For centuries, the topography and temperament of landscape have been abundant resources for artists in the interrogation of character, emotion and humanity’s relationship with the environment. Scene goes to ground, exploring regionally familiar and more remote landscapes in the company of ten visual artists, to search out and pause over fresh experiences relating to the natural and man-made features of our surroundings.
In this collection of distinctive perspectives a cross-section of artistic practice is presented; from ceramics, photography and installation to more traditional media of drawing and painting. It may be possible to locate your position in Ahn Wells’ drawn-thread muslin ‘map’ of Lake Macquarie installed on the gallery floor, or lose yourself in the desert amongst the 180 ink drawings in the epic assembly by David Middlebrook.
In large-scale minimalist photographs, Izabela Pluta exposes the poetry of the paving grate and other commonplace features encountered on her travels, while Peter Gardiner ‘s reductive painting technique marks out the dramatic power in a pile of detritus. Ronald Baer and Chris Fussell also harness the rhythmic potential of their respective painting media to concentrate mood as well as describe a sense of place. The processes and practices of documenting landscape are tested in the multi-panelled paintings of Lezlie Tilley and the photographs of Roger Hanley. Tilley flattens nature into a grided pattern. Hanley makes the impossible happen naturally. Conservation issues are quietly stitched into Gillean Shaw’s evocative bedtime story installation, and Won Seok Kim restates the manifold connections of his monumental vessels to the earth.
Image above:
Ronald Baer, Remnant, 2006. Oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm, courtesy the artist
Image below:
Chris Fussell, Billabong, 2005. Acrylic on board, 81 x 180 cm
Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284 View in Google Maps
1A First Street , Booragul 2284