Painting And Photography

I still encounter the occasional individual who insists that to be a true landscape painter, one must paint outdoors, en plein air, to use the popular vernacular.  Whilst I accept that painting outdoors can be a useful exercise in that it encourages rapid, spontaneous work due to the ever changing light, en plein air painting only became fashionable in the mid nineteenth century because for the first time it became possible to do so easily.  This was due to three inventions; the paint tube, the foldaway easel and the train.  Suddenly a painter could hop on a train with his/her portable painting kit.

But painting in the studio has certain practical advantages.  It give artists the opportunity to impose their own deliberations on a scene, that is, changes to the composition, decisions on light, the time of day, and how they feel in that scene.

I photographed the scene below at Melbourne's Botanical Gardens in May 2016 and I've had a few friends insist I should paint it.  But for me, there is nothing I could do to enhance this scene as for me it has everything.

This scene has a balanced composition, tranquility, a certain wistfulness, even mystery.  There is nothing in this scene I would want to alter in any way.

The painting below was completed in late 2017.  In the photograph I used as a reference, the sky is completely white.  This gave me the opportunity to play with various lighting effects and to decide on the time and type of day and how I felt looking across the meadow to the trees and beyond.

Recently, a gallery director told me he has far fewer sales when holding a photography show compared to a painting show.  It appears the average patron thinks he or she can achieve the same results with their smart phone.  My response would be to say "OK. lets see you do it".  People just don't understand that taking a successful picture involves more than 'point and shoot'.  It's a matter of education and I really don't know where you would start.

Landscapes and Mindscapes

I have been a great admirer of many 19th Century landscape artists such at the German born Hermann Herzog (1832-1932) who moved to the US in the late 1860's.  This is his "The Old Water Mill", oil on canvas, 140 x 104 cm.

As a painter of moods, Herzog would appear to be amongst the best.  But I'm wondering if he is achieving little more than recording what's there.  Sure, it's likely this work was completed in the studio where he could impose his own deliberations, but there is a question as to how much the artist is revelling of himself in this work.

The Sky's Beginning To Bruise                             Oil On Canvas                                 109 cm x 129 cm

I completed the above painting in 2014, and it's based very loosely on a photo I saw in an encyclopaedia in the 1980's.  The instant I saw that image, it registered with me and I thought "I know this place", or the emotion it evoked.  It was is if I'd been there, even though it's a scene of the Norwegian tundra - a country I've never visited.

Luckily I still had access to that encyclopaedia when I decided to explore the possibilities of that scene a few years ago.  Yes, it's almost appallingly lonely, yet not entirely melancholy as it's a place where you can lose yourself in the enormity of the world we live in.  A place to absorb nature in its purist form - a place to chill out (both literally and metaphorically). 

Conceptual Clap Trap

This piece is called "Between A Cabbage And A Basketball", by Jan Nelson and is included in an exhibition called "Every Brilliant Eye - Australian Art Of The 1990's", currently being held at Melbourne's Federation Square.  Nelson was one of my lecturers at RMIT University when I was studying Fine Art and trying to major in painting during the 90's.  Do you perceive a problem?

In a recent article called "Art For Art's Sake", author Alain De Botton argues that during the 19th Century the "usefulness" of art was called into question for the first time due to industrialization and scientific discovery.  'Those who wished to attack art and its values asked what it really ever achieved, and therefore whether it still deserved the respect it had traditionally enjoyed'.

In response, the artistic community became brittle and defensive and argued that art was too lofty and important to be merely useful.  Art became a cult of "inutility" best loved and accomplished when devoid of purpose.  It was a deeply flawed, even tragic misunderstanding of what art can do for us and it survives to this very day.

A video of 2 guys sawing through surf boards.                                     I can't remember the artist

To lead good lives, we not only need electricity, money and telecommunications, we also need consolation for our griefs, guidance towards wisdom, relief from anxiety and a path to hope and broader horizons.  Art can provide these things.  Art is a very practical tool that can help us live and die well.  "Only under a desperately narrow vision of usefulness could art ever be dismissed as useless."  

I see the artistic community committing self-sabotage with this doctrine of art for art's sake in relation to gaining wider acceptance in the broader community and gaining additional funding from government.  "The phrase ‘art for art’s sake’ was born to defend art from unfair attack, but it ended up fatefully weakening it, blinding us to its real role in society."

From the exhibition "Every Brilliant Eye = Australian Art of the 1990's"

Fairfax Cutting Arts Journalists

Recently, Fairfax announced it was cutting a large number of specialist arts and culture writers in its latest round of job cuts, a move that has drawn criticism from the arts sector.

Available until June 24 is an ABC podcast titled "Off The Page" discussing the implications of the job cuts, not just for arts writers but the arts sector as a whole.  One opinion is that the cuts have little to do with cost savings and instead represent a move to a more populist model for the publisher.  And a warning, you may have to click twice on the link in ABC iview to get the podcast going.

PS, I haven't bought a news paper in years, so perhaps I shouldn't complain?

Time Passages

A plot of crown land with a trig station on top, near the centre of Melbourne, is the setting for a new series of paintings that I will exhibit at Tacit Contemporary Art in August.  The beauty of this location is that it is rarely visited, so it's quiet yet contains 360 degree views of this huge city.

There's incongruity in this location with She-oaks which are normally associated with semi-arid regions thriving only a few kilometers from the Melbourne CBD.

Also visible from this location is the former Willsmere Psychiatric Hospital, now "fashionable" inner city apartments.  The grand facade still looms over the city and is a poignant counter point to the insane apartment development going on in the inner city.

I hope this location, just above the Yarra Boulevard in Kew, never gets developed.  In a world obsessed with productivity, it can be refreshing to stand on this lonely hilltop where status and possessions mean nothing, and where I can contemplate the ambivalent relationship I have with this town - and perhaps with life in general.

Melbourne's Other Art Fair

I hope they run this event again in Melbourne.  As I understand it, Sydney has held it twice. The opportunity to exchange minds with a large group of visual artists all under the one roof was too good to miss.  I attended on both Saturday and Sunday, the first day was to take in the whole event and with 100 artists exhibiting it was a little overwhelming. On Sunday I focused more on the marketing aspect, that is; how each artist had presented their work in the space they'd paid for ($400 per metre - average space 5 metres).  Also I looked at their promotional material, business cards, flyers, booklets etc.

It was a totally rewarding experience getting feedback from artists about participating in such an event.  Many were first-timers, some had come from Sydney, Adelaide, WA, even New Zealand.  Most appeared happy with their experience and said they would do it again.  A few felt rather differently about it, most notably those whose work was more conceptual.  One artist said she felt that a fair was the wrong context for her work.  Others weren't entirely happy about the location of their "stall".  Whilst artists can choose what size stall they are prepared to pay for, the event is curated.

The location of the fair at The Facility in Kensington drew a mixed reaction as some artists thought is was too remote from the Melbourne CBD.  Then again is was close to public transport.  Some artists were a little disappointed with the attendances but this was the first time the event was staged in Melbourne. 

As you might expect, the art which seemed to sell he best was what I call corporate art, slick, colourful all surface and as one conceptual artist said to me, "I can't do slick".  Nor can I.

One artist summed up the experience very succinctly.  "You have to be clear about your objectives when you participate in an art fair.  You also have to be realistic".  She, herself, was not using the fair for sales purposes as she is already well established.  So promotion was her key objective.  Others said it was a valuable experience for networking purposes and getting feedback from the public about their work.

OK, so lets to the mathematics.  About 100 artists paying an average $2000 for their space which included business cards featuring an image of the artist's work and a saarchiart web address/ artist name.  So nearly all artists brought along their own cards.  So that's $200,000 for 4 days yet the organisers still charged entry fees for the public.  And not even a complimentary free drink for the artists on opening night.

I have this image of a milking shed containing artists, not cows.

Travel And Thought

One of my favourite authors writing about one of my favourite artists, I couldn't resist this.  "Journeys are the midwifes of thought", argues Alain De Botton.  Introspections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape.   

Edward Hopper, "Compartment C, Car 293".

Thinking improves when parts of the mind are given other tasks such as listening to music or following a line of trees.  The changing landscape distracts for a time that nervous, censorious, practical part of the mind which is inclined to shut down when it notices something difficult emerging in consciousness and which runs scared of memories, longings etc. and focuses on the impersonal and administrative.

You only have to think of what happens when you've forgotten the pin number at an ATM.  You take yourself off on a walk, viewing shop fronts or whatever it takes to distract the practical mind.  And sure enough, the pin number is remembered.

According to De Botton, Edward Hopper enjoyed train travel, the dreaminess fostered by the noise and the view from the window, a dreaminess in which we seem to stand outside our normal selves and have access to thoughts and memories that may not arise in more settled circumstances.

Christchurch Dealing With It's Pain

A temporary art installation by Peter Majendie near the CTV building in Christchurch acknowledging the lives lost in the 2011 earthquake.  The chairs stand on a vacant lot once occupied by a church.