ARTS ZINE NOVEMBER 2022

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EDITORIAL

Greetings to ARTS ZINE readers, we wish everyone a great festive season and New Year 2023. Our next issue will be online in March 2023. November Arts Zine features many talented and fabulous Australian and international contemporary artists, photographers and writers. Janne Kearney, is an internationally recognised realist, figurative and portrait artist, winning international and national art awards.

Internationally acclaimed artist and film maker George Gittoes left Australia for Pakistan in early August and continued his journey back to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he has been establishing a new Yellow House. Arts Zine includes his latest in depth dispatch and photographs from Jalalabad.

Accomplished performer and film maker Hellen Rose presents the story behind the making of Ukraine Is In My Heart song. Hunter Valley, recognised landscape artist Rebecca Rath writes about her life and art “experience the joy of art and nature.” Phil Watts, is a multi-instrumentalist musician and visual artist currently based in the Hunter Valley NSW. Watts gives the reader an insight into his world of music and art. Artist Suzannah Jones lives in the Dungog Shire, NSW. Jones writes about her life and presents her dynamic and colourful landscapes.

Lorraine Fildes, travel and art photographer and writer includes a fascinating article on ship's figureheads which were sculpted to adorn the bows of sailing vessels. International Spanish artist and photographer SEIGAR includes a series of photos – Tales of Lake Como. We are featuring two Sydney artist’s exhibitions: Bernadette Smith’s latest exhibition Light Interactions, and a review of the show by Dr. Mark Elliot-Ranken.

Edmond Thommen, photographic artist who specialises in blending nudes. Thommen’s latest exhibition Under her Skin #3 –blended, to be held in Katoomba Gallery one88.

Melbourne artist and poet Bea Jones writes a tribute poem for ceramic artist Greg Sugden.

Don’t miss out reading new works by resident poets Brad Evans, Reese North, Peter J Brown, and Eric Werkhoven. ART NEWS and information on forthcoming art exhibitions. Submissions welcomed, we would love to have your words and art works in future editions in 2022.

Deadline for articles 15th FEBRUARY for MARCH issue 50 2023. Email: werkhovenr@bigpond.com Regards your editor Robyn Werkhoven

The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. Copyright © 2021 Studio La Primitive.

rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced , in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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By Robyn Werkhoven 2021.

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KEARNEY

JANNE KEARNEY

Photograph courtesy of artist.

Janne Kearney in her studio.

JANNE KEARNEY - INTERVIEW

I grew up in Geelong in a housing commission house, the youngest of 5 children. Life was difficult as a child for me, my mother died when I was 9 years old on Christmas eve. My father was a product of his generation and was a very withdrawn quiet man who rarely spoke to his children, it was a case of us being seen but not heard, he remarried within a year of my mother’s death.

Home life was hard, I left home at 16 to live with boy 18-year-old boyfriend, he would be my biggest supporter and the man I would marry. We had 2 children, sadly he died 2021, one year short of our 40th wedding anniversary, leaving us heartbroken.

I have no formal art education or training and am largely self-taught, I didn’t start painting until I was in my forties, I figured it would take quite a few years to learn my craft, it was a now or never scenario. After mentioning this to my husband he said what are you waiting for go for it, and told me to quit my job tomorrow and follow my dream, he then restored our old stable into a studio for me, I start painting in earnest, and haven’t looked back since. When did your artistic passion begin? I’ve wanted to be an artist as long as I could remember, as a small child I would draw for hours. We were quite poor growing up, my mother would save the white butchers paper for me to draw on. It wasn’t until I reached my 40s that I could devote the time I needed to achieve it.

Describe your work?

My paintings explore issues surrounding gender inequality, the experiences of people abandoned by society, as well as portraying the trauma inflicted by a disjointed youth justice system. By dissecting societal stereotypes my work strives to highlight the social challenges faced by marginalised individuals, and asks the audience to disregard preconceived ideas about people, cultures and gender.

What is the philosophy behind your work?

I enjoy painting with high contrast light and colour, I love the symbolism of light and shade as much as I do the effect resulting from its use; it sends a powerful message that, even in the darkest of moments, if we search for it, we can find the light.

My work has been described as inspiring and narrative, I began including a subtle rainbow motif in my work in protest to our government's stance on gay marriage, communicating the need for inclusiveness for all, and marriage equality. The rainbow colours evolved to depict women controlling their own sexuality. It is a taboo subject; my work teases the viewer’s perception of sweetness and innocence through the subject’s visual double entendre. Not relying upon validation of their actions, safe in free love and self-expression, my subjects confidently taunt the viewer, while playfully aware of their sexual power. Showing women will not be slut shamed, or pigeonholed. Each of us has the right to exist without torment, exploring current pushes within gender politics, against a climate of sexual harassment and the right for each us not to accept sub-par treatment, to be truly liberated and be ourselves.

Page 21 : Chasing Rainbows, W40 x H50 cm., oil on canvas, Janne Kearney.

Do you have a set method

routine

working?

I do try to have a set routine starting work every morning generally painting for around 6 to 8 hours daily. Unfortunately, the last couple of years have been disrupted caring for my terminally ill husband who passed away in 2021, he was my number one supporter, his loss has been shattering. In addition, I have been having issues with my vision and have been diagnosed with glaucoma, I can only paint for a couple of hours at a time before needing to stop and rest my eyes, some days are better than others but it has been quite disruptive and distressing.

Why do you choose this material / medium to work with?

I paint mostly with oils on fine linen, and find it challenging to create the high contrasts and bright colours in many of my works.

How important is drawing as an element to your artwork?

Drawing, in particular life drawing has always been a very important part of arts practice, I ran life drawing classes for around 20 years. I believe it’s a great form of training, it helps keep my skills honed.

What inspires your work / creations?

I take inspiration in exploring some of the toughest environments, inhabited by some of the most fragile of individuals within our society, and to empower the often overlooked or powerless.

Page

100

cm.

Janne Kearney.

Any particular style or period that appeals?

There’s not one particular art that appeals, I have a very eclectic taste in art and find many artists and styles of interest to me, but my preference is for realist works.

What are the challenges in becoming an exhibiting artist?

As a middle-aged woman with no formal art qualifications, it was extremely difficult to be taken seriously as an artist. As I began to have success in some major art prizes was when things began to change and I was finally seen as a serious artist and contracted to Flinders Lane Gallery. My relationship with the gallery has been an exceptionally a happy one.

Right : Me too, winner Arc FWSA Art Award 2018.

The ARC is the most important realist painting prize in the US and the Americas. Fashion Week San Diego Award (FWSD), is an award where FWSD designers were matched with the 7 winning artists’ work, the designers created an original couture outfit

Name your greatest achievement, exhibitions?

I have been a finalist in over 80 prestigious International and National Art Prizes. In 2017 I was a finalist in the prestigious BP Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London, they received over 2,700 entries from 93 countries, only selecting the world’s top 50, the award is regarded as the worlds ‘Portraiture Oscars’. My artwork 86 (Rhyming Slang for Worth Nix) was featured on the invitations of the BP Portrait Award at London's National Portrait Gallery. That work subsequently entered the collection of renowned UK art collector Mervyn Metcalf

In 2021 I was the inaugural winner of National Capital Art Prize, with my painting ‘All day sucker’.

In 2020 I won the Lethbridge 20000, with my painting ‘Times up’ I was 2017- 2016 back-to-back winner of the Corangamarah art prize small scale art prize, Colac.

In addition, I was awarded the prestigious San Diego, FWSD Fashion Week San Diego ARC Award, an international traveling award, visiting significant galleries in LA, New York, San Diego, Sotheby’s, the MEAM, (European Museum of Modern Art), Barcelona, only 7 artists chosen from 3750 worldwide entries from 69 countries. The ARC is the most important realist painting prize in the US and the Americas. That painting was “Me too” and was made into a 10m banner advertising the exhibition at the MEAM. During fashion week San Diego I was asked to be interviewed with that painting on Good Morning San Diego to promote the art prize and the fashion show. During the television interview the painting was censored and taken off the air for the remainder of the interview, no longer allowing me to discuss the work as it was deemed too controversial for American television.

What do you hope viewers of your art works will feel and take with them?

I hope my work shines a spotlight on the narrative within the particular work and makes them stop and reflect on their own thoughts and actions.

future aspirations with your art?

At this stage I just hope my eyesight will hold out for the long term and I can continue to paint into my old age.

Forthcoming exhibitions?

I will be exhibiting in Canberra at the Arwun Gallery, at a date to be determined.

Kearney

2022.

Right : MEAM Gallery Barcelona.

27 :

too.

Kearney.

x

oil/linen, Winner Arc FWSA Art Award 2018

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L E R Y

All we need is love 100 x 100 cm. Oil on linen Janne Kearney 2018.

Once upon a time. 100 x 100cm. Oil on linen. Finalist The Black Swan Prize 2018. Janne Kearney.

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x

Oil on canvas

Janne Kearney

86 (rhyming slang for worth nix) 100 x 100cm. Oil on linen. Finalist BP Portrait Award 2016. Janne Kearney.

Wadawurung Bagoorrk Wadawurung woman. 100 x 100cm. Oil on canvas Janne Kearney.

Kunuwarra (Black Swan)

100 x 100cm. Oil on canvas Janne Kearney. Kunuwarra (Black swan)

Video link : Janne Kearney KUNUWARRA (Black swan) Collabaration Janne Kearney and Corrina Eccles.

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A R N

SATORI

“

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake

Peter woke to the smell of stale piss and dirty ash trays. His sense of isolation was complete. Recently a ghost had emerged from his nightmares to walk by his side. When he was alone in late night bars he’d question his demon convinced it possessed an insight that would make life bearable. But always he was left with cold fantasies of suicide, and cruel glances from barmen who feared mad drunks.

Peter felt entombed. The mission brown walls of his tiny room coloured the light a mouldy yellow. He began to suffocate. In an effort to break the spell he whispered snatches of an unfinished poem he’d begun after he’d settled on the site of his demise:

Peter leaned on an elbow and studied his face in the mirror. He saw an inward looking expression in his eyes: eyes that spoke of a mystery that transfixed him and forced him to look further. His gaze wandered to a painting he’d finished weeks before. He saw a man sitting with his back to him. The man stared into a mirror on a grey brick wall. The man’s disembodied face was caged in a glass cube, and his eyes held an inward looking expression tinged with despair. Peter called this work … ‘Isolation’.

‘On the shores of Ash Island there is a cove shaped as a horseshoe made of sand & seashells. The smell of salt is thick here and brown seaweed clings like mermaid’s fingers to an ancient rock that juts above the water just before the ocean makes its presence felt; its bogey, the undertow, can drag you out beyond the lights of Stockton to a place where even Nobby’s lighthouse disappears.’ He could hear the ocean now. A salt breeze broke through the fusty atmosphere and washed over him. The Town Hall clock gonged daybreak.

Peter’s ghost stood beside his bed and gazed into the painting Peter had done the night before. The ghost was mesmerised by the mystery behind the imagery the essence of its being. It saw an island of white sand protruding from the surface of a boiling sea. A silver moon brooded over the scene and imbued the windswept canvas with a light of its own. A green cycad grew out of the white island. Next to the cycad a driftwood skeleton, shaped like a man, stood staring into an immense darkness. From this the ghost divined the frailty of being: the mortal confronted by immortal forces that shape all life, only to crush their creations with the impersonal movement of change.

For the first time Peter saw through the eyes of his ghost and its brittle being dissolved into a fine grey mist that stained the surface of the canvas. Peter called this work — ‘Transformation’.

there is peace here a peace I’ve never known before a sense of things of meanings that take no shape in words. I go there sometimes to that place of stars where sky and sea are mirrored & horizons don’t exist.’ Peter called this work ‘Boundless’.

A strange yearning awoke in Peter. He dragged himself from his bed and stumbled across the room to his desk. He imagined the last three stanzas of his unfinished poem. He opened his diary to a random page and wrote: ‘I go there sometimes to that place beyond the lights I lie there in a wooden skiff my head upon a pillow propped against the prow where I watch the stars and listen to the lapping wet and divine the depth below me

For the first time in years Peter felt life calling him. He left his room and walked along a dark corridor to the front door of the hostel. He opened the door and stepped into the early morning streets. He inhaled the salt air deep into his lungs, and then let out a cry that was both free and afraid. The Main Street stretched away into darkness. He turned his face towards it and walked into silence. Peter felt the morning light caress his back. -

Reese North © 2021.

GEORGE GITTOES

George Gittoes and friends in front of new Yellow House, Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of artist.

Gittoes

latest dispatch October

Internationally acclaimed artist and film maker George Gittoes left Australia for Pakistan in early August and continued his journey back to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he has been establishing a new Yellow House.

The following article contains his latest in-depth dispatch and photographs from Jalalabad.

HANOI JANE & TALIBAN GEORGE AND THE NEW YELLOW HOUSE

In 1972 Jane Fonda was the hottest actress in Hollywood since Marilyn Monroe until she was photographed posing on an anti-aircraft gun in Vietnam. Despite being the star of Cat Ballou, Barefoot in the Park, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, Barbarella and winning an Academy Award for Klute she was blacklisted by Hollywood for the next 7 years. In the same era, Mohammad Ali was jailed after refusing to be drafted to Vietnam and prevented from defending his title.

In Australia, we did the same to our most courageous, ever, war journalist Wilfred Burchett who was refused a passport back into his own country for 17 years for reporting the Vietnam war from the other side. Burchett was the first journalist into Hiroshima after it was nuked and his story headlined ‘The Atomic Plague’, was the first to report on radiation sickness. General McArthur had put a ban on any stories about radiation after effects. His spin doctors got to work and compliant journalists, who knew the truth, went along with it. Burchett like Fonda paid a high price for telling the truth to counter official lies. Even in primary school, I loved history. I can thank my father, who had the paper delivered every day and expected my sister and me to read it and be able to discuss current events around the dinner table. It was a joy to enter high school with the chance of studying modern history but our history teacher, Mr Night, was a Christian Fundamentalist. I had already been caned, by him, for saying I agreed with Darwin about evolving from apes, so when the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals came up and I suggested the Americans should go on trial for Hiroshima and Nagasaki I was taken out into the hallway and caned again. Mr Night was both a History and English master at Kogarah high and awarded me zero marks at the end of the year exams in both subjects. The low marks had me downgraded to woodwork and metalwork classes.

In the days after I first arrived in Jalalabad, crossing the land border at Torkham, I received emails from concerned friends and associates warning me not to associate myself with the Taliban. One friend warned I would “undermine my many years of building a respected reputation in Australia by meddling in the minefield of foreign affairs.”

I had no idea what would happen to me once I crossed the border and during the preparations to leave, I had restless nights of imagining the ways things could go very bad. Things went very well but perhaps this could mean they will go very bad for my reputation and career in the future with me getting labelled Taliban George, a contemporary version of Hanoi Jane.

My two objectives were to get a permit to freely make our feature documentary there without minders or surveillance and get guarantees that our Yellow House Arts Centre could be allowed to continue without interference. I achieved both of these goals.

What I did not expect or hope for was the chance to show the Afghan and Taliban side of the 20-year conflict.

George Bush did not go into Afghanistan to liberate women but cultural change for women and girls has been put forward as the objective of the 20-year war. This has been used by Professional Public Perception Manipulators PPPMs to cover up the brutal killings of thousands of civilians with drone strikes and deadly raids on villages throughout the country, while they hunted down those Afghan Fighters who were the Resistance to their occupation calling them Insurgents. Australia’s lasting legacy is to have allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan tainting our involvement. The Defence Department Report which investigated these allegations proves them to be the most damaging in our military history. I do not see the Taliban through rose-coloured glasses and I am certain they will object to aspects of my film but what I will be attacked for in Australia, US and Europe is showing them to be human.

After all, I am the maker of ‘Miscreants of Taliwood’ a documentary that provoked the Pakistani Taliban to send a death threat to the Australian Embassy in Islamabad offering to “Remove my face from my body”. ‘Miscreants of Taliwood’ denounced the practices of the Pakistani Taliban in trying to wipe out the Pashtun Film Industry. I knew that by going into Taliban controlled Afghanistan I could encounter those who made those threats and lose my head.

It was a huge risk and now I am back in Australia facing the risk of losing my credibility and respect for trying to tell the truth about what I have experienced and what I aim to film in the year ahead.

When President Kennedy increased the budget for the war in Vietnam Wilfred Burchett wrote “No peasants anywhere in the world have had so many dollars lavished on their extermination.” Hellen and I have watched as trillions of dollars were spent on the 20-year war in Afghanistan knowing that 90% of it was going to military contractors like Haliburton and Black Water, corrupt politicians and government officials and the manufacturers of advanced US-made technology. Bob Dylan’s song ‘Masters of War’ fits these makers of drones and hellfire missiles more in 2022 than back in 1963 when it was written as an Anti Vietnam protest.

George meeting with the Minister of Information and Culture, Mulana Noor Mohammad Hanaf and the Minister for Youth. George Gittoes inside a Taliban-controlled former US air base.

Jalalabad Yellow House

The Jalalabad Yellow House has been entirely funded by my art sales and has contributed to the enhancement of many Afghan lives and careers, especially through Hellen’s women’s media workshops.

Our aim with the Jalalabad Yellow House is to show that art can succeed where militarism has failed. Filmmaking in both English and Pashto language is intrinsic to the Yellow House .My first priority was to get a permit granting the freedom to make films without minders or surveillance. This involved two weeks of long meetings with the Taliban Minister of Information and Culture in Jalalabad and then with similar officials in Kabul. When we finally got our certificate, we had to wait two days for all the branches of Military, Police and Intelligence to be informed we were to be left alone and not hindered. That worked and no one has bothered us.

I put this to the test by painting a 5-meter canvas banner letting it fly behind a three-wheel, rickshaw cart while Zabi and I stood on the tray holding onto it. We drove it through the whole city and upriver to the new location of the Yellow House with everyone smiling and waving and never being stopped or questioned. (Note: Zabi was one of the ice cream boys from our film ‘Snow Monkey’ and is now a principle cameraman at the YHJ).

The penultimate test, however, came when I asked to film an interview inside the former air base that the US had used to send the Navy Seals team on their mission to kill Bin Laden. In the Kathryn Bigelow, Hollywood Drama, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, there is a re-enactment of Bin Laden’s bullet-riddled body being carted out of a chopper onto the base. The Taliban now control this air base with tight security, making it inaccessible to outsiders. It was impossible to be there but I found myself, with full access, interviewing a Taliban Base Commander, with our three cameras rolling and a squad of Mujahadeen holding American weapons and wearing American special forces uniforms. I had them all smiling and laughing and agreeing to come to the Yellow House once it is ready. It was wonderful being reunited with all the men, women and children of the Yellow House. I was super relieved to find they were all OK and still working in their former jobs or businesses. But, I was told that those who could afford three meals a day were having two and those who could only afford two were having one and those who could only afford one were eating every couple of days. The International economic punishment of Afghanistan since the American withdrawal has led to serious poverty and starvation.

Zabi and George stood on the tray holding the banner. Photo courtesy of George Gittoes.

Hellen and I decided to take the plunge and purchase a house and land to give the Yellow House permanence. Our old Yellow House has only ever been in rented premises with no secure lease agreement. The new Yellow House is up the river on Tribal Land. This location puts it under Tribal Law, largely beyond the jurisdiction of the Taliban Government. For over 12 years we have had the support of this community and shot many of our dramas on location there due to the liberal values of its leaders. We are neighbours to our friend Assam whose daughter, Medina, starred in the children’s film ‘Simorgh’, directed by Neha Ali Khan and documented in ‘Love City.’ The location is perfect as it has the largest and most progressive High School a couple of hundred meters from its back fence. A large University has been constructed and is about to open a short distance behind the school. The Yellow House is the only art school in Jalalabad. We are already collaborating, closely with the students, teachers and academics from the neighbouring school and University.

Hellen and I will return to Jalalabad in November to supervise the building of the new Yellow House and continue making our feature documentary titled ‘Taliland’. I am going to have to roll up my sleeves and help to drill a bore for running water, dig a septic tank for toilets and install solar panels to wire the place for electricity.

Afghans have suffered 10 years where the Russians killed two million people in a brutal scorched earth campaign similar to what is now taking place in Ukraine, followed by 20 years of American and Allied occupation in a war where the death toll has not yet been estimated. We want to help them rebuild and believe that positive social change can never come a the point of a gun but through education and the arts. Posing for a group photograph with our friends at the New Yellow House was one of the happiest moments of my life. To think,” This is possible, we can do it !” - George Gittoes © October 2022.

Friend and artist Zabi with his camera and George in front of banner.George drawing relic of a Russian Tank, now a Taliban flag flies from the turret.

George and friend Itchy in front of banner, Zabi in background.

Friend and artist Noor and George working on the banner in the garden.

The story behind the making of Ukraine Is In My Heart song.

Thanks to Kate Parunova, Miss Ukraine Victoria Crystal, Tim Fain Clothing Designer and all the wonderful people of beloved Ukraine!

On a visit to Nashville with friends Del and Carolyn Bryant in late 2021 I was asked to reinterpret the House of Bryant song list. I had just arrived from Peshawar and Afghanistan and Chicago and created a Pashtun and English version of Love Hurts with Australian American Soprano Mary Jean O’Doherty who is my partner in my band Soul Crime. Raining In My Heart is another classic and over Christmas at Werri Australia it started rolling around in my head, by the end of February Christmas had been destroyed for the whole world by the horrific and unthinkable invasion of Ukraine. My husband the Famous Artist/Filmmaker Dr George Gittoes AM and I decided we needed to be there to use our art to help try and turn this monster around. We arrived in Kyiv in March and the exquisite town was empty, like a petrified forest, the only people were the soldiers on every corner and the people at the Hotel that we stayed in- they were amazed to see us arrive when everyone else had left – Ukraine Is In My Heart seemed to just naturally appear and I started ‘interpolating’ the song, recording it on my H6 Zoom recorder that has travelled with me for many years. This Final version I re-recorded at our Mikhailivs’kyi Lane Studios; we converted an old wooden sauna room into a sound room to get the sound right for Dennis Tousanna the sound Engineer from Soundmine Studios Chicago. All our friends in Chicago had been following us on social media, we had been working on the feature Doc No Bad Guys November 2021. They were amazed at the resilience of the Ukrainian people and so I asked the jazz group who worked on the White Light Soundtrack to add some music, the result is a union of resilience and prayer for freedom par excellence. Perhaps they are the only other group on earth to match Ukrainians centuries of struggle for freedom.

At the 'Victory' art exhibition in Irpin in June 2022 organised by George and I, the wonderful true heroine and freedom fighter for Ukraine, Viktoria Crystal, Miss Ukraine visited us and I sang the song to her, she loved it so much that we decided to create the accompanying video clip in which she appears!

The video clip was put together by a long standing Yellow House Jalalabad core group member, the now world class Pakistani Editor Khurram Shahzad. It was difficult sending the film files via WeTransfer as the upload and download took such a long time but we persevered under difficult times on both sides and this is the result!

UKRAINA !! - Hellen Rose © 2022

George Gittoes Victory Triptych, painted in the Ukraine is on exhibition at the Queensland Art Galley for the next twelve months. Photo courtesy of artist.

GEORGE GITTOES

George Gittoes is a celebrated Australian artist, an internationally acclaimed film producer, director and writer.

Gittoes’ work has consistently expressed his social, political and humanitarian concern and the effects of injustice and conflict -

"I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself."

As an artist Gittoes has received critical acclaim including the Blake Prize for Religious Art (Twice) and Wynn Prize. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of NSW. His films have won many International Awards and in 2015 he was bestowed the Sydney Peace Prize, in recognition of his life’s work in contributing to the peace-making process.

www.gittoes.com

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs George Gittoes © 2022.

V A N S

a brief window inside my head

And you know what that can do, don't you. That stuff can give you dementia."

I watch Kianna push the lever on the urn and fill her mug with hot water before I say anything. 'Can you smell that?' She lifts her mug up to her nose and sniffs. I do the same with the freshly-poured hot water in my mug. 'Smells a bit funny, doesn't it! Thomas, Thomas what do you think?' She takes the mug over to Thomas before he sniffs; he replies: "It's a bit like when you bite your lip and can taste the blood in your mouth.'

"That's it! It smells metallic doesn't it!

Thomas shakes his head and I watch Kianna go back to the sink and tip her mug of hot water down the sink.

I watch the soggy bag of chamomile tea slide out and drop into the stainless steel basin before I burst out laughing.

'Oh, Brad. Will you stop doing that!'

Feeling guilty, I throw my mug of freshly-brewed tea into the sink soon after and feel a bit better about what I did. I try to remind myself to improve my behaviour around other people and shut the window so that my colleagues can't see inside my head anymore.

Brad Evans © 2022.

old Chaucer

memory serves me wrong but for one thing

running late for work

I snatched a momenta moment by a tree that workers were freshly boxing inin greenwood.

asked ‘how old’? ‘could be 500 years could be 1,000’, a workman said.

They'd left a hole in the wall for old Chaucer to push through his broad girth and gnarly skin.

Nature's answer required no wait for my departing steps nor for the drawn, delinquent sigh of light rain on leaves broad and green.

- Brad Evans ©

B R A D E V A N S

Don't be alarmed by the toilet paper!

Don't be alarmed by the toilet paper!

When you asked me to get a fresh roll I grabbed the nearest one and found it completely adhered - there was no tapering end left by the manufacturer, I thought that was a bit nasty of them, so I took to it with scissors.

Don't be alarmed by the toilet paper!

The scissors didn't do what I was hoping they would do & even though the toilet paper looks like it has been clawed at by a wild animal, please understand that that was was not not ... my intent!

If I have more time, next time, I will try to do a better job. I promise.

So please, don't be alarmed by the toilet paper!

- Brad Evans © 2022.

hot stuff! inspired by an experience told by my brother and that was the place where he got 'em done cut price - a special in Vietnam! He leaned forward with a smile and said 'wanna look?' 'sure' my bro said, and a look he took and as wide as the man opened his maw my brother's eyes opened all the more and what was inside was flashed with pridethey were straight and pearly from side to side. Though their perfection be straight and true, with a size unmatched, boy could he chew! Left to right and side to side he had the jaws to match the hide his mouth was filled with teeth, of course teeth built perfect for the mouth of a horse. and while my brother poured forth his witness

a scene in my mind burst forth with no contest... of a grave lying low - far, far to the west a grave too low for an aged man at rest lit vain by a setting, troublesome sun an unwholesome mound left un-run, and where youth had not been let go of - a fine set of horse teeth all neat in a row.

- Brad Evans © 2022.

REBECCA RATH

REBECCA RATH

“

Landscape artist Rebecca Rath lives and works on a small vineyard in Pokolbin, NSW, Australia. Rath has exhibited in USA, Europe and Asia. Her paintings have been Finalists in many national art awards.

While an academic with a strong philosophical bent, ideally, I want nothing more than for others to experience the joy of art and nature. Working straight from nature and en plein air from my bush studio enables me to fully capture my love of the Hunter Valley landscape. “ “The diverse landscapes in Australia can, at times, feel severe and unrelenting, but I still find myself in awe, inspired by their distinctive brilliance and overcome by the presence it demands.” - Rebecca Rath.

Page 60 : Infinite Never - Never, oil on canvas, 1.2 x 1.8 cm. Rebecca Rath 2022. Right : En plein air study, Site 1, Phipps Cutting, Bylong Valley Way, Rebecca Rath 17 May 2021. MRAC AIR Wollemi Project .

Rebecca Rath en plein air painting Broken Back Mountains preparing for Mountain Songs exhibition at MRAC.

REBECCA RATH - INTERVIEW

Brief outline on your backgroundI was born in Manly, Sydney, grew up around the area and lived there until I was 30. I studied an Associate Diploma Arts (Fine Art) at Hornsby TAFE before heading to UNSW COFA to complete a BFA Honours in 1999/2000. I had various jobs during my student years including Australian Museum as an Education Officer, Intern at AGNSW. After Uni I worked at Lawson’s Auctioneers as an Auction Assistant then worked in several Sydney commercial galleries as a Gallery Coordinator.

I currently reside in Pokolbin, Hunter Valley where I live on land with my family, a small vineyard, and an art studio. I’m on the Singleton Art and Cultural Advisory Group where we are proud of our recent development of the Singleton Arts and Cultural Centre. I’ve focussed on my art practice since moving to the Valley where my main practice is currently landscape painting. I’m passionate about regional Australia and local art communities. There are many innovative talented people in the Bush and since moving here I’m constantly in awe of the breadth of artistic aptitude in regional Australia.

En plein air study Site 4, Terry's Creek, Putty Road May 19 2021.

Rath en plein air painting

Mountains

REBECCA RATH - INTERVIEW

What attracted you to the world of Art? When did your artistic passion begin?

I have always been surrounded by art and craft. I feel for many artisans that there is usually a formative time in their younger years where an adult introduces them the artistic world. My mum primarily did this for me. She would take me to antique galleries and craft expos. She painted porcelain dolls and encouraged me to do the same. We would visit the AGNSW and I would get ‘lost’ in the paintings especially the Australian Impressionists. I loved Frederick McCubbin’s ‘Along the Wallaby Track’. It would give me goose bumps at a young age and still does. There is a magic in the art world which I loved as a child and still do. Fantasy, make-believe, and joy are often found in the art world and inspire everyone the young and young-at-heart. I was bullied as a child and found solace in the art world and Nature. I loved these worlds and still do.

Have you always wanted to be an artist?

No, I never considered it as a child. At school I wanted to study psychology but lost interest after the HSC. I was naturally drawn to the arts for the HSC 3unit Art, German, English etc. I was a nanny for a period after school and at this time my family encouraged me to complete some sort of tertiary study. I sat an exam for Graphic Design at TAFE but was unsuccessful. TAFE encouraged me to sit a drawing test for Associate Dip Fine Art. I was successful, started that Monday and the rest is history.

Describe your work:

My work has developed over time. Initially I focussed on drawing and still life. There is a beauty and stillness in the drawn line which I found very captivating. Just you, the pencil/pastel and paper. I love the work of Degas, Frank Auerbach and William Kentridge. Drawing helps you to really ‘see’. I now see the world in rectangles and my painters’ glasses due to drawing. The drawn line is also immediate and full of memory, especially charcoal. If you rub out a line the paper still retains the memory of the mark.

I loved drawing and still do however it wasn’t until I moved to the Valley about 17 years ago that I started to really look at the landscape. My backyard is literally my inspiration board. Once I focussed on my immediate surroundings and developed my brush mileage my confidence as a painter (and person) grew. In between looking after babies (who are now 13 and 16) I would take my paints and sketchbook to paint what was outside my window and in the back paddock.

My en plein air practice has grown into the process. It is the basis of all my work. Colours, textures, light are different when you paint in the landscape. You can’t get this working primarily from photos. I want my work to be full of emotion and passion. This reflects our responses to our unique landscape. The Australian Bush is special. It is unique. The sky is high. The light bright and directional. Our foliage is at times harsh and unforgiving, yet it can also be delicate and fragile. This duality is beautiful. We don’t have low European skies and landscapes full of lush greens and gentle light. The en plein air work is sometimes the work itself or studies for larger work. The studio work is also full of passion and direction. Much like our landscape, I seek strength and bravery in the work. Palette knives help strengthen this intention. I couldn’t find this in the brush. It was a chance happening while painting in the back paddock on a very large work that I found the palette knife as an art making tool. The wind came up as I was painting. The large 120 x 90 cm work was leaning against a tree and the wind caught the edge flipping it over. In a state of total frustration at seeing the work covered in dust and debris, I got the palette knife to scratch the leaf litter away.

I stood back and enjoyed what was happening to the surface. The wet paint pushed and pulled on the surface in a magic way. I fell in love with the knife at this moment and still enjoy using it. There is a bravery in the process which constantly stretches and challenges me. I’m naturally an introvert and regularly work on my self-esteem. The knife, because it is very immediate and directional, encourages me to be confident. If I get too much in my head and over-think the work, the paint and marks lack confidence. I hesitate and the work feels this. Scraping the paint off is expensive and time consuming! I do my best to avoid this by doing studies and working up to a larger work.

The studio work is heavy in impasto paint and demonstrates this passion not only for the landscape but for the act of painting itself. My work has evolved into this technique of heavy thick paint to evoke a skin-like sensation. This application is intentional, it speaks about humanity’s place within and a part of the environment. The Australian environment isn’t gentle, it isn’t soft, it is passionate and at times harsh with fires, drought and floods. I experience this every day because of where I live. I seek to demonstrate the union of paint application and emotional connection with contemporary painting techniques. I want to push the ideas of paint and create a very visceral, tactile sensation for the viewer. I want the viewer to feel like they want to touch the paint thus touching the landscape.

Do you have a set method / routine of working?

Over time my work has developed into some resemblance of a method. I certainly have a process which at the same time is developing too. A lot like the work itself. I don’t think we ever come to a place and say “I’ve arrived - I’m comfortable where I am and I’m not going to change”. I don’t desire ever to get stuck in a painting routine where I’m no longer pushing myself as an artist or even as a human. The saying “ the only constant is change” is apt and although over time my art making has gained some sort of process, mainly due to necessity because I’m a mother and having limited time in the studio, I hope I keep developing my method. I hope my work grows with me and over time the work gains in strength both technically and conceptually.

What have been the major influences on your work and what are some of your favourite artworks and artists?

Any particular style or period that appeals?

Favourite artworks, artists and periods are too many to write here. I have a strong connection with the Australian Impressionists including Sutherland, Southern, Streeton, Condor, McCubbin, Roberts, Russell . The innovative way they saw light and described our unique landscape where and still are breathtaking. A single stroke of paint can describe the wonderous light as it falls in the afternoon sky or the way it could say how the tall grass blows in the wind. Their en plein air cigar box paints are delightful. They are like visiting old friends when I have the opportunity to see them at AGNSW.

My favourite period must be the Enlightenment and the Romantics of the 18C. I love this period not only for painting but for art itself. Writers like Shelley, Keats, Bryon together with philosophers such as Schopenhauer, were interested in the macabre, surreal, occult, supernatural and sublime. It was the time of the Industrial Revolution when artists and philosophers were seeking something other to answer their questions. Nature was a big part of this development with artists like Turner and Constable who often painted en plein air to gain authenticity with the work. There was a disenfranchisement with industry and population growth. Artists responded to this in their work.

In a contemporary setting I love the work of Bacon, Freud and Auerbach. Their painting methods and applications of paint are divine. I seek out these paintings when I visit the AGNSW. Bacon has been my favourite since I was 18 when I had the opportunity to see his work in Venice. I was on a European bus tour with my mum and when we were given an hour free time to explore Venice, I took myself to the museum to see Bacon’s retrospective. It changed the way I saw art and painting. His work gave me goose bumps. I cried. My reactions were immediate. I seek this in my work.

Major influences on my work have been diverse and although I could list periods and artists who have taught me much about painting and art, I feel it’s the other milestones of life who teach me the most about my work. Being diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases and having health problems have taught me more about mindset and growth than art history books.

I have become a Reiki Master during recent years and developed a healthy mindset when it comes to life challenges. Being of service to others is important as well as yourself. Art and Life are co-dependent. If your life is chaotic then surely your art will reflect that. Seeking solace in art, music, Nature and spirituality have strengthened my practice. I love the work of Deepak Chopra, Greg Bradden, Donna Eden, Barbara Brennan, Elizabeth Gilbert to name only a few. Music plays an integral part of my process and helps with a flow state when painting. And finally, my father and late Grandfather inspire me daily. My father introduced me early on to Emile Coue and Napolean Hill’s work on mindset. My Grandfather, Keith Halliwell, invented the tilting garage door. Both men are innovative and committed to work and family.

Right : En plein air study, Site 3, Baerami Creek oil shale retort, Ruebens Trail, Rebecca Rath May 18, 2021. MRAC AIR Wollemi Project.

What are the challenges in becoming an exhibiting artist?

Rejection. Knowing that one person’s opinion doesn’t dictate your self-worth as a person or artist. In the age of social media, it challenges us not to compare. This is the Achilles heel of most artists. We must stay in our own lane. With blinkers on we hone and develop our craft. Be of service to others. Be grateful yet have boundaries. Focus on your self-esteem. We wear our art on our sleeves, open to criticism. To some this is challenging as often artists are sensitive creatures. I recommend surrounding yourself with positive people who believe in you.

I also think in this age of social media the role of the artist has changed. At art school we weren’t taught about business. It was a romantic view of what an artist is or should be. Not everyone will have the opportunity to exhibit in international galleries or even national ones. There are many areas where art can be accessed and sold. This has been a growth area for me especially when it feels like you are a sell-out learning about business. I feel it is important to embrace this aspect of your practice. You are an artist, and you own a business. No one wants to be a “staving artist”!. I feel a little taboo talking about this topic, but I feel it needs to be said. Art isn’t just about being able to do a five-minute elevator speech about the conceptual ideas of your work, it’s also about administration, invoices and relationship building. That aspect can be challenging.

How has the COVID 19 Virus affected your art practise?

It hasn’t really affected my practice in a negative way. I’m lucky as I live on land and was able to paint en plein air even during lockdown. I found the period instrumental in honing my skills and developing my business. It was a real growth time for me. I was very fortunate. I enjoyed the solitude.

Oldman Saltbush, oil on canvas, 1 x 2m. Rebecca Rath 2022.

Name your greatest achievement, exhibitions and what are you working on at present?

I’m not sure I have one greatest achievement. Some days just painting and sticking to this journey is the achievement as I wanted to give it up a few years ago due to health. I guess my biggest achievement is being committed to this art business and juggling family life with it.

I have just completed a body of work which was exhibited at Art Systems Wickham, Newcastle. It was called ‘Infinite Never Never’ and inspired by the poem Where Dead Men Lie by Bancroft Boake. My partner, Ryan Jenkins, who is a photographer, and I set out for Grawin and Lightning Ridge on New Years Eve 2021. ‘The Grawin experience’ was experienced as a fascination with seeking elegance and beauty in the ugly, the desolate and the unforgiving, even the painful.

It’s about finding joy and beauty in the unattractive. Grawin ‘s history and terrain speaks volumes. It is dry, prickly, dangerous and unforgiving. It makes you hard. There was nothing gentle soft or comforting about the landscape. Flies, heat, cactus, saltbush and sitting in a field was challenging. Field studies were created quickly and feverishly due to the oppressive summer haze and difficulty of the landscape in terms of terrain, foliage, and climate.

The landscape demands a presence which at times is overwhelming and challenging for the painter. Sitting in the field of saltbush in the midday summer sun both challenged and excited me. After visiting the Grawin Opal fields and having lunch at the ‘Pub in the Scrub’ we met locals who were weathered, hard and had become part of this landscape. Sun baked and leathered – callous worn. Living life underground to find the elusive shards of luminous rocks to strike it rich.

My work seeks to find a joyous narrative in an inhospitable landscape. To challenge the viewer in finding beauty in a landscape that they may not necessarily want to visit. We in Australia have diverse landscape; it is at times hard and unforgiving, yet it is also extraordinarily beautiful and inspiring. I created a body of work consisting of 14 highly impasto works.

We also self-published a book with Ryan’s beautiful photography. It was a striking exhibition and example of the diverse Australian landscape.

Your future aspirations with your art?

To keep growing as an artist, businesswoman and person. I hope my art touches people in a way that moves them to explore their landscape intimately. To find beauty in their own backyard wherever that might be. To also find hope within themselves. - Rebecca Rath © 2022.

Right : Mongrel Land, oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm. Rebecca Rath 2022.

L E R Y

R E B E C C A R A T H

Rebecca Rath en plein air painting at Broken Back Mountains preparing for Mountain Songs Exhibition 2020.

Rocky Heights and wall of stone I Oil on canvas 120 x 120cm. Rebecca Rath 2021.

Rebecca

2021.

Wollemi

Rebecca Rath 2021.

AIR Wollemi Project

Rebecca Rath 2021.

MRAC AIR Wollemi Project

En plein air study Site 6, Commission Road via Apple Tree Flat at Lookout point Rebecca Rath May 20 2021. MRAC AIR Wollemi Project .

MRAC AIR Wollemi Project painting at Apple Tree Flat, Hunter Valley, NSW. 2021.

Widden Valley, oil on board, 30 x 120 cm. Part of the MRAC Artist Residency programme 2021 Wollemi project Rebecca Rath.

MRAC AIR Wollemi Project, apple tree flat painting.

Rebecca Rath en plein air painting Grawin 2022 .

Daisy Whites and Purple Tops Oil on canvas 60 x 60cm.

Rebecca Rath 2022.

Summer thick in the air, oil on bespoke wood panel, 30 x 120 cm. Rebecca Rath 2022.

Greg Sugden

Ceramic artist Greg Sugden died suddenly in early August 2022.

Greg and Merrie Hamilton were potters in Canberra in the ‘80s, later living and working in Braidwood, NSW. They produced and exhibited their collaborative, innovative ceramics and ceramic jewellery in their gallery in the main street of Braidwood for many years, and regularly exhibited throughout Australia. The poem Renaissance Man was written by Melbourne artist and poet Bea Jones as a tribute to Greg, who was a long time dear friend.

Photographs courtesy of Merrie Hamilton.

RENAISSANCE MAN

As an interlocked equation the man had it all oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and, of course, water 31%.

That heady mix of elemental atoms made up the whole with organs, sinews, muscle, skin, blood and bone combined to birth the Renaissance man. Sparked by curiosity and knowledge gleaned from research, Gaia and The Big Bang leapt from the pages he imprinted on our minds, a cosmos of black and white text and image, a kaleidoscope of chaos pared to simplicity where science and art intersect.

The man had it all intelligence, whimsy and black humour, skill and exploration to inform also his sculptures posed and paraded through space on plinth and pendulum.

Clay and glaze, fused in a riot of colour, formed jewellery vases and tableware, functional and fun. As if that weren’t enough, painting then displayed his keen eye and deft hand with the same dexterity that swung a golf club for a hole-in-one or a guitar strum.

The man who had it all, that friend we farewell, is returned now to the universe that so captivated his mortal mind, at one again with the Big Bang of primal birthing and the burning stars of infinite circularity.

I see him flash by on constellatory wheels recording every illuminating detail to be archived for posterity.

remembering Greg 2022 Bea Jones.

WATTS

WATTS

Warren

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PHIL WATTS, MUSICIAN

INTERVIEW

You write your songs, where do you find the inspiration for the lyrics?

The inspiration for my lyrics can take many avenues. I can hear a phrase out and about in the community that I like and will use that, it can come from the poetry that I write. For poetry to become a song for me there needs to be a rhythm with the words. If its not there, there is no song. Nature would be my biggest inspiration. The miracle of the sun rising every day, a birdsong, the sound of wind amongst the leaves, the patterns that form on the surface of rivers and lakes all inspire me.

Tell me about the videos you make to accompany your songs for internet.

I make all my videos for my songs myself and sometimes it shows! I have a YouTube channel: pHil antHropic gods & beasts

I have twenty four videos on that channel including some spoken word pieces. My YouTube channel is my main performance platform. I don’t play covers so pubs are out of the question. I don’t subscribe to any streaming platforms as they all rip off the artist. My other main outlet is Facebook. As a former visual art student I have always seen videos as a way of enhancing the creative qualities of the music. I have just mastered three songs, one of which I have just released Gods & Beasts, some thoughts on the Ukraine war. I will be releasing the other two tracks as soon as the videos are finished.

Do you have a set method / routine of working?

No I don’t. I leave it to the random forces of nature, faith, intuition and chance. In my writing I try the stream of consciousness approach. I don’t censor as I write. I let it all flow and edit later if needed.

Premiered September 9, 2022. A new track of an old song trimmed and reshaped and still unfortunately relevant today. GOD$ & BEAST$ ....some thoughts on the Ukraine war. Recorded at the Funky Lizard Kotara, thanks Robbie! Photos page 100 & 101 are stills from video, courtesy of Phil Watts.

What

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Untitled Collage

Phil Watts.

PHIL WATTS, VISUALARTIST - INTERVIEW

What attracted you to the world of Art?

My friend Ulli would have these amazing parties and sometimes we would paint all night. Have you always wanted to be an artist? No. I was encouraged down that road as a mature age student and attended a Bachelor of Visual Art degree at Newcastle University majoring in Printmaking.

Describe your work?

Apart from my videos I also exhibit collages locally. I have always collaged and my most recent series was BIRD meets FASHION. A series of works wear I would tear into and cut fashion magazines and juxtapose them with images from nature, in this case birds. I love the layering effect of collages. Its like peering through different layers of these realities, into the true meaning of identity, consumerism and ultimately self awareness.

What are some of your favourite artworks and artists? I love the collage artists of the Surrealist, Cubist & Post Impressionistic eras Schwitters, Kandinsky, Braque, Picasso. I love Picasso's quote, "A painting is the sum total of its destructions".

What are you working on at present?

The videos to accompany my new songs. I recently submitted three works for the Dungog Art prize a collage and two photographs. The photographs come from my early morning walks around my local area. - Phil Watts © 2022.

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- Eric Werkhoven ©

ANOTHER DAY

Quietly re-assuring, and filling in the blanks, like a crossword puzzle.

To commit ourselves to step forward, reach down the line into the depths of the actual performance, where there are words to measure the content, touch the surreal manifesto, touch the sublime skin of desire, where love guides the child in us to know about the vulnerable state the world is in.

The constructs of seeking closure.

It is not an open or shut case, it is a long haul of even a greater struggle, where love will guide us step by step, line, dot or splash.

Another day unfolding, a drape of textural transparency, unsheathing the sword, cutting the cord, blending into the sweeping changes around us. Name us in your conscious moment, the beautiful once were human creatures, share with us the light of the imagination.

- Eric Werkhoven © 2022

SUZANNAH JONES

SUZANNAH JONES

Artist Suzannah Jones presently lives in the Dungog Shire, NSW.

Originally from Wingham NSW, her work continues to reflect the landscape of outback South Australia where she lived for eight years working in regional arts development. Jones’ latest paintings capture the green surrounds of her riparian environment of the Williams River.

Page 122 : The Space in Between, gouache and pastel on paper, 52 x 42cm. Suzannah Jones 2022.

Right : Willy Willy, Lincoln Gap, SA, gouache and ink on paper, 1.9 x 1.3m. Suzannah Jones 2022.

An evening on the river, gouache on paper, 42 x 32cm. Suzannah Jones 2022.

SUZANNAH JONES - INTERVIEW

In 1958 American painter Joan Mitchell wrote ‘I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me - and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. I could certainly never mirror nature. I would like more to paint what it leaves me with.' 1 I love this quote, as I too carry landscapes around with me. They are not just a place but a space where landscapes are imbued with emotional connection and significance. The main space of influence being the landscape of the Upper Eyre Peninsula region, South Australia, where I lived for eight years. I have a special fondness for the road between Whyalla and Port Augusta that travels through an area called Lincoln Gap. The act of driving across this space evokes so much for me, the act of moving, of beginning and end, even if you always arrive with the same problem, it’s the reprieve in between that opens up possibilities. They were formative years; my mid 20s and into my 30s. This is where I began to make art, purely by chance, at the age of 31. I already worked in regional arts development, as an Arts Officer for Country Arts SA and then as Artistic Director for the state and federal funded youth arts organisation D’faces of youth arts in Whyalla. I worked across the areas of theatre, visual arts, film and music through my community cultural development projects. I myself always wanted to make art but didn’t think I had it in me. I studied Art Theory at the College of Fine Arts (UNSW), and besides copping the bush pig jokes, fine art students would jest I studied art theory because I didn’t have what it took to be an artist. Harsh words, but I guess there was a little bit of truth in it. I just didn’t think I could do it. However, art theory gave me skills in critical thinking that inform my work, as well as my writing. I write as a way of inspiring my visual process. The two go hand in hand. I may alternate between writing and mark making in the same space.

My writing reflects the psychological spaces of outback SA as does my art work. I always kept journals, and now I find myself writing the second draft of a book. Not to be published, just for the need to process past experiences. I love how putting together a book is like building a visual piece. The composition, the texture of images, the substance, the colour of language. Poeticism. I love the challenge of it, and the layering, and I do tend to layer a lot in my landscape works. I like to live on my pieces, strewn around the house on various walls (I don’t have a ‘real’ studio), visiting them every now and then with a bit of gouache, or some pastel, occasionally some collage. When not working outdoors, I always work to music. This is also a big part of my process. Currently Johan Johansson is one of my favourites. I can almost see his soundscapes bouncing off those vast plains and mesas, the escarpment of the Flinders Ranges rising out of the earth.

So yes, self-confidence held me back from creating art seriously in the first place. It was the South Australian artist Ken Orchard who encouraged me, who recognised something in the marks I made with ink and pastel, when I took part in his plein air workshop at Wild Dog Hill on the outskirts of Whyalla. There have been lots of stops and starts along the way. Moving back to the east coast negatively affected my work. I couldn’t get back into the landscape here. All so hemmed in and urbanised, even out in the rural areas. Psychologically I felt hemmed in as well. I missed the big open spaces. Too many trees I joked. Don’t get me wrong, I love trees, I have planted hundreds of them on our property, and it’s not a landscape I am unfamiliar with. I grew up in the bush, outside of Wingham NSW, and hence the bush is where I feel comfortable. There is something about having a bush childhood that carries you throughout your life and it makes sense that I became a landscape artist. However, it was the great big expanses around Whyalla that brought it out of me. I love how the landscape there doesn’t conform to conventional notions of beauty. You get it or you don’t. You have to turn over rocks to find your place there. You must learn to rely on your personal resources to make it work. It was a wonderful experience, and I guess I would still be over that way if it hadn’t been the pull of family back to the east coast.

When I started making landscape art using ink and pastel, in Whyalla, I didn’t stop, and was privileged to win the Grindell’s Hut Residency, which is a month living in the remote 4wd access only Grindell’s Hut in the Gammon Ranges, in a place called Illinawortina Pound, down the road from Arkaroola. It was a spectacular and overwhelming experience, and it was here I gained a greater awareness of the fragility of the earth.

From the work I created there I had my first solo show at the Fountain Gallery, Port Augusta, which is now closed as they now have the beautiful cultural centre and Yarta Purtli Gallery where I held my second solo show. My first solo show (all work was ink and pastel on paper) sold out, much to my surprise and joy. But that was the beginning of the long hard road as I was a late starter, and I had a lot of catching up to do. This meant developing my skills, and my eye. The one thing about having Art Theory training and having managed the national City of Whyalla Art Prize and its collection, it gave me a critical eye. However, it can be difficult to apply to your own work. I try to be self-critical and objective all the time. I look back on a lot of that work from back then, turn it over, and work on the B side. It’s good to recognise when your work is moving on.

When I came back to the east coast I found an artist, a painter and teacher called Stephen James, as I didn’t want to go back to art school. Stephen had done his Masters in painting at the College of Fine Arts and started out with a promising career…but health issues took its toll and his career faltered, and he became a great teacher instead with his own unique teaching method. He had a keen eye, and his skills were excellent. We focused on drawing for years, with the intention of moving into oil painting. Sadly, he parted from this world last year. It’s a loss I still feel keenly. I miss his honest and informed criticism. If your work was good or bad, he would tell you and he would be able to articulate why. Sadly, I find this lacking in today’s art criticism. It seems to be afraid to be critical. I even joke that I miss the art critic Robert Hughes. We need to remember that critics aren’t there to be agreed with, they should be there to stimulate informed debate and discussion. To make us question, and to test the validity of arts practice.

I remember going to an exhibition with a painter friend, and I was dismayed at how ‘slim’ the work was. The work was immediately visually attractive, and clever, but after looking at it for while I felt it lacked substance. I said, ‘Why why, am I always looking at art like this? It’s always so thin’ He replied, ‘because society…its thin’. Yes, true, art does reflect the society, or the melting pot we are in. I will admit, I do see it as ‘thin’. My training at COFA was orientated towards the conceptual development of work, and I do appreciate this process…the expansion and fulfilment of clever ideas and concepts. But I want something else. I was craving to see something visceral and authentic. You know how you can remember some exceptional meals in your life? I remember exceptional exhibitions that left their mark on me, like the Cy Twombly retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Van Gogh at the Musee d’Orsay, or the Bill Henson show at Roslyn Oxley in 1993. It was seeing the Elisabeth Cummings exhibition at Newcastle Regional Gallery that turned me in my path. Finally, something with guts….meaning. Inner life. I was living in Nelson Bay at the time and drove back to Newcastle on a couple of occasions to view it. I knew which direction I wanted to go. I wanted to grow into an old woman painting like this. Not exactly like her, she has her own strong voice. I just want to find the skills, and self-belief to find my own voice too. How wonderful to be able to achieve such work well into old age? How inspiring. I still can’t get a handle on the oils, so I work mainly in gouache and pastel. That is what I am comfortable with. Meanwhile I quietly try to work with oils in the shed or my outdoor carport with a makeshift studio, my purple vintage teardrop caravan, the caravan I solo travelled across Australia with many years ago.

It’s so good to be making work again. I’m a lot easier to live with for art making is bound up with my mental health. Even if I wanted to stop forever, I can’t. I hadn’t made work consistently for a long while. Having children will do that and losing your mother. One of your main supports, your best friend, the one who folded your washing after a bad night with the baby. I lost her to cancer. She was only young; my children were very young. It did put a hold on my work, but that’s when I should have kept working. Grief affects us all differently, and perhaps out of it something has emerged in how I work, but I haven’t had a solo show since, which was six years ago. Then I took on a farm…with my very supportive partner Richard, on the banks of the Williams River in the Dungog Shire, on traditional Gringai country. It is a commercial farm, we have a small scale organic orchard. We grow our own food, including our meat, and are in the process of creating an artisan drinks company using what we grow. We also received a grant from Hunter Local Land Services to rehabilitate the riparian area of our property including a pocket of endangered rainforest.

Regenerative farming and bush rehabilitation work well with art, especially when you are a landscape artist. You work closely with the seasons, your hands are in soil, you plant trees, tend to gardens, observe the habitat, nurture your sheep.

And we are very fortunate to live on a beautiful river, only 50m from our back door. The ebb and flow, the sea eagles flying up the river. Koalas and sugar gliders in the trees. The moon reflected in the water. It is here I am starting to learn how to use the colour green after using all those warm tones of the South Australian outback for so long. It takes a long time to absorb a landscape, to know it. I can’t understand going to an unfamiliar landscape and drawing it. Finally after being here for nearly 3 years, I am beginning to draw our riparian surroundings.

I’m also very fortunate to be in a supportive community. They found me, the artist collective Dungog Artisans, and encouraged me to get involved. Their gallery, Dungog by Design is where I show and sell work. It is where I got started again, and I am very thankful for their support.

I started entering prizes again, the smaller ones. A month or so ago I won the pastel section of the Scone Art Prize, and more recently, I won the Dungog Art Prize with one of my first finished pieces of where we live, titled River Garden with Silage Bale. It sold too. In the past I have been fortunate to be a finalist in various exhibitions including the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, the Basil Sellers Prize, the City of Whyalla Art Prize, the Burrinja Climate Change Biennale. It was nice and encouraging to win something for the first time in many years, not that prizes define how good we are. Meanwhile I just focus on trying to get better at what I do, I have a long way to go, and maybe one day I will find my voice, even if it takes me till I’m 80.

- Suzannah Jones © 2022. Suzannah Jones sitting in her purple pod outdoor studio. Photo courtesy of artist.

1 Letter from Mitchell, in John I. H. Baur, Nature in Abstraction: The Relation of Abstract Painting and Sculpture to Nature in Twentieth Century American Art (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1958), p. 75.

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Page 132 : River Garden with Silage Bale, gouache and pastel on paper, 1 x 1m, Suzannah Jones 2022. Winner of the Dungog Art Prize 2022.

Above : Illinawortina, gouache and pastel on paper, 52 x 42cm. Suzannah Jones 2022.

Into Wilpena, gouache on paper, 40 x 28cm. Suzannah Jones 2021.

Edge of the Flinders Ranges #6, gouache and pastel on paper, 52 x 42cm. Suzannah Jones 2021.

Another Night in the verandah, Grindell's Hut, gouache on paper, 60 x 50cm. Suzannah Jones 2022.

On the edge of the Ikara-Flinders Ranges #7, Suzannah Jones

The Edge of the Southern Flinders #4, gouache on paper, 70 x 42cm. Suzannah Jones 2021.

Edge of the Flinders Ranges #5, gouache on paper, Suzannah Jones 2021.

The space in between#2, gouache on paper, 52 x 42cm. Suzannah Jones 2022.

Edge of the Flinders Ranges #5, gouache on paper, Suzannah Jones 2021.

Suzannah Jones

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Peter J Brown

SKINHEADS

Skinheads on a Train

In 1971 in Sydney there were three gangs: the hippies, the sharpies, and the skinheads.

I was a hippie. I had long hair down to my shoulder blades and in winter I wore a leather bomber jacket.

Did you hear about the guy who was shot at the Hornsby dance last week? That was us.

We throw people like you off trains.”

I laughed in his face, that bold fearless laugh I had then.

“What’s funny?” he asked me.

“You see this jacket?” I said.

“I’d rather be off the train in it than on the train with you.”

Late one Saturday afternoon I was at Central station, waiting for a train to Burwood, where there was a party.

A train came, non-stop to Burwood.

I got aboard, and found a seat in the largely empty carriage, satisfied that this would be a quick journey.

As the train, an old red rattler, started to pull out, dozens of skinheads ran onto the carriages, and started filtering through the train. One sat opposite me, and one next to me.

The one opposite said: “We’re skinheads. We’re going out to Fairfield to fight the Fairfield sharps.

And soon the train pulled into Burwood.

I got out and stood there, my legs like jelly, as the train pulled away.

Then the guy next to me started punching me in the head.

“Leave him alone,” said the other.

“He’s all right.”

There was not even time for an awkward pause. Suddenly someone started shouting “Stoush! Stoush!” And my carriage emptied of skinheads.

I wondered how long it would be before they came back in a different mood.

I stared out the window, noting the stations as they passed. Three to go. A couple of minutes.

Still the skinheads stayed away

I fixed my eyes on a point beyond which they could not jump off. The train passed it. Then I stood there for a while, my legs still like jelly, until I realized I should start moving, and I moved slowly, and as I moved my legs got some life into them and I walked to the party, glad of some physical fitness and some native wit, and that rich baritone laugh.

- Peter J Brown © 2022.

SHIP FIGUREHEADS

On my travels this year I visited the South Australian Maritime Museum and became intrigued with the display of ship figureheads. Ship's figureheads were sculpted to adorn the bows of sailing vessels. They were a highlight of shipbuilding in the 19th century. The motive behind the placement of a carved figurehead at the bow of a vessel is thought to be related historically with a belief that those icons had a strong religious significance in protecting the ship from harm. The ship’s figurehead is always given the name of the vessel to which it was attached. A range of subjects were chosen for the figureheads on sailing ships. Often, they were portraits of a member of the shipowner’s family, or even the owner himself. Alternatively, the owner may have chosen a heroic historic figure or favourable contemporary person to adorn their ship. No matter who the figurehead represented it always took the name of the ship.

Was the figurehead an art form in its own right? Yes definitely! They are a unique form of woodcarving and are an important form of expression. Due to being attached to the bow of a ship this placed a number of restraints on the sculptor. The figurehead had to be carved from a light durable timber that could withstand the pounding of waves in storms at sea and the general weathering of sun and salt water. Most 19th Century figureheads were made from light woods such as pine though some were carved from teak which is a very durable timber but heavier. Figureheads are usually carved from one piece of timber so it is a solid block and will be able to withstand the dangers of exposure at sea. The arms and legs are usually kept close to the body so that they can be carved from the one block of timber. If an arm is extended the projecting arm required an extra piece of timber that had to be attached, usually dowelled and glued to the main body of the figurehead. Note the following figureheads in this article have projecting arms Wave Queen, General Blanco, Ville de Bordeaux and Claymore.

The shape of the bow also put limits on the sculptor. After the introduction of the clipper bow in the 1840’s, figure heads took a backward leaning stance in order to fit with the streamlining on the bow. Most have a raised chin, so that the figure can stare ahead which is apparent in the figureheads of Annie Lisle, Margit, Garthneill, Glen Park and Sultana. Figureheads were usually carved to life size or larger. The clothing for most female figureheads was contemporary nineteenth century dress, and a few in classical dress. Most male figureheads are depicted as warriors though Ville de Bordeaux is dressed in work clothes. Like with all artwork there are exceptions to the rule.

Some of the painted figureheads may seem garish, however it is worth noting that in classical times most statues were brightly painted. Hence figureheads were closer to the original painted Roman and Greek sculpture than the often stylized and unpainted statues of the neo-classic revival. The standards of carving for figureheads vary from the very good to the amateurish. The figureheads Ville de Bordeaux, Garthneill and General Blanco display the highest standard of carving. There are very few records on the people who sculpted the figureheads. Only the sculptors of the figureheads Margit and Glen Park are known. Margit was sculpted by –C J Bigger and Glen Park was sculpted by John Roberts of Glasgow, Scotland. I do hope you find it interesting to look at this unusual art form. I have taken a side view and front view of each figurehead so that you can see how many have the raised chin so that they can look ahead when the ship is sailing.

- Lorraine Fildes © 2022.

Ville de Bordeaux

Ville de Bordeaux

This wooden ship was built in 1836 at Bordeaux, France. Ville de Bordeaux had an eventful career as a French whaler and then as an illicit merchant vessel in Australia. It ended its career as a coal hulk until finally broken up in the 1860s. Somehow the figurehead ended up in the basement of the National Art Gallery.

The Art Gallery had no intention of displaying the figurehead and an exchange was arranged so that the Maritime Museum of South Australia eventually obtained it for display.

The figurehead Ville de Bordeaux is beautifully carved by an expert sculptor of wood. The carving depicts a bearded sailor wielding a whaling harpoon. He is wearing a rust-coloured shirt, brown trousers, and has a green scarf tied around his neck

The figurehead has been masterfully restored and painted to what was considered the original colours.

WOODSIDE

Polly Woodside Polly Woodside is a iron-hulled barque, preserved in Melbourne. It was built in Belfast in 1885. It was built for William J. Woodside and Co. and the vessel was named after the wife of the ship owner Mrs Marian ("Polly") Woodside.

I have included the Polly Woodside here so that you can see where the figurehead was placed and it helps you to understood some of the problems the wood carvers had to contend with when designing the figurehead for a vessel. The body had to take the slope of the ship’s hull and the head to tilt up if the figurehead was to look directly out at the sea and hence be able to protect the ship in storms and from other unforeseen circumstances.

Garthneill

Garthneill This steel barque was built in 1895 at Glasgow, Scotland. The vessel was originally named Inverneill. The Inverneill was sold in 1916, and renamed the Garthneill. The vessel was brought to work in Australian waters and eventually was moored as a floating grain silo. When the ship was scuttled in 1935 the South Australian Museum obtained fittings from the ship including the figurehead. The figurehead was given to the South Australian Maritime Museum for display.

The figurehead Garthneill is beautifully carved by an expert sculptor of wood. The carving depicts a white painted figure of a Scottish woman wearing a jacket and skirt, with a tam o’ shanter on her head. She holds a flower in her left hand and the arm is close to the body. The right arm is held close to the right side of the body. The chin is tilted upward.

General Blanco

General Blanco

This wooden (teak) ship was built in 1844, at Quebec, Canada. The vessel arrived in Port Adelaide under the Portuguese flag in 1856. It was dismasted in gale force winds and was then used as a lighter in the Port, until it began to leak. In

1865 the ship was broken up and sold for firewood.

Luckily the figurehead escaped this fate and for many years, was displayed by Port Adelaide's Exchange Hotel and remained there until the building was demolished in 1935. It was given to the South Australian Maritime Museum for display. The figurehead General Blanco is beautifully carved by an expert sculptor of wood. The carving depicts a Scottish chieftain wielding a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left. The figure is clad in a tartan kilt with sporran and cape, silver armour, and wears a plumed helmet on his head.

L A Y M O R E

Claymore

This wooden barque was built in 1858 at Leith, Scotland. Claymore was bought in 1869 by Captain John Bickers of Adelaide, and remained in his fleet until condemned and broken up in Calcutta, 1892. The figurehead found its way to the lawn of Captain Bickers' ‘Camilla House’ in Semaphore, South Australia where it stood alongside the figurehead Hannah Nicholson. The Hannah Nicholson was another vessel that had belonged to Captain John Bickers. Both figureheads were given to the South Australia Maritime Museum of display.

The figurehead Claymore is finely carved by an expert wood sculptor. It has been carefully restored and painted in what is believed to be its original colours. The figureheaad depicts a red bearded clansman clad in a red kilt with sporran. He wears a black jacket and a black tam o' shanter on his head. He thrusts forward a gold shield with his left arm and grips a sword (claymore) in his right. ‘Claymore’ is a Gaelic term for ‘great sword’, a two handed sword used in battle by the Scottish during the medieval period.

Hannah Nicholson This wooden barque was built in 1858 at Whitehaven, England. The barque’s first owner was merchant William Nicholson. It is presumed that the figurehead depicts one of his female relatives.

From 1873 Hannah Nicholson was registered to J Bickers of Adelaide and used in the Mauritius sugar trade until 1894. It was then used as a hulk in Timaru, on New Zealand's South Island. The figurehead was found in Captain Bickers garden. It is not known how or when Captain Bickers obtained the figurehead.

The figurehead Hannah Nicholson is expertly carved by a first class sculptor. The portrait of the woman is finely rendered and restoration has been done by an outstanding craftsman.

The figurehead is painted white and depicts a female clad in modest Victorian dress. She has a locket around her neck, clutches a book to her chest with her left hand and holds a posy in her right. A tiara rests on her head.

This wooden barque was built in 1865 at Quebec, Canada.

Annie Lisle was a regular trader between Port Adelaide and Western Australian ports. On 20 May 1887, Annie Lisle was run down and badly damaged by the S.S. Australind near Fremantle Harbour, Western Australia. She was then used as a coal hulk. There is no information about how the figurehead survived and became part of the South Australian Maritime Museum collection. The white painted figurehead of Annie Lisle is well carved and depicts a woman with her left hand at her side and her right hand folded across her chest. She wears a gown that looks like it is being buffeted in the wind and a necklace of beads high on her neck. A wreath of flowers rests on her head.

Annie Lisle

Wave Queen

Wave Queen

This wooden barque was built in 1861 at Barnstaple, Devon, England. The vessel was wrecked at Rivoli Bay on 6 September 1874 while loading flour. The figurehead was enshrined for many years in an open-sided corrugated tank at a farm at Tantanoola. When presented to the Museum the right arm was loose on the figurehead, white ants had infested the leg, one foot was missing, nails were driven into the eyes and the nose was broken. The figurehead was repaired, painted and fitted with a new sceptre. The figurehead is now on display at the South Australian Maritime Museum. The figurehead Wave Queen is well carved and beautifully restored. It depicts a young woman in a long white dress with a blue shawl. Her hair is dark and a crown of flowers rest on her head. She is holding a sceptre in her outstretched right hand and her left arm is down by her side.

Margit

Margit Margit, (originally named Craiglands) was a steel constructed barque built in 1891 at Londonderry, Northern Ireland. C J Bigger was the sculptor of this figurehead. In 1903 the vessel was sold to Norwegian owners and renamed Margit.

The vessel departed Victor Harbour loaded with wheat but on Friday 10 November 1911, it struck the shallows and became stranded. The vessel was subjected to pounding surf, and the ship and cargo could not be salvaged. The only item that was salvaged was the figurehead. The figurehead was donated to the South Australian Maritime Museum in 1934. The figurehead Margit is well carved. It is painted white, and depicts a woman clad in typical Victorian era dress with her right arm crossing her breast. She has flowers in her hair.

Glen Park

Glen Park This steel barque was built in 1897 at Glasgow. The hull was made of steel, but had a traditional wooden bowsprit where the figurehead was secured. John Roberts of Port Glasgow was commissioned to carve the ship’s figurehead.

On the morning of 31 January 1901, just as the vessel was rounding the coast heading towards the northern Gambier Islands, Glen Park struck rock. Nothing could be done to save the ship. The crew deployed their lifeboats and watched as the Glen Park disappeared into the ocean.

The figurehead was discovered washed up on the beach at Thuuna, near Tumby Bay south of Port Lincoln. It was donated to the South Australian Maritime Museum in 1986 and is now on display there.

The figurehead from Glen Park is well carved and the conservation work is well done. The restorer has aimed at painting the figurehead in its original colours.

The figurehead depicts a woman with dark brown hair, pulled back in a chignon. She wears a yellow dress with a green, short-sleeved blazer. Her right arm is bent across her chest and her left arm is by her side.

Sultana

Sultana

This wooden (teak) barque was built in 1837 at Whitby, England.

The barque ran aground on Troubridge Shoal on 28 September 1849. The vessel was pummelled by violent seas and too badly damaged to be saved. The wreck and its cargo were sold. In 1850 the hull was dismantled and two barges and a cutter built from the salvaged timber.

The South Australian Maritime Museum's curator discovered the figurehead among the fruit trees of a garden at Glen Osmond in 1936 and bought it from the owner. The figurehead's feet had rotted away, and a new pair of Turkish 'slippers' was commissioned by the museum, This addition has since been removed and is now in storage.

The figurehead is roughly carved from teak and the restoration work cannot hide the lack of craftsmanship of the original carver. The figurehead depicts a Middle Eastern woman or 'sultana' - a Muslim monarch or sultan's consort. She wears a green and yellow dress with red pantaloons. The black hair is arranged with red ribbons. and her hands are clasped behind her back.

British Admiral

British Admiral This iron full-rigged ship was built in 1873 at Liverpool, England.

The ship sank on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to Melbourne, Australia, on 23 May 1874. It struck a reef off the coast of King Island, Bass Strait and sunk. The figurehead floated in Bass Strait for several months until it was picked up by a vessel bound for Port Adelaide and sold to Mr Thompson, who displayed it in his garden for 50 years. In 1938 it was donated to the South Australian Maritime Museum.

The figurehead was badly weathered and a three-month conservation project was undertaken to restore the British Admiral to its present state.

The figurehead has been placed in a display box. The figurehead is finely sculpted from Douglas fir timber. It depicts the bust of a man with shoulder length brown hair. He is wearing a blue tunic with gold epaulettes. A blue sash crosses his chest and around his neck he wears a gold tasselled rope. The bottom part of the figurehead is sheathed in red.

NORMA This four-masted steel barque was built in 1893 at Glasgow, Scotland.

NORMA was wrecked off Semaphore (South Australia) in 1907. The figurehead depicts its namesake - 'Norma' a druid priestess and warrior torchbearer who fought valiantly against the Romans in Wales.

NORMA'S figurehead was discovered in the mangrove swamps of the ships graveyard at Gawler Point and donated to the South Australian Maritime Museum. The head was missing.

The museum carried out restoration work on the figurehead. The original carving of the bodywork was of a good standard.

The figurehead depicts a woman clad in a white flowing robe and clutching a flaming torch in her right hand.

All Rights Reserved on article and photographs Lorraine Fildes © 2022.

TALES OF LAKE COMO

Tales of Lake Como by Seigar.

This travel photo narrative was taken in Lake Como, Italy, in the summer of 2021. This series shows the beautiful and stunning landscape of Lake Como, its quietness, and the traditions surrounding the water. Lifestyle, habits, and religion are directed toward the lake. Tourists get amazed by the boat trips, and their visits to the nice villages: Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio,

Tremezzina...Travelling has been and is still my main inspiration to create. Street photography represented my first contact with art, since I started traveling and taking photos during my trips, these series have been evolving to more conceptual approaches because of the repetitions of the motives, almost becoming my fetishes, and also due to my interest in expressing ideas and concepts. Lately, I have been using other forms of art to express myself: collage, video art, and also writing, however, I have never quit street photography, and I have used "Tales of" as the title for these traveling series, because of my intention of telling stories creating a continuous line of my trips, finds and encounters. My last focus on arts is to spread the message of the Latin phrase Carpe Diem, I think is the right moment in time to remember its meaning. Enjoy Life!

A L L E R Y

S E I G A R

Light Interactions by Bernadette Smith.

The work in this exhibition is the result of intense exploration of such phenomena using both glass and light in a changing array of colours, textures and time. The glass itself is an active partner in this project as if it also has something to say. I first discovered the unique properties of 1880’s industrially produced glass while undertaking post graduate research at Sydney College of the Arts then sited in the old mental hospital at Callan Park. In my western facing studio there were a variety of rippled glass window panes which I studied and recorded. As the sunlight shifted around throughout the day so the light bouncing and fracturing within these windows morphed into a myriad of forms presented at different times. These fleeting microcosmic diffraction patterns and other optical phenomena were photographed up close using a macro lens.

Light is both the subject matter and material of my art which visually investigates diffractions or the bending of sunlight through translucent materials such as 19th Century glass window panes. As wavelength components of white light bend at different angles within the undulating glass they converge at various focal points separating into colours and patterns. In this liminal zone of uncertainty light bounces around transforming itself in a process of disintegration. The window pane thus becomes a transformative lens through which to contemplate this vital non-human world creating a meditative field within the photograph.

Bernadette Smith works with photo media and installation to explore environmental sustainability and the non-human world. Bernadette’s art was featured in the 10th Canberra Festival of Art and she has been a finalist for the Mosman Art Prize, Fishers Ghost Art Award, Eden Unearthed, Rookwood Hidden Sculptures, Hornsby Art Prize and Sunstudios

Photographers Prize. As well as regular exhibitions at commercial galleries and artist run spaces in Sydney and interstate Bernadette has exhibited at institutions such as Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Perth Centre for Photography, Newcastle Art Gallery and the State Library of NSW.

LIGHT INTERACTIONS

Photo media exhibition by BERNADETTE SMITH

Review by Dr. Mark Elliot-Ranken

“As the sunlight shifted around throughout the day so the light bouncing and fracturing within these windows morphed into a myriad of forms presented at different times” 1. B. Smith.

The above quote comes from Ms. Smith’s artist statement for her latest exhibition at the Ironbark gallery, Strathfield Library from 20 Oct. to 19 Dec. 2022.

Unlike Smith’s recent exhibitions at Vandal Gallery and Rookwood which investigated water and flow, her Ironbark installation titled ‘Light Interactions’ concentrates on light and its properties. The work is still about flow but with light and came about by chance encounters at her former studio while doing an MFA through Sydney College of the Arts. The college then was housed at the former Callan Park campus in Roselle. The encounter is with the particular window panels of the Kirkbride building’s old 1880’s glass that is rippled and frosted allowing the sun to refract and dance in a myriad of ways as time and weather conditions dictate. A hidden gem of a resource detected through the critical eye of a highly aware artist just in the right time and place, a chance encounter indeed!

The result is captured in such works as ‘Sun Burst’ digital photograph created in 2019. This work, used on her invitation was taken through the imperfect glass. A brilliant burst of the sun’s last effervescence at dusk is shattered across the image refracting again and again into the wonderful blues of the sky and over the dark Chthonic sienna and sepias of the earth around Iron Cove. It is both a rich yet enigmatic creation abounding in the mystery of beauty.

Page 184 : Sun Burst, digital photograph, Bernadette Smith 2019.

‘

To better understand Smith’s achievement in this exhibition I will single out a short phrase, three words from her artist’s statement: “fleeting microcosmic diffractions” 2. B. Smith. The most important word here is ‘microcosmic, imagine, a cosmic encounter on a micro level captured for us to wonder at, a gift by the artist and the sun for us.

Yet it is also fleeting you will not encounter such an image again as it is unrepeatable. The moment of its creation is just that, a moment of ‘now’ caught in infinity while the image lasts. Before or after would not, could not be this moment only this. No wonder it is cosmic how could it be anything other for as the viewer of this wonder, you have just known time at its most precious as it is your mortal time that is used in this encounter with the momentary infinite. The works vary even as frozen on the metal that is their base. Works such as ‘Equinox’ a 76cm diameter circle of fiery yellow diffractions and flexed turquoise blues marching as waves across the surface, a dancing surf reflecting like the early morning sun on a morning’s ocean break. It is worth reflecting that light, like the pulse of the sea encountered as waves also moves as waves through space. Over immense distances from suns as stars as well as our own star as the sun.

‘Solstice’ this time a square form also reflects these waves though in dark golds and beautiful blue/greys of the very late sun setting. The line turned waves of the glass here are much closer together, not as rough, more regimented one of the multiple variants presented to us in this exhibition and a reminder of the skills of the glass makers, workers in the 1900’s whose results are celebrated in light.

Diffractions in Glass’ is a ten-minute video looped projection of animated still photographs. Ostensibly it shows the sun’s daily light show captured within the windowpane, but it does much more. The projections bring Apollo’s fiery golden chariot into the gallery spreading the god’s incandescence across around and through us. All of this captured with an extreme close-up macro lens between the shattering stamp of great stallion hooves.

As I observe these and other works in this exhibition it is brought home to me just how powerful yet delicate has been Smith’s hand. In these works, and through them Smith explores that ‘momentary infinite’ in outstanding ways. We are privileged to encounter such radiance on the walls of Ironbark gallery and be reminded of just what it is that the arts and artists gift to us.

Dr. Mark Elliot-Ranken © 2022.

Equinox, a 76cm diameter circle, digital photograph, Bernadette Smith.

Solstice, archival Ilford Pearl photograph, 89 x 61 cm, Bernadette Smith 2018.

EDMOND THOMMEN

Edmond Thommen lives and works in Sydney, Australia. He is a photographic artist who specialises in blending nudes. Photographic art has always been more than the image; it is a blending of a visual moment with the movement of the soul, the conveyance of emotion and the gentle awakening of the intent of the artist.

Edmond’s art encourages us to look; and, if we look properly, ‘to See.’ He asks us, his art demands, that we delve beyond the surface, the obvious, and urges us to interpret for ourselves.

For his own part, he delights in the interpretations of others! They add to the body of his work giving it even greater meaning, more depth. The titles to his creations are an insight into his interpretation, to his intent; but they are a starting point, not the final definition. His art inspires contemplation and conversation. Appreciation of its complexity grows with continued engagement. Even pieces that appear less layered or more ‘obvious’ are deceptive, they pull one in and seduce us into a conversation with the art, a narrative of sorts; demanding contemplation while coyly avoiding definition. - M.A. Meier

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