Obsessed by pictorial tradition and conventional landscape paintings – a good picture – I’ve usually sourced my compositions from found images and art history. However the point of departure for these new paintings are real landscapes – seascapes, panoramic views, coastal plants: unspoiled nature around Australia. I’ve sought to harness the beauty of nature with the joys and potential of paint. In the studio my brush swarms over the pictures, creating trees, bushy leaves, rolling hills, bursts of sea and open sky. Plants pulse across the landscape in a collision of the abstract and the real.
There is much to be gleaned from the surface of things. I want the viewer to be free to behold these works without a didactic framework or explanation. May the paintings be liberated from a logical theme or meaning so bombarded imaginations and perceptions can wander.
Sally Ross Feb 22
