A new painting

Fire painting

Oil on canvas

30 x 40 cm

and the year draws to a close...

And the year is quickly drawing to a close...

Due dates and deadlines are approaching quickly and it will soon be time to move out of my lovely studio space.

However, exhibition proposals are on the horizon and I'm looking forward to Summer adventures and rest!

Last photograph is of an installation by Tricia Page.

Art and Nature

The aesthetic experience received from art can be seen as both inextricably linked and fully differentiated from the aesthetic experience received from nature. The profound influence that nature has had on art throughout history has lead to a blurred line of emotions that we distinguish between art and nature.
Ultimately, the factors that differentiate these two aesthetic experiences are scale and purpose. 
Art has the ability to focus. Whether it be focusing on a visual motif or color, a concept or a particular emotion- art usually speaks of something specific. Even when a piece of art is trying to be broad, to be limitless, the said intended broadness of the piece becomes a specific idea within itself.
Whereas nature is diffuse. The interconnectedness of nature is vast. The scale of nature is larger, the focus wider. The varying scale of natural experiences can be as minute as a single cell and invisible to the naked eye, or as vast and magnificent as a raging ocean. Ultimately these experiences are out of our control. We have not created them and we cannot always limit them. They are made up of many complex layers, so fragile they cannot be collectively discerned. Due to this, the aesthetic experience that we often encounter, within nature, is one of awe. The uncontrollability of natural environments leads to a physical, visual and emotional experience that is open. That has no set emotion or meaning. Aesthetics, a study of beauty, has gradually begun to encompass philosophy. It is often the lack of clear meaning and reason within a beautiful natural environment that moves us to feel and to think. The purpose of nature often seems to be to bewilder.
When confronted with beauty in nature we often feel simultaneously insignificant and connected to the complexities of the world.
When confronted with a specific piece of art, we are occasionally granted the opportunity to attain a higher understanding of these complexities. It is this understanding through imitation that moves us.
The aesthetic experience received from art is ultimately different to that received from nature because our human control over the two experiences are polar. Nature is entirely out of our control, whereas we know there is human touch and control over all pieces of art, whether through physical touch or conceptual decision. Whilst these two experiences can elicit the same emotions, these emotions are a product of different states.



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Oil on Canvas
2011


Kaitlyn Gibson

Over the last two years, I have been lucky to have the presence of Kaitlyn Gibson in my life. Kaitlyn is not only a beautiful friend, but a wonderful printmaker.
She has been a constant source of inspiration to me.
Her works are committed and resolved, yet they evoke a beautiful fragility.
To me, her work speaks of the materiality, ephemerality and beauty of natural conditions and environments- particularly through the notion of animality.

Kaitlyn has recently participated in the 2011 Freak of Nature International Print Exchange.
The Exchange shall be exhibited at Switchbank Gallery, Monash University in Gippsland in September until October 2nd and at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA in January 2012.
The exhibition is a must-see and I urge you all to go and have a look!

I wish Kaitlyn nothing but success and happiness in what I know will be a wonderful future.

To watch the progression of Kaitlyn's practise you can go to:
www.kaitlyngibson.blogspot.com

And the year was full of friendship and laughter
Of patches of brilliant color,
that were constructed and re-imagined in her paintings
Painting- the one constant.
And there was love,
so much love
Friends and family,
an ocean of adoration
And yet the wonder she pined for could hardly be imagined
And so, she often felt lonely and bewildered.
Sleepless nights welcomed the loneliness in
And time, or coincidence, or decision or some elusive something-or-other
kept the tenderness and affection at bay.
Partial to jealousy and melancholy, she cried quite often.
Her ocean of tears, evaporating on her cheeks
Where did they all go?
She filled her room with found treasures
and books that had been sprinkled and battered with pictures
Material replacements of attempted and desired dreams.
She wanted so much from the world.
If only trepidation did not swell at her shores.

creative space.

Untitled

Untitled
Oil paint on canvas
2011

comment and critique welcome.

Collectively discerned.

 

Oil paintings on handmade plaster castes
2011

Space and Silence

We are part of something vast, and we are part of something intimate
        - Leigh J McCloskey
Copper plate etching
2011

Deafening silence

Copper plate Etching
2011

'Tears are unreliable witnesses, but they are the only witnesses'

Copper plate Etching with three plates
2011

My Lovely Holy Wizard Man

My Lovely Holy Wizard Man

1/5 Screen print
2011

My Lovely Pastel Priest

Unique state Screen print
2011

Spirituality

Images 1-4: Screenprints of rag paper
Image 5: Copper plate etching on rag paper

Alchemy

                                                 al·che·my:

any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

ancient whispers

Taken at Wineglass Bay and throughout the Huon Valley,
Tasmania.

Studio Installation