketchbook I have made a scribbled note of which painting the one above was but I do know it was a super close up of a work in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The work here is entitled Prospects dated 1964.

Almost The End of the Y

A few nights ago I went to Jackson Pollock’s and Morris Louis’ birthday party – 100 years celebration at the NGA where they transformed the sculpture garden restaurant into the Cedar Tavern for an event named “New York State of Mind”.

Before the drinks we had a talk by the curators about the exhibition but because of time they left this room out. I have blogged about the previous rooms and this is the last, the Orde Poynton Gallery.

A gallery named after a man who had never been to the National Gallery in Canberra but a generous benefactor who enabled us to stand in this space and marvel at the works on the walls.  Orde Poynton was held prisoner of war in Singapore and I think he would have felt a connection with the Ian Fairweather’ calligraphic abstractions that were the result of his prisoner of war experiences in the first world war.

During the talk the curator referred to this gallery as the end of the “Y” referring to the shape of the overall exhibition.  This is almost the last area of the Abstract Expressionism exhibition and it is an amazing collective of abstract artists.  

There is however one work missing from this area that is not listed here and that is a painting by Tony Tuckson #81 that was not listed on the NGA website.  Just another 2 rooms to go. Stay tuned.