Shadows Contrasting Light
I have been thinking a lot about contrasts lately. Just updating this journal and the last entry was about the extreme rain…. and really it has been more of the same. I think psychologically it starts to become hard when there is an overdominance of any one element (especially thinking in terms of water, fire, earth and air). The bush and rainforest here at Cedar Creek are beautiful and the water is life giving but oh my goodness - some drying out and some sunshine would be amazing. The entire last 6 months seems to have had drizzle or rain and my garden has lost so many plants to rot, the mould can be overwhelming, the poor chickens huddle under the garage in the rain (although do seem to have the advantage of more worms coming to the surface!). And we haven’t even had the major flooding many have experienced in this part of Queensland and Northern NSW. I wonder if other artists are struggling with warped canvases and paint that won’t dry? And the wet weather dank smell that is hard to shift that infilterates everything including washing. When the blue sky peaks through (we had a few precious hours a few days ago) I think there is a collective lifting of spirits. I’m reminded of when we went to England for a month and every day was grey and there was this one day of blue sky and it was quite exhilarating! And in contract when we lived in remote Western Australian when it felt like 99% of days were cloudless 40 degrees baking heat - so hot you could put washing on one end of the line and then return to the start and it would be about ready to take off again.
Rainbow over Cedar Creek Road
A breathtaking rainbow I photographed on Cedar Creek Road during an exciting moment of blue sky finally! - unusually going all the way to the ground.
La Nina can certainly be hard work. Previous years in dry winters we have had to get the water truck every few weeks. I am trying to make the best of it and put the fire on when I can, make the house cosy and cook casseroles. Weather is a big factor for me and I think for lots of people mood wise. Hoping for some more sunshine ahead…..
This month I have been working on starting a Cedar Creek Series of paintings - my process is to begin entirely abstract and see what emerges from the canvas - it develops an energy of its own. Sometimes it takes weeks to know what it will be and other times I know instantly. This one came together really quickly - I knew which plants were going to be the stars and went around the garden photographing and taking cuttings to bring into the studio. Eucalyptus trees with their beautiful individual markings, a butterfly attracting native vine, native ginger, rock clinging plants and cordyline. We have these really curious little slugs here in the hinterland which I think are unique to this region of Australia - they have a strange little triangle marking on their back. I haven’t seen them regularly for years but clearly they love the moisture because I am seeing them daily in all sorts of places at the moment! A quick google and it is in fact called the Red Triangle Slug. Here he is below along with my inspiration images and painting process….
Maybe craving the dry hot heat of Western Australian inspired me to create this piece -an aerial abstract of water meeting red gold earth. I have called it Renewed.
I spend as much time looking deeply and thinking about painting as I do actually picking up a brush. For a while I was attending lots of different art workshops but found it was started to hinder me deepening my own style as you tend to go down these roads and then realise as much as you love that style of art or that person’s work, it just isn’t the right fit and by far my best work is when I let go of all styles and techniques and work completely intuitively. And it is much more fun too!
So rather than studying technique I am finding that learning about artist’s life stories and inspiration is far more meaningful. I love reading about artists, looking through their work, visiting the landscapes they painted in and even noticing in everyday things the relationship between colour and tone and texture, light and shade. I find as soon as a try to paint in a certain way or with a goal or specific image in mind it constrains the work.
One intriguing artist was Edvard Munsch - most famous for the painting The Scream (below). I came across one of his lesser known works called The Sun - actually a large mural piece painted in Norway in 1911 which is the complete opposite. These works to me are the epitomy of darkness and light.
Edvard Munch
The Scream 1893 - Text and image from Edvardmunsch.org
Essentially The Scream is autobiographical, an expressionistic construction based on Munch's actual experience of a scream piercing through nature while on a walk, after his two companions, seen in the background, had left him. Fitting the fact that the sound must have been heard at a time when his mind was in an abnormal state, Munch renders it in a style which if pushed to extremes can destroy human integrity.
Exploring the deepest parts of the human psyche and suffering, themes that Munch frequently covered in his paintings include illness, loneliness, despair and mental suffering. He created his most famous painting, The Scream (1893), after a intense experience he had walking at sunset, when he was suddenly overcome with the deepest sense of despair, sensing an infinite scream passing through nature. This painting captures all the feelings of psychological anguish and isolation that exemplify the turbulent changes at the turn of the century.
Edvard Munch
The Sun 1911 - Image and text from Edvardmunsch.org
Illuminated by the sunrays are the water of the ocean, the bare rocks of a Northern landscape, and a slim strip of verdant green that separated land and sea. A clean, straight horizon line divides the waters from sky. The great sun is all-pervasive, shinning from the heavens upon land and sea, its rays reaching out to all eternity. Inhuman itself, it is the source of all life.
What is the role of the darkness? Without the darkness there is no contrast for the light. The intense fear, pain and destruction of the world contrasted with the pure vibration of light, love, beauty and wonder is something I spend a lot of time thinking about and reflecting in painting. I have been inspired to use Munch’s The Sun as a jumping off point for inspiration for my own abstract melding the symbolism and the sun and rainbow prisms over a local mountain landscape of distant and close bush. The rainbow followed after I started this which felt quite poetic. This the rainbow in our front yard and where I work on the messy abstract acrylic (fun!) stage out on my driveway. It is still in early stages but I think this is going to be an interesting painting linking to some of my own experiences over the past year or two which resulted in some pretty dramatic life changes. Here is the process so far…. (to be continued!) and the final painting below.
And finally it wouldn’t be a truly reflective journal post without my daily fur crew Bailey, Evie and Edgar Poe Cat - here they are snuggling by the fire. The cat thinks that he is a dog and top dog at that…… :)
The Sun 2022 - Oil on Linen (101cm - Framed in thick floating Australia Timber Frame - 107cm square, 7kg weight, $5500 plus delivery) Available from mid July.
