Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Presence:

Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

Ros Auld & Claire Primrose. Terrain. 2016. Stoneware. 39x40x12cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Presence: Two visions of landscape.

It is an undeniable truism that the Australian landscape has informed our artists for millennia and continues to do so across media, styles and artistic languages. The interpretation of the land in all its varieties and contradictions is fertile soil for the creative imagination. The variations and varieties of landscape and the layered meanings associated with these have resulted in a concomitant diversity of expressions. This speaks not only of personal associations with place and the celebration of individual responses to visited topographies but also of the role of the artist in filling in the spatial, temporal, cultural and aesthetic tensions that exist between place and culture. For artists the land becomes something felt, a phenomenon that imprints itself onto the artistic imagination. This inner landscape of the imagination has been expressed through millennia in an Australian context. Its ongoing validity as past, present and future asserts the importance of land (nature) and landscape (culture) in the determination of notions of identity. Claire Primrose and Ros Auld are very much part of the continuum of landscape art and its importance in the multifaceted creative phenomenon that is contemporary art in Australia.

Claire Primrose is primarily a painter but a painter not afraid to simultaneously explore the painterly aspects of printmaking and the graphic qualities of painting. Process is her primary thrust and the activity of making informs all aspects of her art. That said it should be noted that thematically her making is drawn almost invariably to the landscape. The apposite elision of process and theme is consummately achieved in all her work.

While working with the motif Primrose is not concerned with the factual rendition of the various topographies she visits.

Rather for her the continuing impact of place on her creative imagination is what is important. Her works are made in a studio in the industrial area of Queanbeyan near Canberra, far removed from the sources that have excited her imaginative sensibilities.

They are the result of felt experiences that have stayed with her, that have become active ingredients in her (very) living memory.

Her paintings (and I will refer to all works discussed as paintings) are compilations of the visual data of place, her memory of the physical topographies of place and her experience (physical, emotional, intellectual and aesthetic) of place. Her paintings are poetic paeans to the complex amalgam that is the individual’s confrontation with the land. Primrose is conscious of the space between reality and the experience of reality and her constant search for the right means to express that complex yet seductive tension gives creative and aesthetic energy to her art.

Much of the work in Presence: Two Visions of Landscape uses as its starting-point the artist’s visits with her family to the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales. The mountainous topographies are redolent with 18th‑century notions of the Sublime that saw some of the great works of English Romanticism. I am thinking particularly of J.M.W. Turner but there are many other examples from this particularly rich period in English art. The influence of the Romantic Sublime generally on Australian landscape in the 19th-century was significant. Arguably Sublime expression remains part of the postmodern condition and is seen in a variety of visual modes in contemporary Western art. Primrose’s take on the Sublime is very much a temporal vision and of its time. More to come (2016) is a powerful work. The viewer looks down onto a series of snow-capped summits,

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld & Claire Primrose. Tidelines. 2017. Mixed media on linen. 120x120cm (fr.)

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

their jagged forms pushing into the pictorial space. The horizontal layering from the front of the picture plane concurrently creates deep spatial recession criss-crossed by bands of lateral movement. Movement is central to this work’s pictorial success.

The insertion of ribbons of colour (variously green, yellow, grey) continuously move the eye through the work, simultaneously delineating the forms of the mountains and pushing the space further back into the picture plane. Contrasting tonal areas combined with the vivid ribbons of colour and the white of the snow provide a solid visual foil to the atmospheric lightness of the barely delineated sky. The contiguous use of various spatial movements imparts a marvellous aesthetic tension that expresses the monumentality of the motif and the power of the confrontation of place within the artist’s memory.

The perfect thaw (2016) is another majestic mountain view. Primrose again exploits a wonderfully composed counter-balanced contrast of solids and voids to create an evocative poetic image. It speaks at once of its source in the natural world and its creation in the artist’s imagination. The powerful solidity of the mountains is beautifully described through a dexterous use of wash and graphic lines. These are vigorously applied over the pictorial surface in a manner suggestive of Primrose’s working methods. Vigour here though does not imply lack of control and the artist’s succinct structural means allied with her impressive expressive power results in a strongly resolved aesthetic statement.

Primrose’s graphic skills are eloquently demonstrated in a number of works in the present exhibition. In Later or sooner series: 2 (2016) the panoramic format adopted by the artist is particularly appropriate for her subject-matter. An (unnamed) landscape section delineated in graphite is underscored by the addition of coloured areas of sprayed enamel paint. The surface is active and announces itself as being part of a wider world. It is a microcosm populated with a range of floral and topographical denizens whose identities remain imprinted on the artist’s memory. This work is one from a series, a model favoured by the artist particularly when working on a small scale. In this work as in others the exploitation of the astute combination of solids and voids is clever and attractive. The scale of these works belies their size and is a further indication of the artist’s sophisticated control of her means. Assembled landscape. Monaro Plains (2016) is a seemingly simple composition using the diptych format. Its title points to its means of creation. It is an inner landscape, a vision of the artist’s memory of place(s) visited and remembered; a pictorial realisation of past experiences whose impact gives form to the imaginative mind of the artist.

A series of screen-printed and mixed media paintings from 2017 reveal Primrose’s ability to elide technical skill with expressive and aesthetic power. These images are replete with energy, structural finesse and compositional force. Waiting for snow 5 (2017) exemplifies this. In a beautiful articulation of an essentially earth palette (browns, ochres, terracottas) highlighted by dramatic surges of white, the artist captures the immanent arrival of snow. The spatial configuration is dramatic and sweeps the composition to a sort of visual crescendo configured in the carefully applied areas of white. The drama conveys the exhilarating excitement Primrose has felt when confronted with the mysterious and inexplicable wonder that accompanies her encounters with the beauty of the natural world. That these encounters are filtered through veils of memory before they are visualised imbues them with the intimacy of the personal and the private while simultaneously evoking grandeur and majesty.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld & Claire Primrose. Back Roads. 2016. Stoneware. 30x44x18cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld is a ceramist working from Borenore near Orange in the central west of New South Wales. Like Primrose she is concerned with the landscape but unlike the latter she lives in a rural environment where landscape is a familiar aspect of quotidian life. Its familiarity however does not diminish its importance. Making is for her as it is for Primrose, a vital and essential ingredient of her self and the exploration of the land both immediate and elsewhere is the thematic basis for her creative investigations. Clay is arguably the most immediate medium to express the essence of landscapes. It holds traces of human occupation yet retains unlimited possibilities for individual imaginative expression. Auld’s art holds within it a powerful eloquence that echoes her complete understanding of her chosen medium.

In Presence: Two Visions of Landscape Auld’s preferred format is that of the vessel. As well as holding an intrinsic place in the history of ceramics, the vessel form holds possibilities for multiple interpretations. The enclosed space of the vessel speaks of its role as container but it also allows implies a range of meanings and affinities that the individual artist will educe in her own idiosyncratic formal and visual vocabularies. Auld’s vessels are highly individualised. There are familial consanguinities but each is invested with a unique morphological and pictorial identity that avers its individuality. The vessel offers the artist a perfect metaphor. It is a plastic equivalent of a place or places known to her, remembered and imaginatively re-created by her.

The following discussions adopt no particular order but serve to exemplify Auld’s approach to her art. Leaf litter (2017) is a beautiful piece. Its arc-like form imbues it with a lyrical movement, gentle and restrained but nevertheless insistently present. Like most of her work, it sits on four feet, slightly elevating it from its ground. This device imparts a seductive spatial configuration around the work that is played off against the dark presence of the interior of the vessel. The spatial movement is also constrained by the slight curvature of the left- and right-hand edges. Their inward curve imparts an internalised thrust into the vessel’s contained, internal space and thus provides spatial and aesthetic tension. Auld’s palette is subdued – greys, greens predominate. Decoration is subtle but still sufficiently varied to provide visual and morphological contrasts.

Water formed (2017) is a work that demonstrates Auld’s ability to portray the coexistence of the intimate with the grand. The decoration is beautifully contrived. It not only describes the form but also reinforces that element’s individual strength. The jagged and free-form edges evoke natural topographies without specifying particularities of place. The organic irregularities of these activate the already strong sense of movement that the artist invests in all her pieces.

Auld understands the sculptural possibilities innate in the vessel form. All her work is vehemently sculptural but some more directly so than others. Earth lines (2016) is one of these. The quirkiness of its form speaks of geological change and dramatic movement. It holds within it a strong lateral thrust pushing into the surrounding space while simultaneously asserting its presence and control of that spatial configuration. The demarcation of the decoration into two horizontal bands broken only by the insertion of single graphic lines reinforces the powerful identity of the form. This is a work about primeval forces and its simplicity eloquently expresses this.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld & Claire Primrose. Geomorphic. 2016. Mixed media on linen. 120x120cm (fr.)

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Another work from 2017 is Oribe. It is named after the 16th-century Japanese ceramic ware but clearly references the Australian landscape. It is Auld’s way of celebrating the history of her medium within a contemporary Australian context. The form is compact and sturdy. Sitting on raised feet it carries that wonderfully dynamic use of space that so excites the artist’s forms.

Decoration is lively and while there may be topographical significance its efficacy lies more in its intimatory qualities than in its definitive ones.

Landfall (2016) utilises torn edges and mottled surfaces to create a beautiful encapsulation of geology and imagination. It is again compact and that state concentrates the visual energies that give such a forceful and characterful presence. Aside from the mottled areas the decoration is simple and elegant. Horizontal bands of green and grey-green are played off against a striking vertical column of blue. The sinuous serpentine formation of the horizontals invests an almost musical rhythm into this work that is as always quietly held back by the containing presence of the darkly mysterious interior.

A work whose pictorial qualities play an assertive even dominant role is Turbulence (2016). Auld has made the form defiantly simple; almost a surface for the exhilarating vitality of the decoration. As the title suggests the surface is energised by a wonderfully contained conglomeration of decorative elements. Swirling gestural marks are accompanied by overlaid sets of vertical lines that overshadow other elements in dynamic swathes. The exemplar of (some) prints of the Japanese Ukiyo-e should not be ignored here. While the form may appear secondary it is of course not. The artist commands a finely tuned aesthetic in which no element overtakes but rather each plays a role in delivering the final unified elision of form, decoration and content.

Auld’s work in this exhibition demonstrates a profound understanding of her medium, of sculptural scale and presence, of the way that marks and gestures allude to both personal and universal experience. Hers is a unique language where the coexistence of the grandeur of the landscape and the intimacy of personal engagement with landscape are captured in vessels that resonate with all of us.

This exhibition includes works that are the results of a number of periods of extended artistic collaboration between Auld and Primrose. The individual strengths and differences of each of their mature and highly-developed artistic identities offered challenges and possibilities. This allied to their clear understanding and respect for each other’s practice has resulted in works that speak of both yet proclaim the aesthetic excitement of the elided creations. As exemplified here the paintings – Geomorphic (2016) and Tidelines (2016) – see Auld’s marks two-dimensionalised to reinforce Primrose’s essentially graphic vision. The ceramics – Terrain (2016) and Back Roads (2016) – speak of two voices singing aesthetically in unison.

Peter Haynes Canberra March 2017

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Claire Primrose 10

Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. Recreated Landscape. 2016. Graphite and spray enamel on board. 15x40cm (image).

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Claire Primrose. More To Come. 2016. Mixed media on linen. 120x120cm (fr.)

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. The perfect thaw. 2016. Mixed media on linen. 120x120cm (fr.)

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Claire Primrose. Later or Sooner series: 1. 2016. Graphite and spray enamel on board. 12x40cm (image)

Claire Primrose. Later or Sooner series: 2. 2016. Graphite and spray enamel on board. 12x40cm (image)

Claire Primrose. Later or Sooner series: 7. 2016. Graphite and spray enamel on board. 12x40cm (image)

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. Assembled landscape, Monaro Plains (diptych). 2016. Graphite and ink on board. 15x30cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. Just passing through (diptych). 2016. Graphite and ink on board. 20x40cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Claire Primrose. Waiting for Snow 1. 2017. Screen print with mixed media. 76x102cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. Waiting for Snow 2. 2017. Screen print with mixed media. 76x102cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Claire Primrose. Waiting for Snow 3. 2017. Screen print with mixed media. 76x102cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Claire Primrose. Waiting for Snow 5. 2017. Screen print with mixed media. 76x102cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld

Ros Auld. Leaf Litter. 2017. Stoneware. 25x60x16cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Water Formed. 2017. Stoneware. 36x60x20cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Earth Lines. 2016. Stoneware. 43x84x20cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld. Oribe. 2017. Stoneware. 30x42x15cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Landfall. 2016. Stoneware. 30x44x19cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld. Expanse. 2016. Stoneware. 42x77x30cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Turbulence. 2016. Stoneware. 28x45x18cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld. Botanica. 2017. Stoneware. 40x68x21cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Rock Platform. 2017. Stoneware. 30x49x16cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld. Landprint. 2016. Stoneware. 28x45x17cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld. Energy. 2017. Stoneware. 34x42x15cm.

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Ros Auld. Script. 2017. Stoneware. 23x47x15cm.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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CV

Claire Primrose

Solo exhibitions 2015

Memory Mapping, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan

2014

Memory Mapping, The Art Vault, Mildura

2013

Time Travellers, The Art Vault, Mildura

2012

Then and Now, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan

2000

DIY, Australian Defence Force Academy Library Gallery, Canberra

Group exhibitions

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

2015

…INTRODUCING, Stanley Street Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney Direction Now, a national touring exhibition, Caboolture Gallery Ground Work, Stanley Street Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney

2014

Balancing Act, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan Direction Now, Lismore Regional Gallery; Glasshouse Gallery, Port Macquarie; Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne Exploration 14, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne Capital Arts Patrons’ Organisation (CAPO) exhibition, Canberra Museum and Gallery

2013

After the Fire, Blank Space Gallery, Surrey Hills, Sydney Active Participants, with Kerry McInnis and Robyn Kinsela, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards exhibition CAPO exhibition, Canberra Museum and Gallery

2012

Time Travellers, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan ClimARTe Change, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan CAPO exhibition, M16 Artspace, Griffith, Canberra

2011

Setting the Scene, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan The Three of Us, FORM Studio and Gallery, Queanbeyan Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards exhibition

2010

Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards exhibition

2009

From Little Things Big Things Grow, Q Gallery, Queanbeyan Queanbeyan City Council

2008

ReGeneration, with Maxine Price, Q Gallery, Queanbeyan

2007

Queanbeyan City Council Art Prize

2006

Queanbeyan City Council Art Prize

2001

Canberra Art Prize exhibition

2000

Unhung Heroes, Made in Australia Gallery, Deakin, Canberra Canberra Art Prize exhibition

1996

Multiple Visions, Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery, Canberra Joint Print Project, University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, Photospace, ITA ACT

Awards and prizes 2016

Finalist hunters Hill Art Exhibition Finalist Moreton Bay Art Prize Winner Goulburn Regional Art Award Finalist Paul Guest Drawing Prize Finalist Waverley Art Prize Finalist Flanagan Art Exhibition Award Finalist Paul Guest Drawing Prize Finalist Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (Drawing) Finalist Hornsby Art Prize (Drawing)

2015

Winner, Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards Winner, Capital Chemist Canberra Art Prize Finalist, Whyalla Art Prize, South Australia

2014

Finalist, Norvill Art Prize, New South Wales

2013

Winner, CAPO Eckersley’s Materials Award, Canberra Museum and Gallery Finalist, Moreton Bay Art Prize Finalist, Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize (Drawing and printmaking) Finalist, Goulburn Art Prize

2012

Highly commended, Hawkesbury Art Prize Finalist, Scope Galleries Art Prize – Art Concerning the Environment Finalist, Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize (Contemporary) Finalist, Paddington Art Prize

2010

Highly commended, Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards

2009

Winner, Queanbeyan City Council Regional Art Awards

2000

Short-listed (top 10), Canberra Art Prize

Published reviews and publication features Claire Primrose and Kerry Johns display two distinct approaches to the Australian landscape, review by Peter Haynes, The Canberra Times, May 2015, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/claire-primrose-and-kerry-johns-display-twodistinct-approaches-to-the-australian-landscape-20150520-gh6a4h.html Review of Balancing Act at Queanbeyan’s FORM Studio and Gallery, review by Peter Haynes, The Canberra Times, December 2014, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/review-of-balancing-act-at-queanbeyans-formstudio-and-gallery-20141204-120o5d.html Art with a focus on climate change, review by Helen Musa, City News, June 2012, http://citynews.com.au/2012/art-with-a-focus-on-climate-change/ From Little Things Big Things Grow, review by Kerry-Anne Cousins, The Canberra Times, June 2009 Artist Portfolio Magazine 2013, issue 22, emerging artists

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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CV

Ros Auld

Tertiary Qualifications 1974

Ceramics Certificate, National Art School, Sydney

1969

Bachelor of Art Education, National Art School, Newcastle

Solo Exhibitions 2016

Landmarks, Janet Clayton Gallery, Sydney Tableau, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2014

The Dining Room, Pop Up Gallery, Orange Common Ground, Form Gallery, Queanbeyan

2013

Layers of Landscape, Patina, Orange Unearthed, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2012

Ros Auld Ceramics, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery

2010

Connect, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2009

Space + Place, Koomaloo, Orange

2008

Essentially Landscape, Cudgegong Gallery, Gulgong

2007

Landmarks, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2005

Skin, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2004

The Ceramic Art of Ros Auld, Orange Regional Gallery

2000

Ros Auld Ceramic Sculptures, Luxulyan, Orange

1996

Painterly Ceramics, Orange Regional Gallery and Pentimento, Bathurst

1995

Ros Auld, Ceramic Art Gallery, Sydney

1991

Clay and Paper, Distelfink Gallery, Melbourne

1990

Surface Evolution - a review of 15 years work by Ros Auld, Orange Regional Gallery; Dubbo Regional Gallery

1985

Ros Auld, Distelfink Gallery, Melbourne

Collaborations

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape

2015

Overland, with Tim Winters, Form Gallery, Queanbeyan

2013

Aspect with Ben Hall, Janet Clayton Gallery, Sydney

2008

Layers Marks Tracks, Ros Auld and Gabriella Hegyes, Orange Regional Gallery

2004

Landscapes, Ros Auld and Tim Winters, Blackheath

2000

Collaborative Ceramics with John Olsen, Olsen Gallery, Sydney

1998

Collaborative Ceramics with John Olsen, Olsen Gallery, Sydney

Selected Group Exhibitions 2016

Call+ Response, Orange Regional Gallery

2012

Quiet Connections, Orange Regional Gallery

2012

Sculpture, Wilson Gallery, Sydney

2011

Place, Artsite Gallery, Sydney

2010

Time + Place, Cudgegong Gallery, Gulgong

2009

From the Region, Variations in Clay, Cowra Regional Gallery

2008

Salute, Fusions Gallery, Brisbane

2007

Out of the Blue, Orange Regional Gallery, Bondi Pavilion Beyond Hill End, Cudgegong Gallery, Gulgong

2005

Earthly Encounters, Survey of Regional Ceramics, Orange, Mosman, Bathurst, Bega Prevision, Narek Galleries, Tanja

2001

Alchemy, Orange Regional Gallery

1998

Desert Journey, Orange, Dubbo, Moree and Wollongong Regional Galleries

1996

Sentinel, Potters Society of Australia, Manly Art Gallery

1993

Spirit, Place, Identity, Orange Regional Gallery

1990

Potters Society of Australia, Manly Art Gallery

1990

Distelfink, Melbourne

1988

Newcastle Contemporary Art Gallery

1987

Homage to Bonnard, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney

1986

Saltzbrand, Galerie Handswerkskammer, Koblenz, Germany

Films 2006

Ros Auld – Ceramic Artist, Mullion Creek Productions

1981

Something Creative, Producer Gillian Lahey

Ros Auld and Claire Primrose

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Acknowledgements The artists would like to thank Peter Haynes for his essay and curating our show. Many thanks also to Rob Little and David Patterson for photography, Henry Han for the framing and the staff of the Goulburn and Orange Regional Galleries for hosting the exhibition.

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Presence: Two Visions of Landscape