Collection Title:
This Is Not Solitude - Curatorial and Co Solo Presentation
Collection Context:
Essential to my Practice is to immerse myself into the landscape. To breath in the space. Be aware and open to the sounds, the smells, the sensations of the land; looking into the details and exploring the textures and patterns that make up the whole. I seek to capture the essence of the whole, more so than the need to document the actuality.
I’ve always sought out ‘new’ natural scapes to explore, keen to find places that I can witness with fresh eyes. Yet over the past few years, as has been the directive for us all, I've stayed close to home. I’ve held tight to the garden, the back laneway, the fields and river that borders Home. At first I found this stifling. It was all too known and comfortable, too recognisable. But as the seasons have rolled through, I have awakened to the immense beauty of its simplicity. The incredible wonders that this ‘small’ plot of land holds.
In turn, the act of Gardening has become a component to my painting practice. The pull to have my hands in the soil, to tend the plants, to watch them grow and thrive, has directly influenced me in the studio. I’ve literally dug deeper to explore the essence of the garden. As is often remarked, ‘getting into the garden’ finds One solace, stillness and quiet. But it is here in this enchanting space that I find little silence, instead it is filled with an euphoric wonder, that I feel the space as though listening to a melodic score. Time spent in its embrace, rolls through highs and lows. Moments here can be both intimate and Big, imbued with a pulsating energy.
The works that make up this collection are more nature stories than nature studies. Works are at times stripped back, in places laid bare, in others teeming with marks and ornament. The works are like large scale nature notes taken while leaning into the salvias, pruning the roses, and taking governance over the rampant nasturtiums.
In the making, each work has started with a montage of imagery taken directly from the garden. While fond of the brilliant colour, the majestic rose heads and the throng of green, I am drawn to the lesser noticed details in the garden - the fallen mass of acacia leaves, the sway of the salvias as the breeze blows through, the regal purples on the underside of foliage, that when picked and rubbed between fingers smells of pineapple! It is the textures, patterns and sensory moments that enthral me. They are the gardens language. Works were made with doors thrown open with the sounds of the garden in the studio. A sensory experience; an impetus to make marks. Each piece has grown in it's own direction, reaching out, following its own rolling narrative to come to it’s completion.
It is my hope that this collection reads as a story of the garden, a rich and companionable expression of a walk around a much beloved plot of land. Simple in nature, euphoric in fullness.
——-
“To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell;
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
and mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been!
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock, that never need a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude: ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled...”
Excerpt from ‘Solitude’ , Lord Byron
