I was invited to participate with a group of local, international Baltic artists and sculptors, in the 2018 Kopa Art Exhibition at Moores Gallery in Fremantle. This debut left me feeling profoundly grateful. Of deep significance has been the gradual drawing together and acceptance of the threads of all my heritage, that which originated in Europe with my mother and father, and that culminates and grounds itself in this beautiful place where I live, its history, heritage, and timelessness.
Growing up, I was surrounded by the idyllic Australian countryside and undulating farmlands. It paints a definitive picture in my mind when I recall it in my memories. The sounds, aromas, and textures. The Twenty-Eight parrot, the diminutive Gerygone with its delicate, contemplative, and undulating melody. Along with all the other magnificent birds that define my early years. Magpies, Ravens, Silvereyes, even that beautiful Eastern States Kookaburra, and so, so much more, I want to honour them all. Notwithstanding the furred, scaly, armoured, and spiky fauna as well.
The home of this extraordinary fauna itself is enticingly captivating. Everywhere I look I see “My Favourite Colour”. I see the greens, browns, greys, yellows, even blacks, all containing my favourite blue – that has a serene and inspiring greyness to it.
The mental texture invoked by all these real elements combine to create a many layered and infinitely faceted thing. It is a feeling. Descriptively, it is a feeling which echoes to ‘the beginning’, implying something eternal. Such as the eternity I see in a decaying, damp, and craggy tree stump, and imagine its primeval ancestry.
Capturing this on canvas requires an allowing of thought and movement. It is what I keep reminding myself. None-the-less, there is a lot of thinking involved. Perhaps more determination than anything else. Pushing past fears and insecurities, pressing the medium with the tool or implement (rarely a brush, sometimes whatever is at hand), into the texture of the canvas. Hearing the gravelly sound, seeing the texture of the fabric revealed by the application of medium; the graphite onto the paper, comes close to the natural experience. It has a grounding effect, like being in nature, almost like scrunching feet through leaves and branches or the sand on the beach. It is this that foretells the evolving creative journey, which is strangely familiar.
The Black Stump. Graphite on Trace. 400h x 500w
Dusk. Acrylic on Cotton Canvas. 490h x 300w.
Flood. Acrylic on Cotton Canvas. 490h x 300w.