25 November 2023

Inaugural dAda mUse Surrealist Art Prize

At the museum in Stanley I found a photograph of an early 20th century tinker, by all accounts a colourful character, who travelled with her horse and cart around north west Tasmania selling kitchenware made from recycled kerosene tins.  While drawing I thought about her life and the things she made and somehow this figure emerged from my subconscious, in the best surrealist tradition. So I painted it. 

Tinker's Child - acrylic on canvas, 36 cm x 46 cm


Last night was the opening of the inaugural dAda mUse Surrealist Art Prize exhibition, and Tinker's Child won first prize.

dAda mUse is a new gallery housed in a nicely restored heritage building in Launceston. It has on permanent display Australia's largest collection of works on paper by Salvador Dali, and actively promotes community interest in the arts, especially surrealism.  This is an acquisitive award so she will be hanging up there in the gallery among the Dali works. Chuffed? You bet!

The finalists exhibition can be seen at dAda mUse, 121 Cimitiere St, Launceston (the 1842 Johnstone and Wilmot building) until Sunday, 17 December 2023.


Update 18 Dec 2023: Stephanie Burbury, of the Oatlands History Room, kindly sent me this photograph of old Mother Brown, a.k.a. Mrs Tin-eye Brown, who inspired this painting



03 November 2023

Why I painted the Yellow Vase

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is “where do you get your ideas?” This is not always easy to answer as there are so many reasons to make a painting. Sometimes I hear a chance phrase in a conversation or on the radio that sounds like a good title. Other times I decide, for whatever reason, that I’d really like to paint a specific subject. And sometimes I have a blank canvas – and a mind to match. 

When that happens, I remember the advice I used to give my painting students: “Look out the window”. This was one of those occasions. Here is the view from my studio window. I should have washed the window before I took the photo.


My father used to hoard stuff; there is a lot more of it lying around than is obvious here. 

I began blocking out a design, and once I started putting paint on canvas ideas began to form.




I decided I wanted a sense of space and distance and I needed some figures. The blue thing on top of the pile of rusting junk is an industrial-size light shade from some long-forgotten factory, so a slightly differently shaped light shade and a splash of blue got into the picture. Some bright yellow was needed to provide a point of contrast, then it was a case of adjusting shapes and colours until I was happy with the way they worked together. And quite a long time later this was the result.


Yellow Vase  oil on canvas 84 cm x 84 cm completed 20 October 2023

This afternoon I delivered it to Nolan Art Gallery in the Salamanca Arts Centre, where you can see it for the next month or so.

01 November 2023

A HALLOWEEN TALE

 

The Devil's head rests on a riverbank rock.

A precipitous path winds down the face of honeycombed cliffs. Unseen marsupials and mysterious serpents have left tracks in the sand where flesh-eating beasts retire to their lairs. Cockatoos the colour of death perch in dry branches. Through a break in the forest canopy far below you catch a glimpse of water. 

The rock wall to your left is eroded and crumbling. For millennia onslaughts of water and wind have weathered the soft, golden sandstone into extravagant caverns and hollows, creating a fantastic place of wonder. Shapes shift with the shadows, becoming faces, giant figures, impossible animals. 


Nature Walk - oil on canvas 91 cm x 122 cm

When you reach the valley floor it is cool and dark, a tangle of moss-covered boulders, fallen trees, hip-high ferns and trailing lichen, rotting logs, earth-stars and unfamiliar fungi. This is the Bluff River Gorge. Supernatural creatures, spirits of tree and river and rock, haunt this place.

I laid out my canvas on All Hallows Eve, when ancient beings emerge to commune with the owls and microbats and Tasmanian devils, and painted a picture of what I may have seen.

And the Devil's head? I found the little polished ivory skull once as I was crossing the river. After admiring it, I placed it back among the rocks in its bed of soft green moss. On my next visit, months later, skull and moss were gone, washed away in the winter floods.

*High quality limited edition prints of this painting may be ordered from Nolan Art Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart   https://www.nolanart.com.au/


05 November 2022

WHALES AND ORCHIDS

 Recently I posted a photo of the first stages of a new painting on Facebook, and several people asked me to show them the step-by-step process from there to a finished painting. This was a bit of a challenge, as I am usually reluctant to show people work in progress, but I agreed. Here is the history of a painting, in ten steps.

Beginning

I wanted to practise painting rocks, so hiked in to Handsome Cave to get some ideas and inspiration.




I spent about an hour sitting and studying these rock formations while I ate my lunch, and by the time I had reached my car for the drive home had a very clear visual image of the shape I wanted for a new painting.

Here it is the beginning; some basic shapes on which I could build - something!


Some more work, adding colours where the design suggested. I'm not thinking about objects at this stage, just putting down a pattern of colours and shapes


Finding objects

Two new words: pareidolia and mimetolithic.   The first is the human propensity to find patterns in random shapes, for example, pictures in the clouds.  Mimetolithic patterns are formed by weathered, broken and eroded rocks whose shapes lend themselves to this by suggesting interesting things. 

In nature, we most frequently find faces. If you look the right way at the photographs I took at Handsome Cave you might find some.

Pareidolia comes into play at this stage of  painting, when I look at what I have on the canvas and begin to find patterns and shapes that I can emphasise and develop. Like this.


Adding more stuff

A landscape is beginning to appear, and it needs figures in it. This is not some arcane aesthetic decree; it's just the way I like to paint. Off I go to rummage in my toybox for a suitable doll to use as a model, and that's when I find out what the painting will be about. 

There are always half-formed notions lurking in corners waiting to be discovered, and every so often two or three fuse into an interesting idea. This happens now. Along with a couple of useful dolls I find a yellow plastic whale. Recently somebody returning from their holiday remarked they saw lots of "flowering orchids and whales". Jokes were made (mostly by me) about flowering whales and somebody else suggested that might be a suitable subject for a painting. So this happens.


Now I have to construct the picture around it. The whale  turns into a rock formation and I sketch in a cluster of rock orchids growing from it. A second figure balances the composition, but then the egg-shape at the top looks odd.  I quite liked it, but it has to go. Similarly, the green bushes on the left were only intended as a "placeholder" until I decide what would finally fill the spot. In fact, I'm not sure what to put in a lot of places.



Homework

At this point things get serious. I spend three days reading about Tasmanian orchids and drawing diagrams of them, while sketching ideas that might or might not solve the problems. Then back into the studio. None of the ideas for the left hand side work so I end up with something completely different, but the rest of the plans look good.


After that, it is just a matter of putting everything in place then fine-tuning and adjusting details until I've absolutely had enough of it. 



The Big Finish

This is the result. 

Whales and Orchids, oil on canvas, 61 cm x 91 cm



29 September 2022

FLOCK an exhibition about animals

FLOCK is a joint exhibition of painting, sculpture and ceramics by Elizabeth Barsham, Betty Nolan and Rebecca Watson, three artists who love animals, opening on Friday 7th October, 2022 at Nolan Gallery, Level 1, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart. 

 Animals, or animal-like figures, frequently appear in my work, but I seldom paint pictures specifically about animals. 

When invited to exhibit in this show I was busy painting rocks and exploring industrial archaeology, but I did a painting of a unicorn especially. Then I managed to insert some teddy bears, sea monsters, birds, odd zoomorphic creatures and a stuffed elephant into the other pieces I was doing. 

 Here are the eight paintings I have finished. I'm working on another one with a wombat in it, but might not have it ready in time, so don't hold your breath. I'm sorry if you were expecting puppies and kittens.
Waiting for Instructions 61 cm x 91 cm
At the beginning of this year things seemed confusing and uncertain, what with a lingering pandemic, threats of war, family issues and all the other stuff that was going on. I rather wished there were some wise person who could tell us all what to do next. I feel this way at the beginning of most years and as usual there didn't seem to be any divine guidance forthcoming, so I did a painting instead.
Childhood Dream 82 cm x 66 cm
An adventure in ambiguous architecture. Toys for young and old and an infinite city.
Serenading a Unicorn 61 cm x 76 cm
Betty Nolan has been making gorgeous ceramic horses, and some of them turned into unicorns. I like unicorns, so I painted a few of my own. The Lady in whose lap the Unicorn should be resting its head has been upstaged by a crowd of unruly "musicians". She's not quite sure what to do about it.
Nesting Season 61 cm x 46 cm
There are striated pardelotes nesting under the roof of my studio, as happens about this time every year. It's a rowdy business building nests and raising chicks and they make a lot of noise. Meanwhile, fairy wrens are building their nests in the next-door shed where chicken wire across all the openings ensures they are safe from larger birds. I am not lonely!
Little Friends 30 cm x 61 cm
A happy little dream image, which may be the precursor to a larger painting. Meanwhile, think lollypops and sugar.
Hunting the Wild Agapanthus 84 cm x 91 cm
Agapanthus grow everywhere around my studio. I believe they are classed as weeds, and I would prefer native plants. But I enjoyed painting the flowers.
Conversation with a Pink Elephant 45 cm x 35 cm
A still-life study I did as a painting exercise. What more can I say?
Baby Kraken 45 cm x 61 cm
I found a rather boring picture painted about ten years ago abandoned in the back of my store-room. Added the Kraken, a definite improvement. Probably my favourite painting of all of these.


All these paintings are in oil on stretched canvas. If you are interested in any of them, contact Betty Nolan at Nolan Gallery, Space 109, Salamanca Arts Centre, 77 Salamanca Place, Hobart 
Phone: (03) 6223 3449 Mobile: 0438 446 785 
Gallery hours: Mon - Fri 10 am - 6 pm; Sat 10 am - 4 pm; Sun 12 pm - 4 pm

06 August 2022

Pink Flowers

a recent painting, now off to its new owner

When you venture into a Tasmanian forest you discover an intricacy of fungi, fern, lichen and moss, of strange little spiders, grubs and insects, of creatures avian and amphibious. Pause and watch them living their complicated lives around rocks, rivulets and rotting wood in an intriguing, interconnected wonderland. So much to keep you fascinated!

Pink Flowers oil on canvas, 84 cm x 97 cm

This is one of many paintings celebrating the intersection between flora and fauna in which I begin by painting some big, basic shapes to establish a pictorial scaffold. Then I grow the details over it, like buds opening on winter branches, green moss cushioning a delicate bone, the patterns of weathered rocks, networks of lichen lace draped over naked twigs; all these natural shapes begin to furnish and inhabit the space. Before long, they take on a life of their own and become a fantasy landscape, lush in colour, an improbable biology of anthropomorphic beasts and peripatetic vegetation.

The line

When fishes flew, and forests walked, and figs grew upon thorn . . .

repeated again and again in my head while I painted Pink Flowers and might go some way to explain it. I’m sorry about the unimaginative title, but I did put a bit of creativity into making the picture.

28 October 2021

Off to Exploit the Antipodes

In 1811 Governor Lachlan Macquarie, his wife Elizabeth and a sizeable entourage travelled from Hobart Town to Port Dalrymple on horseback. As Macquarie rode through the country he claimed the land by naming places after himself, his wife and his mates, erasing the ancient names used by people who already lived there. Here he is, leaving his official mark all over the landscape which, in this painting, is loosely based on the route of the old bush road through an area locally known today as Murderers Gully.

The Governor Rides By    61 cm x 77 cm
These paintings are about the colonial takeover of Trouwunna, as seen from a safe distance. 

They were first exhibited in Understory, an exhibition at Nolan Art Gallery in Salamanca Place, Hobart, in November 2021.

Throughout my life the narrative of Tasmania’s indigenous people has been told and retold, changing from a tale of the regrettable annihilation of a “dying race” (neatly culminating in the death of the “last Tasmanian”), to the reclamation of cultural identity by the Palawa. As the descendant of convicts who arrived in the first British ships, I realise many of my ancestors were complicit in the colonial genocide. The question is how to deal with this knowledge.

As usual when confronted by something too complicated, I retreated to my studio to explore the issue in paint.

The result is a series of large, complex images intended to intrigue and disturb viewers. The playful beauty of these oil paintings, with their humorous characters and seductive colour doesn’t quite obscure the darkness and violence of the subject matter. Expect anthropomorphic forests infested by inchoate, chthonic figures and strange encounters with the all too present inhabitants of “Terra Nullius” as the colonisers set about the business of exploiting the antipodes.




According to various history books, Tasmania was discovered on the 24th November, 1642, by Commodore Abel Jansz Tasman.

Discovering Terra Nullius    138 cm x 123 cm


When Tasman sailed down the coast of Trouwunna in 1642 he didn’t see any occupants, but saw certain indications that the place was inhabited. Cook, Baudin and other early visitors confirmed this, but persisted in declaring that they had “discovered” a new country that was up for grabs. The people who had already discovered the place and made it their home tens of thousands of years earlier were not asked their opinion. 

All the Pretty Ships Came In   91 cm x 122 cm

There are varying accounts of how astonished Australians were when the first European ships arrived. Were these strange things huge seabirds, or floating islands with possum-like creatures running up and down the trees? How did they move, with nobody pushing? Did they walk along the bottom, or paddle like swans? Eventually the ships came in and these problems were solved, but they were exceedingly trivial compared to what followed.

The British assumed, as usual, that they could move in and take over. 

Off to Exploit the Antipodes   152 cm x 122 cm

If the locals were nonplussed by the new arrivals, the colonists were rather apprehensive about unknown horrors inhabiting the jungle into which they had been thrust.

The Wild Woods   91 cm x 122 cm

Many of them knew little of the world beyond a few city streets or a couple of rural villages, their education consisting of superstition and local gossip. The forests of Van Diemens Land must have been pretty fearsome. 

The tough ones survived. We don’t know much about the ones who didn’t. 

Into the Hinterland   87 cm x 117 cm


 Do you watch horror movies? Do you ever wonder what it would look like if the zombies won? And they made the movie?

Arthur and the Zombie Apocalypse   84 cm x  183 cm


Governor Arthur’s futile, but no doubt terrifying, Black Line failed to capture any of the “troublesome natives”, but helped convince the few remaining people that their only option was to accept George Augustus Robinson’s proposal to move them to Flinders Island.

It didn't end well.

Tiny Tragedy   91 cm x 76 cm