Circularity
brushland 2010
Remarks by Hanna Kay and Response by Ross Mellick Hanna Kay - When not in conversation with the canvas I have a chat with the natural world around me. It seems that there isn't a shape in nature that affects me like the circle or the circular. A stalk blowing in the wind forming a circle-like shape in the sand. A pile of gathered leaves, trapped by the wind, whirling just above the ground. The weather turns large rocks into smaller stones, and then into pebbles and finally into sand grains that in time will turn into sandstone. I am happy when I make circles in the grass, and I found out that the more I painted circles the happier I became. Circle: a closed curve divides the plane into two regions - an interior and an exterior. The idea of concave/convex intrigues me. The very same line that creates concave automatically creates convex, two opposites, each existing by virtue of the other. Ross Mellick - Taking notice - paying close attention to what is happening in the immediate and more distant environment is a crucial part of the creative process almost irrespective of the type of art ultimately created. Here, particular sensitivities are described by Hanna which return to inhabit the two dimensional surface of her completed paintings. The opaque white tempera which she layers meticulously assists to define the shape of the forms in her paintings but, more importantly, it reflects light which, in turn, is modulated by layer upon layer of partly transparent oil paint, creating with great subtlety light effect and colour tones, as in nature. Her rigorous technique achieves subtle and beautiful images of the natural world and also serves another purpose, creating works for the perceptive viewer which act as metaphors alluding, through the subjects of dry grass, twigs, sand, stones and shallow water, to day to day experience. The works successfully achieve a nexus of awareness about the almost immeasurable age of the natural world, with co-existing awareness of the fragility and transience of human perception on which that experience is dependent. Human footprints in the sand blow away with the next gust of wind. The works are realistic in so far as there is no ambiguity of subject matter: grass is grass, twigs are twigs, and sand is sand. However the works also successfully invite extension from a celebration of the world at large into engagement with being and other metaphysical dimensions.
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Weightlessness
The idea of weightlessness pervades much of Hanna Kay's art: fragile nests of creatures suspended from tiny twigs, floating sticks in ponds; grasses that sway with the gentlest breezes; ethereal reflections; and hovering, languid nudes. The artist used the term "weightless" for a floating nude she painted in 2004. The work exudes that wonderful feeling many of us experience at an early age: the first moment of confidence when we learn to swim, of being suspended and weightless in water. This survey exhibition of Hanna's pictures covers several themes with which she has been preoccupied over many years: nudes, habitats, waterscapes, hay-scapes and ground-view scenes that she simply calls "scapes." The themes are not as diverse as they first sound. There is a gradual progression of ideas and painterly styles that connect many works over a long period. Hanna is uncompromising in the pursuit of her goals in art. She would not take on work that would take her a long way from her key interests. However, she is stimulated by new challenges, such as the recent commission to paint graveyard pictures, morbid as the idea first seemed to her. She realised that she could unflinchingly accept such a commission provided it aligned with her quest to portray the intrinsic qualities of light and water. As well as the idea of weightlessness, Hanna's fascination with water has appeared in many of her paintings since 1990. Writer Lauren van Katwyk recently described the way Hanna adeptly captures water's reflections, stillness and clarity. These qualities, said van Katwyk, were also human qualities: just as rivers forged paths through new terrain, so people ventured to new territories, hopes and aspirations. [footnote 1] In 2008 Hanna wrote, "The ethereal qualities of water seduce me. Its physical and optical properties fascinate me. On one hand, the elusive nature of a surface that reflects its surroundings, that absorbs the light, and that interacts with the atmosphere. On the other hand, water is a substance with no intrinsic formal characteristic such as colour or form, and yet causes its physical environment to be in a state of continual flux." [footnote 2] "While painting," Hanna has said, "I don't think about what the work says. A painting of mine is not a statement. Rather, it is a droplet in an infinite stream of artworks, some of which I will make, while others will remain part of an imaginary necklace." [footnote 3] Hanna's paintings over the past 20 years suggest that the attainment of beauty is far from her key concern. In fact, she often remarks how her early doll pictures were "quite horrible." Ugliness attracts and holds attention, often more than beauty does. I carefully watched gallery audiences at Hanna's touring exhibition, Undertow. Although people at first seemed uneasy about the theme of a cemetery, they gradually became absorbed by the calmness, serenity and profundity of the watery views. Time spent viewing works is always a good test in gauging audience reactions to art. At Hanna's Undertow, visitors spent long periods in front of the pictures. The captivating detail in Hanna's pictures is not painted for its own sake. The close focus stems from Hanna's intense study of the 16th century masters' classical paintings. She uses the medium of tempera, which entails laboriously building up paint surfaces, layer on layer, to achieve a glowing and intense quality in her work. There are wonderful nuances of colour in Hanna's paintings, even though her general colour schemes are predominantly greys. If we say to an artist, "the sky is blue," the artist will inevitably retort, "yes, but there is also a multitude of pinks, mauves, oranges and golds." Hanna wrote, "Any surface, devoid of colour as it may be, teems with the activity of colliding colours. Unlike other artists who get a buzz from primary colours, I get a kick out of greys. I mix lots of different colours into grey. I love creating greys with just a nuance of pink, yellow, or purple, which set up vibrations on the composed forms. I use this gamut of colours for painting nude women." Intriguingly, Hanna has readily adapted to her rural environment in the Hunter Valley, having earlier led an extraordinary life in cities such as Tel Aviv, London, New York and Sydney. "All my life I have lived with city hum as a backdrop for my dreams, and now the sound of silence has taken over," she said. [footnote 4] Hanna and her film-maker husband, Leslie Wand, live in Blandford, a blissfully quiet village surrounded by rolling hills north of Muswellbrook. Leslie says that this is as far away from the humdrum world as possible. Here is the ideal setting for the couple to concentrate on their creative endeavours. Surrounded now by wonderful landscape, Hanna has chosen to paint close-up views of the land, such as tractor tyre tracks in the mud, pebbles in pools, details of hay bales and interiors of bird's nests. Such intimate views allow us to focus on intrinsic and finite elements of the land. She has not been tempted to paint the romantic idyll, nor distant scenes in the grand manner of English Romantic painters. In some ways Hanna's overhead views of the land relate to works by contemporary Aboriginal artists, such as Dorothy Napangardi, whose pictures conjure up ideas of tracks in the land seen from above, or Ada Bird Petyarre, whose canvases focus on the leaves of plants. Hanna's commitment to her art is admirable. Her works have a mesmerising and meditative quality. They take us to another place. Katrina Rumley [footnote 1] Lauren van Katwyk, education kit for Hanna Kay Undertow exhibition, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, July 2010 |
Waterways
littoral zone
In Conversation: Hanna Kay and Rebecca Rass RR: Hanna, in your earlier exhibitions, you've so thoroughly explored the inner working of natural elements, such as trees, roots, twigs and logs, rocks, bones and shadows. Where is your new show taking us now? HK: My current interest is to explore the illusive nature of water as surface and the way it flows and interacts with other natural surfaces. When you pick up a stone from a river bed, its colours are dark and lush, but as the water evaporates it renders the stone a dull hue. So what is the real colour of a stone? When it is wet? Dry? In between? All of the above? This is the first time I’m diving into water, making it the subject matter of my painting. Hopefully I will not drown. RR: in your new paintings, are you trying to dig deeper and further into the on-going creative process of your painting? Or, are you trying to do something you have not done before? HK: When painting, I always try to do both - to reach deeper into my
on-going creative process and at the same time to do something I’ve not done before. In this show, even though all the works are new, I’m revisiting some elements from previous works. HK: You are absolutely right. The images with the twigs are somehow older – the first attempts to engage with the current subject. Usually when I start a new body of work in which I hope to reach new(er) places, I begin by using elements with which I am familiar. It makes it easier for me to introduce and explore new issues. RR: I think that the magic is to paint the water by its light and movement alone. All other elements seem mere crutches if not superfluous. HK: Yes. I like the expression, sticks that are actually crutches. But it seems that I still need them. Right now I’m working on a journey down a river to its estuary, and in this eight meter, eight-panel painting, the rocks and sticks are there to depict the ebb and flow. In another painting, "Fata Morgana", (mirage), which is a journey through a desert - the dried wood emphasizes the lack of water. I don't expect to be able to walk without "crutches" so soon after the beginning of the current process. RR: What is it in water that attracts you? Are there different kinds of waters? Different locations for water? HK: I find the ethereal qualities of water very seductive. Its physical and optical properties fascinate me, as well as the way the illusive nature of the surface reflects its surroundings. Water has no intrinsic characteristics such as colour or form, and yet it causes its physical environment to be in a state of continual flux. I am also fascinated by the reflections in/on the surface of the water. A reflection is not the object itself. It depends on the quality of the surface in which it is reflected, and on the condition of the light. It is a representation, mostly a distorted appearance of something that is somewhere else. RR: Do you require a different strategy, new painting techniques, in order to capture in paint and canvas that which you are looking for in water? I mean, different technique from the ones you used for painting rocks and shadows, in order to capture the movement and light of water? HK: Definitely. When I began exploring the subject I realized that to paint the kind of water that interested me, I had to change my approach. To switch from thinking about shapes to thinking about colours. Objects, such as trees, stones or grass, have become a vehicle for depicting zones of existence on/in/under an insubstantial surface. Instead of considering the form of an object and the light that illuminates its shape, I think in terms of fragmented colours and broken light patterns. Reflections of various elements become just another fluid fragments of colour. As a result, my brush strokes have changed. With regular, almost zigzagging movements, I create thin layers of oil paint. I use the brush as if it was a light breeze moving the colours on the surface of the canvas, resulting in surfaces that reflect shimmering yet silent surroundings. RR: Do you feel that these Waterways paintings call for a specific arrangement in the gallery? HK: Yes. I would like to display each one of the multi-panel paintings in a way that gives a sense of journey. Even though each of the panels that make up "Estuary", for example, could stand on its own, for the purpose of this exhibition I intend to hang them together. The same holds for the rest of the paintings on show. This is the idea. I will not be able to see if it works till we hang them. Rebecca Rass, writer of ten books of prose and poetry, English Professor at Pace University, New York, and contributor to TERMINAL ART MAGAZINE.
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Undertow
undercurrent
Not long after I had moved to live into the Upper Hunter valley, north of Sydney, in 2000, I came across a Jewish gravestone in the town's mixed Christian cemetery. The lone grave, dated 1916 and, inscribed with both English and Hebrew inscriptions, was somewhat bizarre in its remote rural setting, though . Born in Israel, the notion of Jewish people scattered around the globe is not strange to me;. My parents immigrated to Israel from Lithuania and Poland;. for myself, born in Israel, I have lived in Europe, New York and now Australia. Migration and immigration have been embedded within Jewish tradition since God told Abraham to “get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house to the land that I will show thee ...” However, as far as I knew, Jews outside Israel, especially in the last 200 years ago, lived mainly in urban communities. Thus, when I was approached by the director of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery to consider a project involving Jewish migration to the Hunter Valley in the beginning ofearly in the 19th nineteenth century, I was intrigued. While I am interested in the mythologies and legends that are indispensable to my Jewish heritage, in themselves they do not interest attract me as subject matters for art works. Neither do I want to engage with a narrative that considers the morbid causes that have impelled Jewish people to move from one place to another. Yet, since mobility has provided a context for my art works, I am interested in the tension between memories and experiences. When one we needs, or is are forced to move, images take shape in our minds, and we search for them in the new place we call home. These images don’t always correspond to reality. The friction between fantasy and what isthe tangible fascinates me. These were my thoughts when as I looked around the Jewish cemetery in Maitland. The fenced block of land, in the midst of rural paddocks, stands abandoned and neglected. - There are about 40 forty graves, dating from the 1850's through to the 1930's, all of which arethem inscribed in Hebrew and English. I was born Jewish, and even though I am not a practicing Jew, the history and the tradition has been bred into me and etched into my memory. As I negotiated the tall grass, conscious of snakes, spacious vista and history, I knew that somehow I would like to find a visual expression for the experience. These days, while working from a studio situated in a the middle of the a paddock, I reflect on my wandering. I map out journeys made over decades, on other continents, in different cultures and languages. I try to find links,; to find visual expressions which willto connect personal biography with geographical landscape. Arguably, perhaps one of the most important consequences of displacement and migration is the engagement with a foreign landscape. Upon arriving to in a new place, the first encounter is with the environment: the vista, the light, the sky, the clouds, the smells. This usually may triggers a conscious or an unconscious urge to reflect on the significance of the natural environment to our wellbeing. When I arrived in Sydney (some 20 twenty years ago,) more than anything I was struck by the light. It was just a touch brighter, clearer, and sharper than the light I had left behind in the northern hemisphere. In the past, when people moved around the world on foot, by horses or on ships, the duration of the journey would allowed them to get accustomed themselves to climatic and environmental changes. By the time they had arrived on at the other side of the world, they would have not been so struck, as I was, by the different quality of the atmosphere. Then there was the new smell, - an unidentified dry smell –, which now I can now ascribe to dry gum leaves – that permeateds the air, the buildings, the bush and even the beaches. Australian smell is light and evasive. Moreover, And of course I was impressed by the way people fit into the texture of this new environment. We are shaped by the terrain in which we live, and when we feel comfortable enough in it, we shape it according to our need. September As much as I believe I have detached myself from the events that make my history, I cannot be free from interacting with them. Jewsish people are called the people of the Book. For over 4,000 tumultuous years they have held on to The Words and onto to the hermeneutics, critique and discourse that have been added over the years. I have been trying to remember millennia of cultural narrative that flow in my blood and had beenwere imprinted in me while I was growing up. I am sifting through stories, legends, mythologies, historical facts, contradictions, and poetry that have oozed into my psyche and shaped my identity. This exhibitionMy work attempts to address the connections between this mythical storyline and my biography, creating a broader narrative which that resonates with other peoples and cultures. Standing by the Hunter River in Maitland. The gentle waves and the clear horizon a picture of tranquility and wholesomeness, shattered only by soiled yellow foam along the waterline. Once, this waterway carried people strange to this environment and culture. Now, not even a kilometer away, there is a plot of land documenting their lives and their incongruous tradition. My third visit to the Jewish cemetery in Maitland. A cemetery is a place of rest. It is a place that matters. It is also a place where the cultural meets the natural. This particular one is a surreal site. The wind carries the smell of horse manure from nearby paddocks. Tall grass overtakes the weather-worn tombstones. The yellow grass sways in the gentle wind, turning silvery-green where the field meets the blue horizon. A wire fence defines the block of land where the gravestones are arranged in skewed rows. Behind the fence, in a paddock that stretchinges behind beyond the horizon, a horse eyes the overgrown grass in the cemetery. Hidden in the grass is an alphabet spelling unthinkable stories. I was hoping to getfor a breakthrough. I was hoping that in the graveyard, surrounded by the vast sky, the fences, and the farm machinery,. I would find a way into the artwork. But all I could see was Hebrew letters racing towards me from the headstones. Telling stories of hope and pain. Stories of assimilation and segregation. Almost 200 years ago, a craftsman had engraved the letters into the hard stones in memory of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Most likely that craftsman did not even understand the words he/she had been asked to carve. Today, I read the marking on the stones and translate them into possible images on a canvas - – thus transcending their meaning yet again. I am carried away by the excitement the concept generates. But I am also overwhelmed by the anticipated, unknown journey toward resolving the almost impossible challenge I have put in front ofbefore my artistic self. Migration, displacement, immigration, alienation, hopes, shattered dreams, dark secrets, shadows, past, heritage and, uncompromising tradition, are all narratives upon which I do not want to embark upon. Neither do I care for symbols of religion and race, and. Also, I do not wish for the angst generated by such a subject to come through the images. Instead, I would like to find the light and the lightness in the threads that are woven throughout our Jewish heritage. January 2008 I was born into an ordinary Jewish family, to decent parents with no extraordinary philosophies of life. By living in Israel in the first half of the 20th twentieth century, they had to have a sense of their place in Jewish history in general, and in Israel in particular. Otherwise they were just two people adrift who happened to migrate to a place where history was unfolding. Thus, they had to have some convictions, but none not about their own, personal significance. My father and mother kept alive their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, through the stories they told us. They were not such good raconteurs, but we excused them. The stories they told carried them along. They Both of them colored the were memories of lost geographies which they both coloured with things for effect, and. each excused the other because the actual story was unbearable. It was their way of holding on to tradition. To their past. In the art works, I wish to filter the past of my Jewish heritage as if I wereas a pump – sucking up murky water and releasing it clear, but not sterile. I wish the objects in the painting to hint at the possibility of metamorphosing into something else. I am reaching a point of excitement. But to be excited by the prospect of an adventure is one thing, to act is another. To begin with, I had tomust discard the comfort of my technical painterly achievements, and to establish a dialogue with my imagination which will lead to a new way of working. Out of this dialogue comes the idea of using photographs of the gravestones and incorporating them in the paintings came directly out of this dialogue. I go slowly. Watchful and not knowing or even guessing what the elements that form the image would do in a given picture. Yet, I begin to feel more confidence. The images are looking increasingly balanced. While drawing on my Jewish upbringing, the subject matter of the art works is nature and the landscape. When people move or are displaced, the landscape changes, often drastically. Yet, the more so if they are Jewish,, when people move, in particular Jewish people, despite drastic environmental changes they still bring with themto it their rigid traditions, customs and myths. A desert looms high in Jewish consciousness. The mythology tells of 40 forty years of wandering in an arid wilderness, all for an arid Promised Land. On the one hand, violent campaigns and tribal feuds were fought over a minute expanse of dunesdry rocks; on the other hand, the association is with a serene desert, a place of meditative, quiet nature. The first time I went to the desert, I was surprised by the lack of sweeping sand dunes. The parched desert that surrounded the Dead Sea was more like fossilized sand ridges and mounds. They formed a maze of ravines and valleys that framed the basin of the salty lake. An awesome place where only a scorpion could hear you sing, and only an eagle’s cry might disturb the silence. The first time I went to the Australian desert, I was surprised by the lushness of the country. However, it was neither the unusual flora nor the exotic fauna,; neither the dramatic, rugged cliffs nor the scrub lands that took hold of me. It was the colours and the texture. Stones the in shades of reds, yellows, whites and purples carried primordial memories. And the light was different. It washed over stones that had bakeding for eons in the unrelenting sun. It squeezed into nooks and crannies, swept shadows and distorted perspective. It altered space and transformed time. Having grown up in one landscape and migrated to live in several others before ending up in rural Australia, I make images of experienced landscapes – a personal memory of migration. In the paintings, I juxtapose landscapes which that would have shaped the lives of the migrants who settled in Maitland. Europe, Israel, and Australia offer different palates of colours, lights and sensibilities, with which I engage. Also I also intend to look at the traces that left by natural forces leave upon the landscape, and the way they work to shape relationships with the environment. The working title, “undercurrent,” suggests that water is a major natural force in the project - – a metaphor for movement and change. And the paintings themselves follow landscape motifs, creating sequences of images which that suggest the passage of time. March As the artworks develop, 'light' and “water” have become the aesthetic concerns. Before me lay lies a wilderness of graves neglected for years, crumbling, and gradually sinking into the ground overgrown with vegetation, amidst paddocks stretching into the far horizon. There were are no stones placed on top of graves, witnessing that somebody hasd visited the dead. It was is not possible to decipher all the chiseled inscriptions, but the names I could can read – different in Hebrew than in English - – made make me think about how their names were so intimately they are bound up with the country they lived in and with its language. I stayed in the cemetery for a while, taking photographs and trying to come to terms with the incongruity of the place. I walked up and down the uneven rows of graves, reading the names of the dead. When As I was am about to leave, I discovered the children’s gravestones. I stood stand before them for a while, not knowing why I was am so surprised and saddened. Many children did not live long at in that period. Headstones in loving memory of David, who dies died aged 7, and Jane, who died age 11, both children of Lewis Cohen, of Murrurundi. On other graves I read of more stories of parents' sorrow. Each inscription tells a story of pain and hopes. Before I left leave, I placed a stone on a grave, according to custom. August I am seeking for a way to think about people's wanderings. My response to the subject is intuitive. I have been following associations and personal references to both migration and Judaism. Mapping geographiesy of tradition. The paintings focus on natural elements. Water is prominent in the consciousness of the communities along the Hunter River, and would have been especially so in the psyche of the Jewish people who had arrived by sea to in Australia about 150 years ago. I have used water as a main subject in the artworks to express movement and rigidity, change and tradition, oppositions and contradictions, all of which have accompanied Jewish people throughout history. In addition, The water surface in which tombstones are reflected also suggests a separation between past, present and future, and may imply layers of memories that are evoked by encounter with cemeteries. . For me, making marks on paper or a canvas is an inquiry. It is a way of thinking through glimpses of ideas. Sometimes, the first thing I discover is that I don't really know what these marks mean. Four decades of doubts prevent me fromward off panic, and reassuringe me that this lack of knowledge is my own doing. I also know that if I continue, some rewards may follow. I trail behind the brush, which seems to be, quite independently of me, to be attempting to break through an opaque curtain. I know that the information I am looking for is there, on the tip of my brush. But at times it is impossible to put it on the blank surface so that I will see what I have just imagined. This time, I have been searching for a way that would will allow me to depict a form (gravestones) that does not have the familiar pull (– like, for instance, waterways, grasses or stones). I have found what I was looking for in the combination of photography and paint. This juxtaposition of the digital and the manual is new for me. A new realm of relationships has opened up. Such self self-imposed restrictions can be tempting, as Stravinsky said in Poetics of Music: “‘My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”’ My thanks to Janis Wilton, OAM New England University, Australia, who researched the project. * Published in NASHIM: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues 4th April 2011 - Maitland Regional Art Gallery received the National Trust Heritage Award for Interpretation and Presentation, Corporate/Government, for Undertow - the Maitland Jewish Cemetery Project (http://www.nationaltrust.com.au/events/festival/heritageawards/)
Here are the judges' comment:
Judges’ Comments – National Trust Heritage Awards: Interpretation and Planning, Corporate/Government Category:
A remarkable and visionary project, which sought to revive interest in the small forgotten 1840s cemetery of some fifty graves. The outcomes have encompassed an exhibition of artworks inspired by the Cemetery, with interpreting catalogues and education program, a wonderful published history, and similar projects that have been initiated within other regional and rural communities. A truly remarkable outcome for the modest resources invested, demonstrating the discoverable relevance and importance of heritage places, and how the celebration can inspire other communities.
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Substance/Absence: a talk
concave-convex Artists talking about their artwork seem to have become almost more important than the artwork itself. I find it a questionable custom. It is difficult for me to talk about the art I make. I can describe the process, or how it feels to make a specific work. But that is very different from telling what the work is about after completing it. The artwork is the testimony of what I am about as an artist. The intentions that underscore the work are irrelevant. Also I feel that anything I say or write about the work is an over-simplification, and might limit the experience of the viewer. At the same time, I am aware that the words I use might have more weight than the images they are about. On top of this there is always the effort to talk about the artwork and at the same time retain its ambiguity. Substance – Absence: I Have been exploring different aspect of opposites, such as the concept concave/convex. What intrigues me is that the very same line that creates concave automatically creates convex; two opposites, each existing by virtue of the other. If you are to ask me why I am intrigued by the concept, I don’t have a straight forward answer. I can talk about the sad fact that one person’s pain is another’s happiness; that every moment has at least two historical turning points. I think back to the Warsaw ghetto. An old man in wheel chair was thrown from a third floor window to the cheers of the German soldiers and the screams of the Jews in the streets. Picasso once said, “an artist does not paste ideas onto a canvas”. I can only agree with him. The artwork might be a result of certain pattern of thought or concerns, but when in the process of making my artworks, i follow an urge, and don’t try to find out why, or what does it mean. I do have underling objectives when painting. Among them is to unsettle the belief that human share a common perspective. Yet, I don’t set out to be controversial, or to create an aura of fear. I use ordinary situations and ordinary elements. The character of the artwork is defined upon viewing. For some viewers the art works resonate with familiarity and is comfortable, while others feel alienated and frightened. There might be correct and incorrect interpretations of an artwork, but I am more concerned with getting the viewer to engage with the work rather than articulate meaning. How we engage with an image is an interesting question. Some will read an artwork as biographical while other will look for the universal symbol. The meaning a symbol carries goes beyond it actual (physical/real) existence, and it is understood according to its status in a given culture (culture dependent). To decipher a symbol we need to consider all the forms and conceptual elements of the artwork. The symbol does not have only one dimension, and can be interpreted in various ways, and will always retain a part of itself that is not completely decoded. The most important principal is that the viewer can relate to the interpretation, to its cultural base. Otherwise there is always a danger of adopting an alien cultural interpretation which does not resonate with the viewer. When i make my art, i don’t consider the various symbolic implications of an object, a form or a colour i use. For example – the use of a rope emerged as a result of exploring children games. It came from my experience as a child – skipping rope. However i did not use it literary to depict children game, but turn it into a tool to explore other aesthetic interests and conceptual concerns. Such as creating an impossible situation of a rope, which is looped inside the ground. While painting, the rope was stripped of any associations or meanings. In my imagination, it became an assembly of colours, forms and texture. I chose the example of the rope because of the various symbolic interpretations i have encountered. As i already said, for me it represented a skipping rope. Feedback i received ranged from “a life line”, “committing suicide” the doll and rope together – war (what is left after). – the absence of its owner – the child. Also - “umbilical cord” To my surprise in the Penguin dictionary of symbols, there are many cultural interpretations of a “rope”. in the broad sense, they represent a desire to ascend. When knotted - they symbolize a bond of sort and possess magical properties. In ancient Egypt – a knotted rope denotes an individual being. The Greeks saw it as a symbol of punishment whereas the African witch doctors use ropes as instruments of magic. Central American civilizations regarded it as a symbol of divinity. In Mayan and Mexican art ropes hanging from the sky represent divine semen falling from heaven. Some textile designers continue the mayan tradition and symbolize rain as ropes. Other bury their dead with ropes to be used to fight off wild animals. In Japan a rope is set in Shinto temples to keep out evil spirits and stop misfortune affecting the place. In the Koran ropes a symbols of ascent which grace alone can make. Well, for me the rope now means a childhood relic. Tomorrow, who knows, it might become a cloth line. Water. In my current work i explore the way of water. i know that water symbolizes life and regeneration, and i am also familiar with its cabalistic interpretation. The Penguin dictionary of symbols dedicates 8 pages to the symbolism of water. Nations go to war over water. however, my concerns are purely aesthetic. I paint the traces it leaves over sand. i like the different between wet and dry stones and am intrigued by reflections - I think of water not only as the surface which mirrors a world, but also a layer separating worlds. As the artwork evolves, it takes a life of its own, and the objects become a symbolic vocabulary, which in turn becomes a symbolic language. I try not to engage with the symbolic interpretation of my artwork, mainly because i don’t like to lock in meaning. The symbolic meaning is only one aspect of the total experience. we don’t always have the vocabulary to read this language. therefore to have a genuine meaningful experience, initially, we need to have a personal engagement with it. Moment – Wislawa Szymborska It’s nine-thirty local time. Everything’s in its place and in polite agreement. In the valley a little brook cast as a little brook. A path in the role of a path from always to ever. Woods disguised as woods alive without end, and above them birds in flight play birds in flight. This moment reigns as far as the eye can reach. One of those earthly moments invited to linger. Talking about the work is a process in progress – a continuum of thinking and articulating where the art work is always the focal point. As a maker, I cannot view the work from the outside. But I can enter a dialogue with an audience, thus hoping to understand the nature of the relationship between the viewer and the art work. Also, such a dialogue allows me to bring together images and ideas, establishing some kind of a discourse between the two.
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10 years journey into colour and form
juxtaposition 4 The exhibition brings together a collection of about 40 artworks which were created between 1993 and 2003.
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Echoes
after the dance A year ago I moved from Sydney to a small rural village. My studio is a very large renovated stable located in the middle of a paddock, and encircled by part of the Great Dividing Range. The intrusive sound of the railway, which runs alongside one edge of the property, echoes off the hills, and keeps me linked to the world at large, and to my artwork. Once the train has passed, the silence is even more pronounced, and it is then that other, unnatural, sounds intrude, bringing urban life into nature, the past into the present.
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Traces
primary colours (yellow, red, blue) I am assuming that any conscious arrangement of objects tells a 'story'. The interesting thing is there are always at least two possible 'stories' - one is the story I, as the artist, think I'm telling, the other is the story the viewer is reading into the same arrangement. In a sense, this interaction is a game in itself - a juxtaposition of stories. Through this interaction I want to trigger a process which destabilizes the psyche, and challenge certain cultural conventions that undermine the way we read objects and the traces they etch on our minds.
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Games
jabberwocky The works in the exhibition are the result of my preoccupation with the world of children, in particular the games children play. I am interested in exploring objects that somehow relate to the mythology behind a child’s play, and in looking at the boundaries of their meaning.
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The Playground
urban playground 200 x 1000cm For me, life in the city is living among jarring opposites, complex tensions that rise above the personal and the particular. What makes city life exciting is constantly juggling beauty and ugliness, intelligence and ignorance, spontaneity and regulation, order and chaos, and nevertheless, staying sane.
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Hop, Skip, and Jump
a loop It was part of my intention to examine the games children play - hopscotch, skipping ropes, five stones (jacks), etc., - all of which have etched themselves into the mythology of my childhood, and thus served as a starting point for this body of work.
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