Wandering to Arcadia – A Distance Away

THE GILDED SPACE (the framing of distance) - I was taken to see a lot of paintings by my mother in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Sidney Nolan at David Jones Gallery, William Dobell’s retrospective at the AGNSW in 1964, John Brack’s and John Perceval’s work at Clune Galleries in King’s Cross and of course the collection at the AGNSW. Streeton, Bunny, Ashton and Roberts to name a few transfixed me. Having grown up in the Western districts of NSW I related to their largely rural subjects. George Lambert’s– Across the Black Soil Plains was a quiet and insistent inspiration. Their large canvases with their heavy gilded Victorian frames left a lasting impression. The frame holding the space and distance was a type of visual alchemy to my untrained eye. Today watching Modernism degenerate in to Neo Marxist Post Modernism (NMPM) I look back on those paintings and their warm gold frames with nostalgia and affection. The ‘A Distance Away’ series of landscapes is a modest attempt to recreate the wonder and excitement I felt in the presence of those great paintings.

When putting a collection of pictures together a dialogue commences between each painting and I try to understand the relationship between each painting and how the group of paintings relate to the viewer. When I look at an object; be it a Georgian spoon, a Mercedes Benz, or a piece of fine art I always find it instructive to consider the materials involved and the intent of the designer and how successfully this intention has been realised. There is also a process in making a painting. First you have to decide on the scale. I look carefully at the wooden stretcher, I use cedar as it is light, strong and resistant to insects. Next I choose the canvas; the weight, texture and weave of this will reflect on the brush marks on the painting’s surface. Then I choose the gesso (underpaint) that the image will be painted on. This also affects the quality of the surface. After an infinitesimal number of aesthetic and poetic decisions have guided the image to completion (to one’s satisfaction) consideration must be given to how you want to present the work. That could involve the colour of the wall on which the painting hangs. In the ‘A Distance Away’ series I wanted to ‘box’ the distance in a traditional frame.