Compelling Coast

A new examination of coast

The areas in which the images are drawn from are around where the workshop was based in Narooma, close to Bega in terms of relevance to the proposal being put to the gallery and include Glasshouse Beach, Handkerchief Beach, Dalmeny Beach, Mullimburra Point Beach, Murruna Point Wallaga Lake.

You can just about feel the vibrations down here… twisted rocks, bush, sand, lakes, waves relentless backwashes, this fertile coast is such a wondrous place. Thinking about the difference between beaches on the north coast of NSW as opposed those on the far south or Sapphire Coast, big broad empty expanses will greet you on the north cost whereas on the Sapphire Coast whilst some beaches stretch for half an eternity, they are also, more often than not, ringed by massive rock outcrops as headlands, and features. But thinking back about the workshop everyone was producing individual works that, other than geography,” had no relation to one another.” We on the other hand did.

Metcalf’s focus on trees, lake and ocean, Edward-Cole focused on beach and immediate foreshore landscape, Skinner’s focus on the wetness of dry land. None shows beaches or coast lines as full ranging views or of happy beach goers. No room here, for frolicking in the sand and barbecue lunches. Rather, they all focus in reinterpreting the landscape/seascape in a much more abstract way and whilst that would appear to render them possible to be anywhere in the country or even overseas, nothing is more compelling than the obvious south coast ancient well-worn feel, that denies that ambiguity. Three artists who produced widely differing views, whilst at the same time similar works, linked by a basis of an individual view of abstraction in a landscape.

There is an argument too, around new people examining a well visited landscape where the “novelty index” is high however when one views the work of these three artists, it becomes, apparent that they, whilst being aware of the novelty index, it is nowhere to be seen in their works, which by their vision become stand-alone workers in a crowd, especially given that the works were being produced during a workshop with a group of photographers, who tended to concentrate of getting the ultra-realistic images of the “big“ things that they visited during the workshop. Almost literally, cloning themselves. .

The viewers, will see their coast as they have never seen it before, proving a powerful educational experience.